what criteria must be met before making a law?

Question

subquestions:
can it be done without harming ones freedom?
and is it ever necessary to limit freedom?
possible topics to consider: murder, abortion, animal rights

should ethics be the bases of law, and would that not be imposing believes onto another person, no matter how wrong you may think it is? if you can sight examples to help illustrate your answer it would be much appreciated. thx

basically how do we decide when a law is worthy to be written and enforced?

excellent answer coragryph thank you, but when it comes to viability, a disabled man may be in complete and temporary dependance on relatives or aid workers, but we dont have the right to kill him. just like a fetus both are unable to live on their own at the present time but may have a future to live and grow. there must be another dividing line than simply independence.

Answer 1

Way too broad to answer in less than hundreds of pages.

Which is how much the courts and legislators have taken to set forth all the different rules.

Ethics are a set of rules, usually specific to a particular profession or organization. Morals are a set of rules, specific to a particular religion or culture. Neither are inherently valid grounds for making laws, since both ethics and morals are based on voluntary membership in the particular group.

As far as how many limitations can be imposed on free will and personal choice, that depends on the specific issue, the specific rights that are being affected, how they are being affected, why they are being affected, and who is trying to make the laws. Hence the need for hundreds of pages to define the standards and criteria in every permutation.

Philosophically, I believe that laws should only punish those actions undertaken which harm another person, and only in those situations where the person acting is not doing so to avoid harm to themself. For murder, that exceptions leaves out self defense. For abortion, the dividing line is the point of viability -- when the fetus can survive on its own without forcing the mother to provide life support against her will.

For other areas, I believe the government should not be regulating consensual activities solely because a person may voluntarily harm themselves. So, no seat-belt laws, no anti-drug laws, no calorie-counting laws.

Maximum liberty, preventing only those unjustified actions which harm others without their consent. That's the ideal.