Communities Rights to Enforce Moral Conviction through Law

Canada: a nation built, politically, on the rights accompanied by being a democratic state. A democracy, in the simplest of terms, states that a society has the right to vote in laws, political leaders and bring other social justice issues up to the head of their political hierarchy. To suggest that a society should not have any right to enforce its moral convictions through the law would be morally unsound in a country that prides itself on equality and democracy. In this essay I will be arguing against the idea stated above: the notion that a community should not be able to have their laws reflected in the value and morals of their people. To support this opinion, I will be drawing points from Wil Waluchow’s The Concept of a Moral Position & The Legal Enforcement of Morality and Geoff Callaghan’s Devlin Power Point, as well as ideas based of off Devlin’s “Morals and the Criminal Law” and Dworkin’s “Liberty and Moralism”. I will first be looking at Devlin’s view of the Harm Principal, which states that as long as no one is being intentionally and/or directly hurt, the people of a society should be free to do whatever he or she wishes, without fearing the legal and societal consequences (Callaghan, 2014). If a society deems an act morally sounds, based on their own personal prejudices, the same people in that society should be able to act upon the societies idea of what is morally good. Next I will focus on the Disintegration Thesis, which very plainly states that without a common sense of a morality and values, a community would ultimately disintegrate (Callaghan, 2014). Finally I will take an opposing side, and in doing so rebuttal Devlin’s points by using Dworkin and Harts’s analyses, which is based on the idea that ones mora...

... middle of paper ...

...gatherers. Because of theses same morals, every community should have the right to enforce their moral convictions through law.

Work Cited

Callaghan, G. (2014) Devlin Power Point

Demographic of Texas. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 10, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Texas

Demographic of Toronto. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved March 10, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Toronto

Devlin, P. (1965). Morals and the Criminal Law

In Dyzenhaus D., Moreau S.R. & Ripstein A., (Eds.), Law and Morality (369-392). Toronto: University Of Toronto Press

Dworkin, R. (1977). Liberty and Moralism

In Dyzenhaus D., Moreau S.R. & Ripstein A., (Eds.), Law and Morality (393-401). Toronto: University Of Toronto Press

Waluchow, W. (2014) The Concept of a Moral Position & The Legal Enforcement of Morality