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Monday, July 14, 2008
Lemieux: The Illusion of Moral Neutrality
In this week's column, Pierre Lemieux tackles a subject of great personal interest to me: the notion that, ideally, the state ought to practice "moral neutrality."
Lemieux's claim is that, despite the claims of politicians to the contrary, the state cannot and should not practice moral neutrality. Whenever the state makes policy (say, by forbidding the use of certain drugs), it is imposing a moral vision on the rest of us. In addition, Lemieux argues that the "nationalization of morality" has actually resulted in the crowding out of superior private moral norms. By imposing its morality on us, the state is making some of us more depraved than we otherwise might have been.
You've undoubtedly come across the idea of moral neutrality before. Any time someone says, "You can't legislate morality," they're making the claim that the state shouldn't be in the business of imposing a moral vision on its citizens. This might just be a descriptive claim, akin to Thoreau's admittedly disputable statement that "Law never made men a whit more just." That is, we shouldn't try to legislate morality because we can't legislate morality.
But I think when liberals make this claim, they mean something slightly more embarrassing: that it's morally wrong for the state not to be morally neutral. In fact, as Lemieux would point out, this claim is doubly embarrassing, because the state legislates morality all the time (when it subsidies some consensual activities between adults and discourages other, equally consensual activities, for example.)
Second, it's embarrassing because the claim appears contradictory (I say "appears", because non-neutral arguments can be given in favor of adopting a limited moral neutrality insofar as legislation is concerned.) Why shouldn't a politician impose his vision of what humans ought to do or be on the rest of us? Because it would be unjust for him to do so. But why would it be unjust? Because imposing a moral vision on citizens through the law is inconsistent with a particular view of humans as autonomous beings, one we've inherited from such thinkers as John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant.
But Mill's moral vision of the importance of autonomy is just that -- a moral vision, one that we should reject if there are sufficient arguments against it. But if there are no such arguments, then moral neutrality is a sham, because we would still be imposing what we believe is in fact the best moral vision on society. And if there are good arguments against liberal values like autonomy, and we reject the liberal vision, then we will do so in favor of some other, better morality. Either way, we will not and should not be engaged in the practice of moral neutrality.
Click below for excerpts, or here to read the column.
"So, we are living under a morally neutral state? Try telling this to individuals who are denormalized because they smoke tobacco or are jailed because they consume drugs or provide them to consumers, who have their children seized by the state because they don’t teach them state-approved morals."
"Morality is important in social life because it helps coordinate individual actions. The most successful moral rules develop spontaneously when they are not crowed-out by state morality. In this crowding-out lies the tragedy of galloping state intervention during the 20th century. A lesson must be drawn from the fact that private morality has varied inversely with the power of the state and its imposed morality."
Posted by Terrence Watson on July 14, 2008 | Permalink
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Comments
My hat goes off to Pierre for his insight and ability to put into words so clearly what many of us think without being able to articulate it so well.
It should be evident that moral neutrality does not exist and for certain things like murder, theft and rape nor should it. Furthermore state imposed "morality" as we have is much worse than a religious morality which invites us and encourages us to be better human beings but without the power of the state.
Posted by: Alain | 2008-07-14 11:37:46 AM
Late Pierre comes, but still he comes. And he's being disingenuous, as he goes on to write:
"The solution is to minimize the moral content of public policy and require that the state avoid taking sides between its citizens, except in matters of murder and other violent crimes."
What galling doublethink to insert a phrase like that in an article entitled: "The Illusion of Moral Neutrality". Moral neutrality is *precisely* what he is proposing.
Even murder is a grey area. Take Toronto: 80 murders a year, roughly, which is remarkably low considering how many dirtbags live there. If one gangbanger screws another for fifty large in a drug deal - a kind of scenario that has to happen every day in Toronto - I have no problem with ganbanger A murdering gangbanger B and neither do many Canadians.
Rape is a grey area too: most Canadian approve of rape as long as the vicitim is a white male in prison. Even the Toronto Star cartoonists find rape funny, as long as its guys like Conrad Black getting raped. No prominent Canadian has ever gone on record as being strongly opposed to prison rape; indeed, it is a punchline in our society.
Cameron's remarks were splendid and Lemieux's criticisms of them as wishy-washy don't resonate at all, considering the source.
Fundamentally, Lemieux is wrong in believing that the name of the game is maximizing freedom. It is, as another commentor noted, about finding the perfect balance of freedom and order, yin and yang. To the extent western civilization has cleaved more to freedom recently with respect to social policy, it has done so with disastrous results that have doomed it.
Posted by: Mocker | 2008-07-14 1:17:28 PM
Alain, couldn't agree more. Morality will be expressed one way or the other. I find it interesting to hear some politicians claim that religion has no place in politics then turn around and want to impose a different morality.
I wonder if the perfect balance that some seek between fredom and order is like saying I should try to balance my good habits with some bad habits. I am better off seeking to eliminate my bad habits entirely.
Posted by: TM | 2008-07-14 4:35:08 PM
"To the extent western civilisation has cleaved more to freedom recently with respect to social policy, it has done so with disastrous results that have doomed it" says Mocker
Please provide us with examples, especially since social policy and freedom do not sleep in the same bed.
Posted by: Alain | 2008-07-14 5:36:13 PM
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