(July 8, 2024 at 12:09 pm)Lucian Wrote: I know you are taking a break from debating, but a question that I am just interested in your answer, not going to debate it
Do you think it would be possible for a society to function if all laws were thought to be mere social contracts where the government is given power to enforce them to make the country function well. This would be as opposed to believing the laws are based on objective morality? Firmly in the realm of thought experiment as I don’t think it could happen that the majority of people came to that decision. Not even sure there is a sensible answer to the question, but interested anyway
Why stop there - I think it's possible for a society to function with a legal system void of any moral content.
So, right off the bat..no government is premised on any objective moral content because there isn't any to be had - not my opinion..but a valid one. Is there some particular reason, then, to climb down the metaethical ladder to relativist moral content? What the people want may not be what's good for them, slavery comes to mind. Okay, how about subjectivism? Kings tried that. Didn't end well. Good and well, here, referring only to outcomes - not normative content. To the utilitarian benefit in the context of the social construct.
You could play with these variables. If slavery or monarchy actually went well, for example, there would be a utilitarian argument for them even if the perpetrators themselves saw a moral argument against. We saw this play out in history over the periods in question - the kings labor...the white mans burden... etc. This is the kind of granularity splitting morality and legality provides. It's not novel in the content of laws or the establishment of governments.
I think it looks otherwise because such governments have a vested interest in making moral appeals regardless of whether or not such appeals are genuine in order to keep the mob from killing them.
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