I don't believe I can conclude on my own whether society benefits from the existence of laws, nor can I say that any one law benefits society
I believe that I can conclude on my own that a law making homosexuality punishable by death does not benefit society.
(for a side note into an interesting debate - what would you be saying to me if my answer to your question was - yes; breaking of the law should be reported?)
I'd be pointing out that it's the equivalent of saying "it's wrong to lie, even if that means the Gestapo would find out about the Jews in your basement" or "you should always keep your promise, even if you promised to kill your firstborn"--it's an extreme position that is great at signalling commitment to a position because you''ll probably never have to make good on it. If you alieved that breaking of the law should be reported, even if the law says that homosexuality is punishable by death, then you're just a human Clippy and need to be treated accordingly.
I believe that I can conclude on my own that a law making homosexuality punishable by death does not benefit society.
Really, can I see your argument?
[CW: This post talks about personal experience of moral dilemmas. I can see how some people might be distressed by thinking about this.]
Have you ever had to decide between pushing a fat person onto some train tracks or letting five other people get hit by a train? Maybe you have a more exciting commute than I do, but for me it's just never come up.
In spite of this, I'm unusually prepared for a trolley problem, in a way I'm not prepared for, say, being offered a high-paying job at an unquantifiably-evil company. Similarly, if a friend asked me to lie to another friend about something important to them, I probably wouldn't carry out a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis. It seems that I'm happy to adopt consequentialist policy, but when it comes to personal quandaries where I have to decide for myself, I start asking myself about what sort of person this decision makes me. What's more, I'm not sure this is necessarily a bad heuristic in a social context.
It's also noteworthy (to me, at least) that I rarely experience moral dilemmas. They just don't happen all that often. I like to think I have a reasonably coherent moral framework, but do I really need one? Do I just lead a very morally-inert life? Or have abstruse thought experiments in moral philosophy equipped me with broader principles under which would-be moral dilemmas are resolved before they reach my conscious deliberation?
To make sure I'm not giving too much weight to my own experiences, I thought I'd put a few questions to a wider audience:
- What kind of moral dilemmas do you actually encounter?
- Do you have any thoughts on how much moral judgement you have to exercise in your daily life? Do you think this is a typical amount?
- Do you have any examples of pedestrian moral dilemmas to which you've applied abstract moral reasoning? How did that work out?
- Do you have any examples of personal moral dilemmas on a Trolley Problem scale that nonetheless happened?
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