Actually I’m talking about something that’s not all that radical, we already have programs like this. I’m really just suggesting that we expand the scope and change some of the processes by which we do it. Case in point, in Champaign there is a program called adult diversion where first time offenders for a range of offenses go before a three member panel of lay people who are trained in how to conduct such a panel and mete out restitution. They explain what they did and why they did it. The panel asks questions to clarify and then decides on suitable restitutive measures. I’ve sat on a couple. Generally it’s a certain number of hours of community service, once it was taking a seminar on law for laypeople because the person didn’t seem to get that what he did was illegal/viewed as wrong.

As for scale, I don’t think this would work perfectly at a national level. I even stated in the post that I imagine it working best at a city or large community level. What I’m talking about is a small core at the highest levels with an increasingly large (and rightly different) core the further down you go. So at the national level it might be murder, fraud, extortion, etc. At the state and local level the list would get bigger.

Society might not be divided over kicking a dog, but how many people speak up over it? I mean honestly if you went to the park with your kids (assuming you had them) and some snot-nosed kid was peeing on the slide your kids wanted to use, what would you do? You could say nothing and tell your kids they can’t use the slide. You could yell at the kid. You could let your kids use it anyway. You could clean up. We often find ourselves in uncomfortable situations where we think something is flagrantly wrong, but do nothing about it. I’ve seen a guy screaming at a woman and noted that for about five minutes no one said anything until someone walked over and asked her if she was okay and told him that if he got physical he’d get his ass kicked. It’s not about self-righteousness, but it certainly is about moralizing what is acceptable and unacceptable.

Anonymous – your insight is astounding and your critical analysis is truly daunting to respond to.

Katie – this wasn’t quite the heart of the post, but an illustrative example. My response to Kofi has elaboration, but I can add a little. Legal remedies could still be dangled over people’s heads like a sword of damocles. This would just reduce costs and need for courts (and ironically my career prospects). I mean we could have trained moderators or something and guidelines or restrictions on punishments decided by law to prevent lynchings. The idea is to turn the decision making power over to people to empower them and foster a sense of responsibility and connection that would ideally encourage them to be better people without forcing them to do anything.

Prescott -
I keep telling you that I’m a pretty bad liberal. As I told Kofi, I also don’t particularly imagine this as a national project. Things like Civil Rights are tricky. The classic example of imposed morality is the Civil War. I like the goals, but the process was bad. Back in the 1830s there was a serious dialogue about ending slavery, much of it being discussed in the South. A lot of people didn’t like slavery, in fact probably a majority didn’t like it, but no one was quite sure how to end it. I’ve read some pieces where the authors ask what to do with the formerly enslaved. This conversation sort of ended when the abolitionists gained strength and made it an either-or proposition without seriously considering the consequences of immediate liberation without planning for what would come afterwards. This was the biggest failure of the end of slavery. We freed millions of people, but had to alienate a third of the country to do it and then had no idea what to do with the people we freed once they were freed. It’s not that it wasn’t discussed at all, it’s just that there wasn’t a coherent vision of where to go from there. In this I sort of agree with Tom that if there was no Civil War slavery would have ended anyway and there wouldn’t have been as much backlash.

I think you’re attributing too broad a scope to this moral code idea. It’s not comprehensive. It’s got to be smallish and flexible to avoid becoming authoritarian. Equal rights and protections are one of the core values that we currently hold. I don’t think we could find too many people who would advocate unequal rights and protections under the law.

Tom –
I sort of agree. Diversity makes it harder, but that’s why I’m advocating a small core most everyone can agree on with larger circles for different localities or communities.

I have spoken in favor of a virtuous society many times in the past. I see such a society as a method by which we can be saved from the police state we’re sliding towards.

I grew up in such a virtuous society in the rural American 1950s. It was a crime-free, pleasant place to live for more than 90% of the population.

