Quote:
|
The first step in legislating against something is the formation of broad opinion that "there oughta be a law." I'm specifically arguing that there oughtn'ta be one.
|
Okay, so you're basically a hardcore libertarian here - if we can't come up with a clear answer to a difficult problem, we cannot legislate in a way that would prevent any behaviour in that area. That's all well and good, but this is still a moral statement - you're talking about what we ought to do. That's inescapable. Declining to do something is still a decision, and asking whether or not we should decline to do something is still asking a moral question.
I also don't think your position is workable, because there's almost never (I would probably argue that there is never) moral certainty available when presented with the choice as to whether to draft a law or not. There will also usually be corner cases that the law doesn't seem to work perfectly for, or as intended. This is an issue that is
particularly uncertain, but there's always some degree of doubt, and suddenly you're trying to draw a line as to how much doubt there has to be before we throw up our hands and say "there oughtn'ta be a law here".
Quote:
|
No, it's the thing that matters most because it affects everyone, and I'm arguing that is in the right place because it's the only place that doesn't cause or exacerbate a moral debate.
|
Of course it does. "Where should the law draw the line" is an inherently moral debate. Drawing the line at birth cannot eliminate the moral element of the topic, because the question remains as to whether the line
should be drawn there - a moral question.