A New (or Old) Take on Morality in Society

If a society does not have an agreed upon system of morality, then eventually all behavior deemed offensive by those in power will be criminalized. A nation in such a case will become a police state. People will not be expected to police their own behavior and they will lose the will and interest in personal progression. "Survival of the fittest" will become the dominant philosophy. Furthermore, the government will lose all legitimacy as a symbol of the collective interests of the governed and will be compelled to rule by brute force. Then, personal agency is wiped out and "right" and "wrong" become mere questions relative to the regime in power.

An alternative: Individuals in a society work together and agree upon basic moral constraints: honesty, integrity, hard work, tolerance for conflicting points of view within a spectrum of reason, discipline, a two-parent heterosexual family structure, personal accountability, a sense of pride and gratitude to one's country and community, independence, sacrifice, service, a belief in a higher power, and so forth.

These "morals" are not enshrined in legal statutes or federal mandates, but rather in personal philosophies, literature, media, entertainment, community projects, religious and cultural gatherings, etc. The government doesn't force these beliefs upon people, but rather the private citizens of the nation accept them as their common values. Rather than a top-down mandate, these are grass-roots beliefs promoted by and permeating the private lives of individuals whose family and community life teach them that these are the indispensible elements of a free people.

Such a society will strive for these values through community activities and private religious and cultural organizations. People in this society will put their discretionary income towards recreational activities that reinforce these values, thus creating economic incentives to perpetuate them. These people then vote for representative leaders who embody and promote these values in their private and public lives. They demand that their tax dollars be spent towards educating their children in accordance with these beliefs. Any programs (and these should be few if they exist at all) sponsored by the government beyond education, public works, and national defense should reflect these societal values or otherwise be privately funded.

If certain individuals in society reject these moral constraints and values, they should not be censured through legal means unless their indiscretion is so egregious as to greatly harm the community they live in. Rather, 99 times out of a 100, they will be censured as a natural and inevitable consequence of their own act by loss of societal benefits, i.e. companionship, respect, reputation, economic opportunity, etc. The aberrant parties can then change their behavior or choose to ignore the censure as part of the cost-benefit analysis a rational person makes in choosing how to act. This preserves the rejecting parties' autonomy while causing them to proportionately lose the benefits of a society which gains from the private decisions of the majority to live according to the above enumerated values. (Note: The argument that a society that pressures its citizens to act a certain way is new or foreign to our way of life ignores reality. The question is not whether this takes place, but to what degree and what cultural norms are being promoted.)

Such a society will be willing to engage in free debate and liberal consideration of alternative points of view. New ideas can be freely discussed and society should be willing to take risks in private and economic spheres when an idea promises to better both individuals and a community. However, individuals in this society must also be willing to act courageously in denouncing behavior if the alternative point of view proves to place in peril the morality that underpins society. Individuals must not be cowed when an aberrant party denounces them as "too intolerant" once the new idea has been heard, considered, and then rejected based on reason and common principles.

Finally, society should supplement its morality with legal enforcement of property rights, self-made contractual obligations and the inalienable liberty of movement and bodily integrity. If society as a whole has embraced a common set of moral values, it will have very little need to enact law beyond these three areas.

I think this is a more healthy formula than abandoning all moral constraint, embracing relativism, cementing "tolerance" as the only virtue of substance, and then criminalizing any behavior deemed arbitrarily "unhealthy" by the government. What do you think?