Morality Legislation Essay, Research Paper

Can we, do we, and should we legislate morality is a question that rings in the

ears of many Americans. It seems that there are more factors, conditions and

answers to this frequently asked question than the common person is willing to

consider. Let?s attempt to take the best ideas from the top scholars on the

issue. In order to answer the questions presented, one must fully understand the

idea of morality and what it means to legislate it. What is morality? According

to Webster, morality is ?A doctrine or system of moral conduct: or particular

moral principles or rules of conduct: or conformity to ideals of human

conduct.? This definition leaves much to be answered, such as: Who sets up

this system? Is it relative to ones personal preferences? And can morality be

forced on an individual? To further understand morality let us discuss it in

more detail. Is morality relative? What laws would be considered laws of

morality? Can a democratic country consider morality while writing laws? To deal

with the question of relativism we will turn to the writings of Dr. Stephen

Schwarz, who is a medical doctor and a writer for Ohio Life, a non-profit

pro-life organization. While responding to the idea that people should not

impose their morality on others Dr, Schwarz replied, ?The morality of not

raping, and of not murdering a fellow human being is not ?my morality? or

?our morality? but morality itself.? This implies that there is an

absolute morality, maybe we are not capable of achieving it, but it seems that

the gray area between white and black is not as large as most would hope. Now on

to the next question of: What exactly constitutes morality? We have already

discussed that morality is not relative and at some point becomes absolute. C.S.

Lewis gives an in-depth analyzes of morality in his book ?Mere Christianity?

he talks about morality being the deciding factor between the instinct to help

or the instinct to run. He also discusses the idea that morality is not relative

and brings up the fact that we judge other cultures by how we rate their level

of morality. For instance if morality is relative then no one could have told

the Nazi?s that they were wrong. So in this way the government has already set

a precedent that morality is not relative, they have chosen to judge other

countries and in doing this they imply that their morality is better. First, let

us try to further our understanding of the issue by reviewing what Eastern

College students and faculty had to say about it. A survey of 50 students and

faculty conducted on campus showed that 52% of those polled thought that

morality could not be affectedly legislated, while 48% said that morality could

be legislated. The make up of this survey was as follows: average age 19.8, 70%

female: 30% male, 72% white: 20% African American: 3% Hispanic: 5% not reported.

40% of those polled were Republicans while only 16% were Democrats, a huge 36%

of students were undecided on a political affiliation and 8% were independents.

Most of those polled said the thought Congress tried to legislate morality but

failed. The survey showed that on a scale of 1-10 Congress only received a 4.1

when asked to rate the morality of Congress. This would seem to explain why they

thought Congress passed immoral bills. But in fact if one looks at the history

of the Congress and takes into consideration how many bills are passed by them,

very few could be labeled as immoral. In fact what most people see as the

government passing immoral laws is the Supreme Court finding moral laws

unconstitutional. Most people group the three branches of government together

and say that the government is immoral. However, we are focusing only on

Congress and if it is possible to legislate morality. In our democratic

representative government Congress has often been called on to make laws that

can only be seen legislation of morality. The first question at hand is: Can

Congress legislate morality? Most experts in the field of law and politics agree

that it is possible to pass bills to make people moral or at least force them to

act in a moral way. In other words it is possible to legislate morality.

However, one must concede that no one is absolutely moral, that is no one is

always moral. As Dr. Bird, a Eastern College professor with a career in The

Christian Medical Society, said in an interview on this topic of morality I can

make you moral on a individual basis. [How] No smoking in public places, now I

can not make you abide by that, you can refuse to show up or you can choose you

show up and smoke and pay the penalty. But sooner or later if it?s a place you

want you be, you want to see the Fliers games [?] yea the occasional oaf will

light up but in general you have high compliance and if someone lights up next

to me I am going to get an usher. So you can choose to take your season tickets

elsewhere or you can comply. So your individual choices are limited and I will

force you to be moral almost, not totally, not absolutely, but it is in your

best behavior to behave morally on some of these issues. Dr. Bird clearly

explains how it is possible to legislate action by setting consequences.

However, he also says absolute morality can not be legislated. Len Munsil is an

attorney and the president of The Center for Arizona Policy. He also claims that

all laws are an attempt to legislate morality. His argument is that laws are by

definition a rule of conduct, while a rule sets a standard or separates right

and wrong, and standards or codes of conduct are referred to as morality. (Munsil)

By this explanation every law is a rule of morality. Moving on, lets answer our

second question. Do we legislate morality? In the past fifty years the

Government has become very cautious when dealing with religion and morality. It

has abused the establishment clause, which says that the Government will not

establish a state church or publicly endorse any church in any way. This clause

has been used to remove prayer from schools; it has led to the removal of The

Ten Commandments from the walls of our courtrooms. Christians have not stood by

and watched their rights stripped away but it seems their hands are tied. Wayne

House discuses this issue in an article he wrote for a political journal. He

said The attempt of religious citizens, particularly the majority religion,

Christianity, to make an impact of the political and legal process has fallen on

hard times in recent years under a theory that the law should reflect no

religious view since this would violate the Establishment Clause. The fact that

this might be an expression of the free exercise of religion carries little

weight, for in the jurisprudence of the court, the Establishment clause, which

is absolute, always trump the free exercise clause which is more narrow as to

conduct, though not belief. The reason the government has taken the stance that

its impossible to legislate morality is simple. It makes their job easier to say

we can not legislate morality rather than to try to legislate it and to deal

with any consequences that might arise from their decision. Because we know that

all laws are a form of morality we know that Congress does legislate some degree

of morality. Now on to our last problem: What happens when the morality that?s

legislated is not moral? Should Congress legislate morality? I mentioned the

consequences that might arise from the legislation of morality. These need to be

taken into account before deciding on weather or not we should go out of our way

to develop some kind of moral code through law. We must take into account that

to some extent morality changes, for instance, two hundred years ago it was

acceptable to write a law that said women could not vote and that blacks were

animals. We have a different morality today and now know that our past morality

was wrong. So how do we stop this from happening again? Do our past mistakes

merit removing morality from making future laws. No, as a developing nation we

must learn from these mistakes and continue to grow. We need to use our ability

to make laws to give the people of this country a moral code to live by. The

idea is simple: all legislation is a legislation of some kind of morality. To

what extent is not always easy to determine. However, to say that we can not

legislate morality is just another quick fix phrase to make ourselves feel

better about our declining society. The truth is we can legislate morality but

it is not always effective and sometimes we legislate the wrong morality. The

society must be prepared for these minor setbacks. We must determine who will

develop the moral code of conduct. As it stands now we can not look to the

government for moral support because they feel that they have no role in

morality. So it is now necessary to choose what moral code you want to live by

and use self discipline to follow it.