On Enforcing Morality

Should government enforce personal morality? Should we invoke the might of the state to make people better? Many liberals and libertarians would shout “No!” and cite the Constitution or other rights-based argument to end the discussion.

Not here. At Holistic Politics we consider all political values. Liberty does not trump morality. Morality is important. Very important.

Pornography and promiscuity can be fun, but bastard children and broken homes are most definitely not. If jailing Hugh Hefner and patrolling the Internet for naughty pictures would keep families together, then let’s go for it.
While responsible recreational drug use is a victimless crime, drug abuse is not. And the victims include more than the abusers.
That first cigarette or crack pipe may be a free choice rational decision. Subsequent doses are another story.
Government must initiate force to carry out its job. Ditto for private criminals. When government action cost effectively reduces private crime, we have a net reduction in force initiation. Libertarian values call for government under these circumstances.
Broken homes, bastard children, adulterous trysts and excess inebriation can lead to private crime.
Abortion is murder, or something suspiciously similar. If cracking down on sexual shenanigans cuts down on abortion, then we just might have a net reduction in force initiation.

So, ceteris paribus, government should most definitely be in the business of enforcing morality.

But ceteris paribus is Latin mumbo-jumbo for “I don’t give a hoot about the consequences of my actions,” or definition 2: “I don’t have a clue about economics or political science.” Here at Holistic Politics we do care about consequences and most definitely have a clue about economics. Liberty may not trump morality, but it does trump futile symbolic gestures. The real question is: Can government enforce morality?

And the glib answer is: No. Drug use proceeds apace despite the War on Drugs. We even have illegal drug use in prisons! Adultery predates legal porn and R rated movies. They even have adultery in societies where they put bags on women’s heads and burn women who lose their virginity before marriage. But this is still the wrong question.

A better question is: How much can government enforce morality? This gets us out of binary thinking and into linear thinking. The government can take actions which reduce fornication, broken homes, drug abuse, etc. While current Drug War efforts do little to dissuade the determined drug user, they do prevent some law abiding types for experimenting with left-handed cigarettes. But is it worth the effort? The question is still wrong.

We get into the realm of holistic thinking when we ask: What is the cost for a marginal improvement in morals? Now, we can weigh liberty vs. morality. Burqas and burnings do reduce monkey business, but at quite a cost to liberty. Even the Focus on the Family folks wouldn’t go that far. Most Republican radicals I know take the feminist side of this issue, and even advocate war to foster liberal democracies in the Middle East in order to end such oppression. So a holistic approach to enforcing morality would be to use economics and actual data to determine the effectiveness of government actions and expose the full costs and then let each weigh the costs vs. benefits according to her values. But even this is a bit humdrum for my tastes.

The best question is: What are our best options for enforcing morality? Let us look at all our options, including those not now in use, and study them for effectiveness and cost. This question activates the creative centers of the brain, and leads us to answers which improve morals while restoring lost liberties.

A Manual for a More Moral Society

When I wrote the original version of this book back in 2004 I was still trying to build a broader libertarian coalition and so I focused on the limitations of morals enforcement, to convince conservatives to be more liberty minded. You will find writings along these lines in the older articles until I finish with the 2010 update.

Today (2010) I am upgrading this book to focus on the values of conservative moralists. Any improvements in liberty get to be fortuitous side effects. I am trying to make Holistic Politics more holistic, plus I am getting older and now have a family. Nothing like age, a mortgage and a young daughter to make one more conservative. So I am turning this book into a manual to make America more moral.

I shall still decry unenforceable laws which rob liberty with little moral benefit. I still love liberty, but more to the point, such laws undermine the rule of law. Crime is a form of immorality. I shall still point out where morals enforcement is difficult or impossible, but I will put a much greater emphasis on workarounds. For example, drug trading between adults is operatively a victimless crime, but drug abuse is not. We can make use of this fact and make finally make some real progress against drug abuse.

I shall also throw in a wealth of creative solutions which could indirectly improve public morals. There will be out of the box ideas on how to cut the divorce rate, reduce fornication, and maybe even make some real progress against abortion.

It will take me a while to get all these updated and new articles posted, so stay tuned. I’ll post update notices on the blog so you can get a notice by subscribing to my feed. And if you care to comment on this article, you can do so here.

Next: The Cost of Morality Enforcement

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