Social morality vs. personal morality
A crucial distinction
This is an improved version of a previous article.
I think there are two kinds of morality — social morality and personal morality. Let’s dig in to see why this is true, and what it means.
Social Morality
Some moral principles govern how we treat each other. This is social morality. It includes standards like these …
The Golden Rule: Respect the conscience of others, as you desire them to respect your conscience.
That’s my version of the GR. I like it better than other versions, of which there are many.
The Zero Aggression Principle: Don’t aggress against others, personally or politically.
The Self-ownership Principle: We all own our own lives. No one else can own us, or take the fruits of our labor without violating our self-ownership.
This idea is invoked in the slogan “My body, my choice.” It’s the supreme anti-slavery principle.
The Homesteading Principle: When we mix our labor with land or raw materials we own the result.
This is an extension of the Self-ownership Principle. It provides a moral basis for property rights.
We own what we labor to create, otherwise our self-ownership is violated. If someone steals all of our labor then we are slaves. But stealing only a part of what we create amounts to a fractional form of slavery. This is especially true if it happens continually, as with an extortion racket (or taxation?), rather than episodically, as with a mugger or a burglar.
Legislating social morality
The above principles are similar and interlock with each other. They lead to laws against assault, murder, fraud, and theft. Nearly everyone supports these rules. Even Adolf Hitler thought it would be wrong for someone to kill him or steal his property. But these ideas are not the only form of morality. There is also…
Personal Morality
In contrast to the social morality that governs how we treat others, there are also moral values that govern how we treat ourselves. This includes what we ingest, how we work, how we worship, what we wear, and how we have sex. There is far less agreement about this kind of morality. It’s highly personal. So I call it personal morality.
How do social morality and personal morality interact with each other? It’s perfectly obvious that laws against, murder, assault, theft, and fraud can be enforced by police and courts, but can the same be said for personal morality? Can we or should we use police and courts to control how other people eat, drink, worship, work, dress, or have sex? Here’s the crucial point…
Using police and courts to enforce personal morality contradicts social morality.
Imposing your personal moral preferences on people who have different values requires you to initiate force against them. Please focus on exactly what this means. When people fail to comply with your moral dictates, you must…
- Fine them, at the very least
- Seize their property or arrest them If they refuse to pay the fine
- Injure them or kill them if they resist the arrest or the property seizure
If you are not willing to do these things then you cannot enforce your law. This is the stark reality that lies behind every law.
Some degree of violence makes sense for enforcing laws against murder, theft, assault, and fraud. But does it make any sense at all for imposing one group’s personal moral code on people who have different values?
Please notice the profound contradiction. You must use aggression to tread on someone else’s personal conscience and self-ownership. Doing that violates social morality, and is therefore immoral. Some people may think it’s sometimes a good trade to violate social morality in order to enforce some forms of personal morality, but beware…
What you can do to others, others can do to you.
Please realize that laws may someday be enacted that violate your personal morality. And here we come to a great bifurcation in the human mind — a form of mass insanity that has murdered, maimed, and impoverished hundreds of millions of people over the course of human history. The bifurcation is this…
Nearly everyone honors social morality in their personal lives, but nearly everyone violates it with their political actions, including voting. We wrongly assume that wrong becomes right just because a vote has been held, or because some person with a badge, uniform, or title says so. When it comes to politics and voting nearly everyone is a sociopath. Thus…
Social morality can be enforced by police and juries, but personal morality is simply a matter of personal discipline, and not a fit subject for legislation or law enforcement.
Once you understand and accept this reality you have become a libertarian, even if your personal values are liberal, conservative, or whatever.
Copyright © Perry Willis 2024
Perry Willis is the co-founder of Downsize DC and the Zero Aggression Project. He co-created, with Jim Babka, the Read the Bills Act, the One Subject at a Time Act, and the Write the Laws Act, all of which have been introduced in Congress. He is a past Executive Director of the national Libertarian Party and was the campaign manager for Harry Browne for President in 2000.
