We Can (and Should) Legislate Morality

We can legislate morality. We do it all the time.

When someone argues against abortion-on-demand or the legalization of marijuana, it’s an oft-repeated retort from libertarians and the Left: “Well, you can’t legislate morality.” Everyone nods solemnly, applauds the wisdom of the truism. Conversation is stopped.

But the truism couldn’t be more false. We can base our legislation on morality. We do it all the time. To understand how, though, we must first give an account of what “morality” is.

In the past human beings believed that some things were right and other things were wrong. We didn’t know where this moral sense we all had came from or how we were able to make these judgments, but we knew it in our bones, as if by instinct.

There is undeniable evidence of an original common understanding of right and wrong across early cultures that were otherwise unconnected. And the conclusions of these groups about the goodness or badness of certain actions were remarkably similar.

Different cultural groups explained this moral sense in different ways. Some thought it came from God, a common gift of general revelation to all mankind. Others thought our morals emerged from the natural order of the universe itself, a reflection of the “way things should be.” Still others believed reason was the source and clarifier of our moral sense.