The problem with that society, though, is that the “good life” was limited to the white majority. The society was peaceful and just because no differing elements, whether they be gay or colored, were tolerated within it. It was illegal for a black person to be in my hometown and most of the cities in rural Illinois after dark, let alone live there. The majority, in such a society, will invariably inflict its views on the minority.

Hanno is right when he says that religion is not sufficient. I deem it as necessary, though, since any man-made rules will be subject to the corruption inherent in our nature. What is then necessary for his system to work, would be a commonality of belief in the meaning behind the religious rules, which would then lead to a non-coercive society. There wouldn’t be crime because the only criminals would be insane.

The problem with creating the kind of society that Hanno is talking about in America right now is that our country is too large and there are many varying opinions on morality.

However, if it splinters into hundreds or thousands of polis as I expect it to do mid-Century, such systems would be possible, and, I believe, necessary.

There would be no universality of government. Abortion might be so rare in Detroit as to be non-existent. Marijuana and methamphetamine might be sold and enjoyed openly in Phoenix. Voluntary servitude (indenture) could be the rule in New York City. Polygamy would flourish as the most popular form of marriage in Champaign-Urbana.

Some of these could be seen as morally repugnant by the other polis. That’s true. However, the number of people in each would be small enough that it wouldn’t be a big deal and citizens who do not like the situation where they are can move to somewhere where the rules fit them better–self segregation at its finest.

I like the idea of a thousand social experiments going on in North America–Darwinism at its highest. We’ve got to create the society that’s going to survive until the sun burns out–why not set up the labs now? With extreme long life around the corner, you could be there to guide it for millenia.

Tom

My question on this shared morality stems from its application to the federalist system of the US. Namely, I don’t think it would work real well. Hanno advocates a supermajority to pass legislation. He cited 95% in this post, but in out of post discussions, he mention a rate of approximately 80%. Assuming a comparable relationship between the states and federal government, what you would have is the inability of the federal government to override egregious acts by the states that is contrary to national morality.

So for example, something that I think we can all agree was good national legislation was the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed segregation. Under Hanno’s theory of government, it would never have passed, because in Congress, the majority never breached the 80% minimum in either House. However, assuming that the way the Southern representatives of both parties voted reflected the region’s overall view, segregation would have been the law of that land.

Now, I understand that there are other issues which would make my underlying assumption about the popularity of segregation in the South somewhat suspect, but I think you get my point. While everyone is tentative in this day and age to identify things as “immoral” because we do not want to offend another party’s cultural sensibilites, it is highly possible that in large communities 80% of that population will permit or even advocate immoral positions. Now whether it is that community’s right to do so is another question entirely.

However, if we are talking about developing a moral community, I think considerations like the one above are significant. Is morality merely agreed upon conventions, or is it something bigger? Specifically, is morality something beyond things people agree to rationally and contain through governmental construct, but something that is inherent and binary? If morality is something that exists independent of agreement or interpretation, defined by some other code or standard, then supermajority rule superfluous to the attempt of obtaining morality society, and indeed could prevent its fruition.

Now I understand you are seeking to limit conflict in a society nby not foisting upon one group of people the beliefs of another, and I understand why you would do it. But I think that there are some issues that are not defined by the type of supermajority you allude to that should be mandated in a culutre. Now what those issues are, how far the government should go in promoting them, and other assorted issues are important questions that should be answered by people far smarter than me. And considerations like the ability to move to areas that better conform to your perspective mitigate some of those concerns, although to what degree, I don’t know. But I think equal rights and protection under the law is one of those issues, and I don’t think under your system those rules would exist. So maybe I am missing something in your analysis regarding these issues, and if so, please let me know.

Next you’ll propose cutting off the hands of thieves.

