Why Morality Matters

e-mail | February 2004 | Steven C. Bonta, Ph.D.

[stylin_geek]

history bump.

[KDD]

"The Athenians under their short-lived republic managed to grasp the principle of the need for public and private restraint; government must be restrained by man-made laws, and citizens first and foremost by “unwritten laws which it is a shame to break,” that is, by the laws of God.'

Rights Without Right

Wherever the exercise of self-restraint begins, it has the inestimable value of forcing the recognition that we live within an order of limits. Our rights are not a poisonous brew destined to subvert any sense of difference between good and evil. We may not be able to define to our satisfaction where the line is to be drawn. But we can discern clearly its outer limits. The unambiguous recognition of such boundaries is an indispensable element in preserving the awareness of a moral order beyond our construction. Without that awareness we would eventually cease to regard respect for an order of mutual rights as itself something right.

An order of rights without right is simply that. Only if we recognize this do we have any chance of retaining contact with an order of right beyond rights. What we have a right to do may not in fact be right to do. The difference is crucial and it must be embedded in the law itself, because only then can we prevent the collapse of the morally right into the legally right.

Acknowledging the limits of the law is indispensable to preserving the recognition of a moral order beyond it. Conversely, relieving legality of the burden of moral rightness is also indispensable to its preservation. The legal and the moral must remain distinct if they are to perform their roles of supporting and facilitating one another

"The inescapability of an order of good and evil, which is not ours to command but by which we will eventually be measured, is a steady pressure on our individual consciences, and it is made manifest by the elaborateness of attempts to deny it."

[EdReform]

Bump

[nofatum]

There is a devil, there is no doubt...but is he trying to get in us or trying to get out?

[AlienCrossfirePlayer]

Recommended reading -- Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life by Sissela Bok © 1978, 1989, & 1999

[LiteKeeper]

read later!!

[little jeremiah]

Great article. I never heard of the author before, but I love him. He really gets it, 100%.

I just have to repeat these statements:

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there is without.

It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

And:


"Lastly, I hope that each of us makes a regular business of praying to God according to our separate customs, to the effect that He will give us the strength to persevere, and that He will change the hearts and minds of the people in this still-great land to hanker once again after the liberty and the moral rectitude of our forefathers. With God’s help, it is not too late to save our beloved republic."

[hedgetrimmer]

Bump for later.

[Tax-chick]

later

[Salvation]

Morality DOES matter!

[happygrl]

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites. "
Edmund Burke

We have given over our Republic to a Cabal of Tyrannic Judges who make rulings for vice and evil despite the protestations of the people.

[Van Jenerette]

...for class.

[CGVet58]

Excellent piece. Worthy of reading every day in the quiet of the morning before starting one's duties.

J

[Siobhan]

Brilliant, Coleus. Brilliant.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Coleus]

Thanks, I'll check it out.

[Boxsford]

later read

[bazbo]

Thanks!!! BTTT