Conatus: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

interfere with the freedom of others. Equality under the law and the assumption of innocence before being proven guilty are principles that are adopted by societies that consider themselves to be fair and just. Along with these two principles, such societies often include freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the right to public assembly.

For the most part the law is only prohibitive — setting boundaries beyond which people must not stray. Should the law legislate with regard to personal ethics or should it always only refer to public morality? It is difficult to define where personal ethics stops and public morality begins. There are laws around age of consent, adultery, bigamy, censorship, age limits for alcohol, voting, driving and legislation regarding the use of drugs and the availability of contraception. Whilst all or most of these are personal choices they also impact on others.

What of punishment? Here, alas, there is something of a break in the process that I have been describing over the last several chapters. For better or worse — we believe in the importance of punishment when the principles of fairness appear to have been violated. The awkward fact is that the desire to punish offenders is also based on value. If we are going to allow for innate qualities of goodness, then we seem to be obliged to recognise our innate tendencies towards retribution and even cruelty. We will explore a little more of what this might mean presently, but for now, let’s look at how some of the moral theories we’ve been exploring deal with the issues of punishment and retribution.

197