I’m also confused why you restrict this thought experiment to any society large enough such that everyone doesn’t know each other. Your theory of crime and punishment, and being governed by a common bottom-up moral code is unrealistic in a society where everyone does not know each other. Western civilization started as a relatively small group of people and our ‘organic, bottom-up’ moral code has grown to the point where at one extreme we will not abort a baby for any reason at all, or at the other we’ll abort it because we had a vacation planned this spring; where at one extreme we will refuse to stop sustaining a vegetative human and at another we embrace euthanasia; at one extreme excessive drug abuse is an illness and at the other a sign of personal bankruptcy. You turn a guy over to his family (who knows him), and to his victims (who presumably don’t), and to his neighbors (who presumably know either one or the other or neither) and I’ll tell you what will happen: the family + their favorable neighbors will square off with the victims + their favorable neighbors. Violence ensues. Ten thousand years later we call it nationalism.

I’m talking about approval and disapproval, the casual “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for kicking that dog” type of thing.

This just sums up the ridiculousness of this whole post. Its well intended but so irrational. You assume on the big topics we can all ‘organically agree’ that Jim shouldn’t kick the dog. Society isn’t divided over kicking the dog. Society is divided over the “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for aborting your son” and the “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for assisting your mother’s suicide” and “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for not planning for your retirement and expecting me to help you out” kind of things.

Next you’ll propose cutting off the hands of thieves.

I’m also confused why you restrict this thought experiment to any society large enough such that everyone doesn’t know each other. Your theory of crime and punishment, and being governed by a common bottom-up moral code is unrealistic in a society where everyone does not know each other. Western civilization started as a relatively small group of people and our ‘organic, bottom-up’ moral code has grown to the point where at one extreme we will not abort a baby for any reason at all, or at the other we’ll abort it because we had a vacation planned this spring; where at one extreme we will refuse to stop sustaining a vegetative human and at another we embrace euthanasia; at one extreme excessive drug abuse is an illness and at the other a sign of personal bankruptcy. You turn a guy over to his family (who knows him), and to his victims (who presumably don’t), and to his neighbors (who presumably know either one or the other or neither) and I’ll tell you what will happen: the family + their favorable neighbors will square off with the victims + their favorable neighbors. Violence ensues. Ten thousand years later we call it nationalism.

I’m talking about approval and disapproval, the casual “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for kicking that dog” type of thing.

This just sums up the ridiculousness of this whole post. Its well intended but so irrational. You assume on the big topics we can all ‘organically agree’ that Jim shouldn’t kick the dog. Society isn’t divided over kicking the dog. Society is divided over the “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for aborting your son” and the “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for assisting your mother’s suicide” and “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for not planning for your retirement and expecting me to help you out” kind of things.

Next you’ll propose cutting off the hands of thieves.

I’m also confused why you restrict this thought experiment to any society large enough such that everyone doesn’t know each other. Your theory of crime and punishment, and being governed by a common bottom-up moral code is unrealistic in a society where everyone does not know each other. Western civilization started as a relatively small group of people and our ‘organic, bottom-up’ moral code has grown to the point where at one extreme we will not abort a baby for any reason at all, or at the other we’ll abort it because we had a vacation planned this spring; where at one extreme we will refuse to stop sustaining a vegetative human and at another we embrace euthanasia; at one extreme excessive drug abuse is an illness and at the other a sign of personal bankruptcy. You turn a guy over to his family (who knows him), and to his victims (who presumably don’t), and to his neighbors (who presumably know either one or the other or neither) and I’ll tell you what will happen: the family + their favorable neighbors will square off with the victims + their favorable neighbors. Violence ensues. Ten thousand years later we call it nationalism.

I’m talking about approval and disapproval, the casual “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for kicking that dog” type of thing.

This just sums up the ridiculousness of this whole post. Its well intended but so irrational. You assume on the big topics we can all ‘organically agree’ that Jim shouldn’t kick the dog. Society isn’t divided over kicking the dog. Society is divided over the “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for aborting your son” and the “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for assisting your mother’s suicide” and “Hey Jim you’re a bastard for not planning for your retirement and expecting me to help you out” kind of things.