If we agree not everything that's immoral should be illegal on what should we base laws ?

Question

Don't most societies use a sense of shared values or morality anyway while we agreed that's not the best way?
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Answer 1

Direct harm (or the greatly increased risk of direct harm) to another person or entity.

Drunk driving, for example, has the potential to cause direct harm to another person and should be illegal. Drug or alcohol use in the privacy of ones own home, however, only injures the user and should be legal.

Most groups and societies do share a sense of morality. Few would argue that things like murder and rape (both of which cause harm to another) should be legal. It is "victimless crimes" like prostitution and drug use where the "mob rule" mentality tends to over-ride our right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".

Answer 2

Laws should be written to prevent individuals or groups from harming others, directly or indirectly. If an "immoral" act, however that is defined, causes sufficient harm to other, it should be illegal. The problem arises in defining "sufficient harm".

Does smoking a Camel cigarette outdoors or drinking a beer harm anyone else? Yes, if his cancer treatment or if the care of a victim of a drunken driver is financed by public funds . Is that "sufficient harm" to criminalize possesion and distribution of tobacco and beer? Probably not if we consider the cost of stopping a crime committed hourly by over 200 million people. Obviously, the problem needs a lot of thought.

Puritans among us have given a lot of thought to the problem and have decided that smoking a Camel outdoors or drinking beer is OK, provided that the drug is taxed to partially pay for the damage. Unfortunately, they are not willing to tax enough to cover all the cost.

However, the Puritans have decided that marijuana and cocaine must be criminalized, not because these drugs create more damage than alcohol and tobacco, which is by far not the case, but because people are enjoying it too much.

If there is anything that a Puritan hates, it is that somebody somewhere is having fun. That is their definition of "immorality".

Answer 3

I have long presumed that illegal things are those which are logically viewed as being harmful to society at large. In other words, laws prohibiting the actions are enacted in order to protect the public.

This is why it's astounding to me that some states still have laws prohibiting what consenting adults do in the privacy of their homes. As long as no one is being forced to do something against their will, no laws should be remotely concerned with what's going on. Jeez, back during the Nazi regime in Germany, men could be jailed just for having homosexual thoughts. Thoughts!

Answer 4

it's not practical to make lying (for example) against the law. It's not very practical to make sloth or gluttony against the law. it's not practical to prosecute people for not respecting their elders. there aren't enough tax $$ to hire police to enforce laws against all kinds of immorality. we have to just pick the kind that's most dangerous to the common welfare and make that illegal.

Answer 5

What is illegal is based on what is harmful and/or hurtful to other individuals and/or society. Not on what is arbitrarily determined as bad.