{"id":75,"date":"2011-05-26T21:47:45","date_gmt":"2011-05-27T01:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=75"},"modified":"2011-05-26T21:47:45","modified_gmt":"2011-05-27T01:47:45","slug":"a-brief-case-for-the-legalization-of-vice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/05\/a-brief-case-for-the-legalization-of-vice.html","title":{"rendered":"A (Brief) Case for the Legalization of Vice"},"content":{"rendered":"

In spite of what the title of this article suggests, the characteristically Libertarian position\u2014what is typically regarded as \u201cthe Harm Principle\u201d\u2014that all adult human beings have the right<\/em> to do whatever they want as long as it doesn\u2019t involve them visiting harm upon others is not <\/em>one that I endorse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The assumption that from the enterprise of invoking \u201crights\u201d alleged to be \u201cNatural\u201d or \u201cHuman\u201d in settling moral issues there is much fruit to be had is correct: since the idiom of \u201crights\u201d is, so to speak, \u201cthe English language\u201d of the universe that is our contemporary political-moral discourse, commerce between agents is facilitated by speaking it; furthermore, the language of rights embodies a vision that is markedly simple in its essence.\u00a0 Yet these fruits are in reality poisonous: like all monopolies, the monopoly on our public morality that the idiom of \u201crights\u201d has secured has resulted in a waste of resources in moral reflection, and the simplicity that it supplies has similarly succeeded in drying up the moral imagination by closing it off to other and potentially richer possibilities to explore in accounting for our experiences.<\/p>\n

The distinctively Anglo spirit of liberty that \u201cthe Harm Principle\u201d intended to encapsulate is all but lost by its transformation into a species of absolutism.\u00a0 The largely informal mannerisms, customs, and dispositions\u2014i.e. the cultural particularity\u2014from which it sprung and that is the necessary precondition of its enjoyment and conservation is traded for a rootless abstraction or \u201cproposition\u201d that, as a timeless doctrine, runs up against logical challenges that are, in the final analysis, insuperable.<\/p>\n

That perhaps most Americans are unaware of it does not change the fact that the only liberty that we have ever known consists in the far reaching dispersal of power that our constitutional traditions have secured for us: the division between the federal government and the governments of the states; the sovereignty of each state over and against the others; the division of each government into three branches; and, as importantly as any of our other institutional arrangements, the institution of private property, are designed to preclude the formation of large concentrations of power.\u00a0 It is in the interstices of this intricate constellation of \u201cchecks and balances\u201d that our liberty is located.<\/p>\n

To put the point even more succinctly, our freedom derives from the rule of law, <\/em>for it is the rule of law that effects this wide distribution of power within which our liberty is to be found.\u00a0 The criminalization of those activities, like recreational drug use, that have traditionally been regarded as \u201cvices\u201d upsets this distribution and, hence, our freedom, by insuring that ever larger concentrations of power will be formed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet it isn\u2019t just an ever more powerful government that imperils our liberty.\u00a0 The criminalization of vice empowers as well the criminal; <\/em>it encourages outlawry and, thus, turning the law against itself, undermines the legal association for the sake of which law exists. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The criminalization of drugs, prostitution, and gambling has given rise to black markets.\u00a0 Since these black markets are the criminal\u2019s oxygen, by legalizing these activities we drain the blood from his veins and divest him of every vestige of power.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At one time, the Bootlegger was the emblem of the Outlaw, the Gangster.\u00a0 But there never would have been any bootleggers without Prohibition.\u00a0 The Drug Dealer is the archetype of the Gangster today.\u00a0 Both are creations of bad government policy, but while it took the generation of yesteryear only a decade or so to appreciate the truth of what no less a figure, and no more a \u201clibertarian,\u201d than the Angelic Doctor, Thomas Aquinas, long ago discerned\u2014the impulse to outlaw all evils creates even greater evils\u2014we persist in our folly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Bootlegger is no less a relic from a bygone era than the Knight simply because enough people realized that while alcohol consumption can ruin lives, the criminalization of alcohol consumption\u2014through the seedy underworld that it engenders and strengthens\u2014ruins more <\/em>lives.\u00a0 And what is true of the criminalization of alcohol consumption is at least as true of the criminalization of drugs and other currently criminalized vices.<\/p>\n

The common objection that the legalization of, say, drugs, will result in an increase in usage is inconsequential for at least three reasons: first, it is <\/em>an assumption; second, assuming as it does that legislators can alter the conduct of citizens at will simply by passing (or repealing) laws, it is rationalistic: the illegality of an activity may <\/em>be a <\/em>factor in accounting for why some <\/em>people abstain from it, but surely it is far from being a decisive <\/em>one; third, even if true, this disadvantage of legalizing drugs must be measured against, not some ideal standard of perfection, but the aforementioned disadvantages of criminalizing them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The impulse to criminalize vice is a function of a view of the state and government that we needn\u2019t pursue here.\u00a0 Suffice it to say, however, the road to viciousness is paved by the urge to legislate for Virtue.<\/p>\n

Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In spite of what the title of this article suggests, the characteristically Libertarian position\u2014what is typically regarded as \u201cthe Harm Principle\u201d\u2014that all adult human beings have the right to do whatever they want as long as it doesn\u2019t involve them visiting harm upon others is not one that I endorse.\u00a0 The assumption that from the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nA (Brief) Case for the Legalization of Vice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A (Brief) Case for the Legalization of Vice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In spite of what the title of this article suggests, the characteristically Libertarian position\u2014what is typically regarded as \u201cthe Harm Principle\u201d\u2014that all adult human beings have the right to do whatever they want as long as it doesn\u2019t involve them visiting harm upon others is not one that I endorse.\u00a0 The assumption that from the…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/05\/a-brief-case-for-the-legalization-of-vice.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-05-27T01:47:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A (Brief) Case for the Legalization of Vice","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A (Brief) Case for the Legalization of Vice","og_description":"In spite of what the title of this article suggests, the characteristically Libertarian position\u2014what is typically regarded as \u201cthe Harm Principle\u201d\u2014that all adult human beings have the right to do whatever they want as long as it doesn\u2019t involve them visiting harm upon others is not one that I endorse.\u00a0 The assumption that from the…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/05\/a-brief-case-for-the-legalization-of-vice.html","og_site_name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","article_published_time":"2011-05-27T01:47:45+00:00","author":"Jack Kerwick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/05\/a-brief-case-for-the-legalization-of-vice.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/05\/a-brief-case-for-the-legalization-of-vice.html","name":"A (Brief) Case for the Legalization of Vice","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-05-27T01:47:45+00:00","dateModified":"2011-05-27T01:47:45+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/05\/a-brief-case-for-the-legalization-of-vice.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/05\/a-brief-case-for-the-legalization-of-vice.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2011\/05\/a-brief-case-for-the-legalization-of-vice.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A (Brief) Case for the Legalization of Vice"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/","name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - 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