First Principles

A friend of mine and I were recently discussing the role of government in acting morally, or rather, its role in a moral society.  The area of contention was whether there was a moral imperative for a government to provide for the needy, and if that was a “legislation of morality.”

My belief is that if the government forces one to be charitable (i.e. wealth re-distribution via taxes), then such “charity” has nothing to do with morality.  Therefore, unless there is some other reason for a social program than government forcing its citizens to act out the dictates of Jesus (or anyone else), then such legislation is as illegitimate as the government forcing citizens to pray to Allah 5 times daily at the point of a gun.

What then, my friend asked, is the difference between a social safety net and outlawing homicide?  Isn’t that also a legislation of morality?  Isn’t murder only a crime because we believe it’s immoral?  If legislating immorality is illegitimate, are murder statutes illegitimate?

But this is a false discrepancy.  The key is the protection of each member of society’s individual rights – the legitimate role of government – as opposed to forcing a person to live a “moral” life – an illegitimate role.

I believe, as did our founding fathers, that our fundamental rights are inherent.  We are born with the right to own property, pursue a relationship with whatever deity we prefer, to associate with people of our choosing – to be free, in other words.

With that freedom, of course, comes the assumption of responsibility.  That means we can choose to buy a piece of property, but if we buy more than we can afford on credit, we may have to suffer the consequences of having the land repossessed by the financial backer.  We may speak our minds, but must bear the ridicule and derision if we say something offensive, silly, or incorrect.  We can publish a newspaper, but we must supply our own printing press.  We have the freedom to manage our finances as we see fit, but if bad choices impoverish us, then we cannot claim to be “owed” a fresh infusion of money taken away from someone who handled it more effectively.

And at the root of all of these freedoms, of course, is the right to be alive to exercise them.

Government must create a safe space in which we are able to exercise these freedoms as equally as any other person in society.  Where our liberty must be curtailed, it must only be done to the extent that the “out-of-bounds” exercise of liberty would limit someone else’s freedom without their consent.  I cannot be free to maim someone, for then he is limited by his injury in his ability to fully enjoy and exercise his own rights.  I cannot steal, because then I deny a person the fruits of his own labor. I cannot be free to kill someone, because then he is denied all of his liberties altogether.

Laws like this are “moral” only to the extent that they recognize and protect (not grant) the inherent and equal freedom that we are all born with.  They do not make us more moral in and of themselves, for there can be no true morality in compelled behavior.  I am not a moral person if my only reason for not killing someone is the fear of going to jail.  Society is not a moral one if no one helps their neighbor unless the State requires it.

A governmental wealth redistribution program done for no other purpose than that a majority of voters think it’s “a moral thing to do,” on the other hand, does not serve this rights-protecting function.  Instead, it punishes those who have made good choices on their own, and rewards those who have made poor choices.  It treats certain individuals as somehow inherently more (or less) “deserving” than other individuals.  It presupposes that entire classes of people are flatly unable to succeed on their own, and that others cannot fail – all due solely to accidents of birth.

The irony is that even if you are inclined to be charitable on your own because you think doing so is a moral imperative, having the government take your money by force and give it to someone less fortunate removes whatever claim you might have to being a moral, charitable person as a result of your “donation.”  In fact, as the history of socialism in the world has shown us, a reliance on the government to be the purveyor of charity whether the donors choose to be charitable or not is deeply immoral, if we measure morality by social mobility and the number of people in breadlines.

Does that mean, then, that all state sponsored welfare programs are illegitimate forms of governmental action?  An extreme libertarian might take that view, though I personally stop short of it.  But what I can say with certainty is that while welfare programs might or might not be good policy, they cannot be moral policies in any reasonable sense of the word.

The question should be to what extent a government welfare program is necessary to protect the rights of every individual in society– not whether government has some “moral” obligation to put hundreds of thousands on the welfare rolls.  If it can be demonstrated that welfare protects the rights of all other individuals by, say, substantially decreasing the crime rate in an area, or that it is necessary to prevent a meltdown of a financial institution like a shared currency that everyone in society relies upon, then such governmental action makes sense and certainly falls within the bounds of a legitimate action by a free society.

Instructive is the case of protecting the rights and liberties of those unable to do so for themselves, such as children.  We recognize that children cannot protect themselves or their liberties, just as they cannot exercise them reliably yet.  That’s why we can and should have child labor laws, and also why we don’t and shouldn’t let them vote.  But when applied to adults, this logic makes clear that those who insist that government must “stick up for the little guy” as a moral imperative also necessarily see “little guys” as mere children who can’t be trusted to manage their own affairs.

Of course, my entire thesis relies on a matter of faith – that we are all born with certain inalienable rights, that those rights come from a higher power than any government can legitimately usurp, and that those rights are to be treasured as sacred.  But if you don’t believe in those basic precepts, then it’s hard to see how you could think murder itself is immoral.  Or eugenics.  Or despotism, as long as it’s efficient.  Or anything at all, really.

“Morality in legislation” is (or at least should be) all about making space for people to choose to be moral, and to protect every member of society from those whose immoral choices bring harm to others.  It is not about insisting that simply “being moral” be the law.