Posted on 04/15/2019 7:59:55 AM PDT by Great Awakening
It is evident that both law and morality serve to channel our behavior. Law accomplishes this primarily through the threat of sanctions if we disobey legal rules. Morality too involves incentives; bad acts may result in guilt and disapprobation, and goods act in virtuous feelings and praise. These two very different avenues of effect on our actions are examined in this article from an instrumental perspective. The analysis focuses on various social costs associated with law and morality, and on their effectiveness, as determined by the magnitude and likelihood of sanctions and by certain informational factors. After the relative character of law and of morality as means of control of conduct is assessed, consideration is given to their theoretically optimal domains – to where morality alone would appear to be best to control behavior, to where morality and the law would likely be advantageous to employ jointly, and to where solely the law would seem to be desirable to utilize. The observed pattern of use of morality and of law is discussed, and it is tentatively suggested that the observed and the optimal patterns are in rough alignment with one another.
(Excerpt) Read more at papers.ssrn.com ...
The 10 Commandments don’t mention slavery or treating people as equals. Not only that, God’s law changes (see OT vs NT)
You’ll only “never get a consensus” from those who are rejecting God’s law. The writing is plain.
But consensus not to be trusted because it’s always tainted by violation of absolute morality as you described it here:
“Don’t enslave people. Don’t murder people. Don’t treat people as being lower than you. Don’t lie in order to gain or hurt. Don’t cheat.”
God is the only one who is actually in the morality business. Fallen humans are not.
Yet God is not in the morality business. We cannot be “good”. We can only be “bad”.
100%
There is no change between Old and New Testaments.
Look at what happened just before the feel-good 60s: the Space Race was on, and the Mighty State was gung-ho instrumentalist about the "crop" that it was "breeding" for engineering and science. But the very practice of institutionalizing and "breeding" kids was de-Americanizing them. The adults were encouraged to cheer this on and many did. Straightforwardly coercive strong-state dynamics all the way.
The 10 Commandments don’t mention slavery or treating people as equals.
Matthew 22:36-40 New International Version (NIV)
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Footnotes:
- Matthew 22:37 Deut. 6:5
- Matthew 22:39 Lev. 19:18
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
The Twenties had a major societal impact followed forty years later by the Sixties. Forty years after the Sixties, we got 9/ll. I wonder what new direction was killed in that cradle.
This is a path that leads to madness.
It is a world of shadows dancing on the walls of caves and chariots flying across the sky.
Plato and Van Daniken in one post. That’s a first. ;)
What is seen in society now is a catastrophic failure of primary Virtues,
Gratitude, Humility, Prudence, Fortitude, Courage, Justice, Honor
Temperance, Chastity, Charity, Patience, Kindness...
Replaced by the false gods of “Values” and “Money”
In my 1950s, as opposed to yours, we were taught patriotism, and that communism was evil. Living together unwed was termed “shacking up,” hence undesirable. Atheism was not discussed in polite society, being less that alert when under prescribed meditation was somehow shameful, and nuclear war was always in our thoughts.
I disagree totally with your views of that time.
...define “morality.”
Virtuous Thinking
Virtuous Living
A definition of morality - https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/
A definition of mores - https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/mores
I propose that mores, morals, law emanate from experience aka Common Sense.
Even a simple game of marbles, corn-hole, mumbletypeg or rock-paper-scissors cannot be played without rules.
The purpose of morality & law is to facilitate an orderly & peaceful society.
Sadly, these tools can be & often are corrupted for other nefarious purposes, mainly to mislead, defraud or control the unwary.
Eternal vigilance is a common sense concept which has been largely washed away by those who seek to weaken the sovereignty of nations & individuals.
IMHO
I didn’t read it all through, but maybe what the author is trying to get at is morality, which comes from “morals”
1a : of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior : ethical moral judgments
b : expressing or teaching a conception of right behavior a moral poem
c : conforming to a standard of right behavior took a moral position on the issue though it cost him the nomination
d : sanctioned by or operative on one’s conscience or ethical judgment a moral obligation
e : capable of right and wrong action a moral agent
is a “judgments” based on a belief system but it acts through belief & persuasion that that moral judgment is right, whereas “the law” acts through its ability to compel adherence to it by legal force of the government behind it.
Maybe, he is trying to argue which method do we prefer, and that “we” being any certain group of listeners.
As Christians I think that poses a good question. Is it the law (secular law) most of all, or Christian morality that we think it is most important for our behavior to follow, and behavior we want to teach others? And if it is Christian morality as most important, and that it be followed because Christians see it as right, whether the law agrees or not, then how far is it really Christian to seek to get secular law to equal Christian morality? Is it “the law” in secular terms Christians should focus most on “reforming” or is it the choices people willingly make, law or no law?
Is it not His mission that He be followed because He is in our heart, not because we have tried make secular law mirror him?
I think of those questions when I remind myself that Yeshua did not come to reform this world, and held no beief that humans could reform the world, and He did not see the secular powers of this earth (”kingdoms” i.e. power systems) as part of His kingdom. Either the book of revelations is correct about where this world will lead, or it is wrong and we humans can and will reform the world to “Christian” precepts. The two positions seem mutually exclusive.
Which is better, a Libertarian legal position with a Christian morality, or a “Chritian” legal position with a statist morality (”we” will compel you how to behave)?
Just some thoughts I had on the topic.
“What are the underlying causes of our current social problems?”
In a word, AFFLUENZA.
When people’s physical needs are easily met then the next level of ephemeral needs start surfacing such as satisfying urges, even delusional ones like a man wanting to be a woman or a man wanting to marry a man, that at a time when one struggles to feed or house oneself, one would not pay attention to.
In a generous welfare state one has time to indulge in those delusions. More importantly many lose an appreciation for the old set of set values that produced that abundance. In fact they end up despising them because those old values go against his new lifestyle and desires. So they set out to destroy them and replace them with new, untested, unproven ones that eventually lead to the collapse of society and a return to physical suffering and then the old, time proven values once again will reign supreme.
Kipling put this societal cycle in poetic form in his “Gods of the Copybook Headings”
http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_copybook.htm
Absolutely true. You will always have different interpretations, and as we have seen through history, some people are willing to kill over their interpretation.
That’s what makes what the founders did so amazing. For the first time in human history a government was formed that did not have an official religion. In fact, it states explicitly in the constitution that there will be no religious test for public office.
Though of course most of the founding fathers were some denomination of Christianity.
The Ten Commandments also says you should have no other gods before me. Yet our constitution states we have the freedom to choose any god or no god. So I would say that is a clear example of a morality being different than the law.
Years ago when I was a criminal justice major I was taught that laws can be broken into three main categories; laws against the person (murder, assault), crimes against property(bank robbery, embezzlement etc) and laws against morals (gambling, prostitution, drugs). I mostly agree with that delineation.
In fact, he’s exactly right.
The 60’s didn’t come out of nowhere. It was planned very carefully and deliberately. Americans were in fact being set up for years prior to that decade.
Key thought processes in the American mind were targeted for change through brainwashing. These included how people thought of government, and how they thought of America. And of course, how they thought of God.
The brainwashed masses didn’t notice any of it as it was happening.
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