Laws and Moral Boundaries

Deciding which rules, laws, and moral boundaries to follow and create for your life is a very abstract process. When does any given rule pass a certain criterion that renders it relevant or, conversely, arbitrary? Perhaps it’s a judgment of cause and effect. Take for example the laws you follow on the road: driving laws. If I am on a highway driving at a speed of 90 mph and the speed limit is 60 mph, there is an obvious disparity in hypothetical consequence to, let’s say, drifting over the white line as I am making a sharp turn. Both are breaking the law. What most people assess in these two situations in determining whether these laws are either arbitrary or relevant are two main consequences: what are the legal repercussions and how am I putting others and myself in danger? I think this applies to any rule, law, or moral boundary assessment.

If a person is completely locked into the physical, emotional, and chemical craving state, the individual is hardly going to make an assessment for either element. This person will only seek the rush out of going 90 mph and not consider the legal risk or harm associated with their actions. That person is at one side of the spectrum. Really, this is the only type of person who would break this law in this severe a manner.

However, take the “drifting over the white line” situation. Is this a relevant law, or is it arbitrary? How does an individual assess something like this?

It is critically important to ask oneself, “Why was this law created?”, because if you simply make the first assessment, you are going to be picking and choosing which laws should apply to you and which should not. Understanding what the word “responsible” means, entails realizing that we as individuals are not better than anybody else. It is not our place to judge that our needs are more important than another’s needs. If a law is in place that everybody must follow, then we must, much to our dismay at times, abide by the law. Anyway, back to the question: “Why was this law created?” If the answer assures you that you are very capable of avoiding that answer even if you were to break the law, then the law is arbitrary. To illustrate this point, ask yourself: “Why was “do not drive outside the white line” law created?” The answer is: so as to not harm or destroy anything that lies outside of the white line AND so as to not drive off the road and harm yourself. If you are in an area where cars are parallel parked just outside of the white line, you would not have so much confidence in yourself that if you were to drift outside the white line that you would not harm or destroy anything else or yourself. However, if you are on a highway and taking an sharp turned exit with plenty of shoulder room on either side, then you would have confidence in yourself as to not harm or destroy anything else, obviously because there is nothing there to harm or destroy, AND have relative confidence that you would not drive off the road and harm yourself. However, the latter is relative. We must assume that the individual can properly assess their own ability to avoid any harm.

An even more complicated issue is how to determine moral boundaries. I think what is more of a dilemma in the world of morality is not how to assess something, but what to assess. If people made more moral assessments in their life… well, the world would be much different. Also, another vital point of morality is to analyze on a situation to situation basis. Life is so complicated and so many people want to make blanket moral statements to apply to thousands of situations concerning one related issue. It is impossible to come up with a “recipe” moral doctrine that will provide a sound assessment of all of those thousands of situations. Many old fart law makers want to make laws regarding morality. I usually don’t like to call anything ridiculous, but I find that a little ridiculous. If a moral issue arises in court, I think a separate type of judicial hearing is held where a large randomly selected, unfiltered jury comes to a majority consensus on whether the decision was morally sound or not. I know you have all heard cases where the ruling was solely made on basis of the law and not anything that made any actual moral sense. There will always exist many cries of injustice from idealistic thinkers, no matter how great any society becomes. I think very highly of the incredible structure that has been built by our forefathers, don’t get me wrong. However, I believe that, like the individual, there is always room for improvement.