> And I think the idea that "nobody gives a shit what the law says" is a statement that is... very, very incorrect.
I would say almost the entire body of social science and moral philosophy (setting aside the replication crisis for the moment) more or less proves the correctness of saying "nobody gives a shit what the law says". Society is bound by social mores, not by laws, laws are intended to encode social mores and give a vehicle to systematically enforce those mores without relying on vigilantes. Without the law, we'd have more direct culture clashes around topics like immigration, because people try to bring their cultural values and social mores with them, the law encodes and enforces whatever social mores exist, as much as the people of a society can control its laws.
It's not the law people care about, it's the social mores. And the social mores extend from the collective consensus of morality. People don't generally kill other people, not because it's illegal, but because it's wrong. But sometimes, killing other people isn't wrong, such in the case of self-defense or protecting your family. Sometimes the law even convicts and punishes people for committing crimes, because the law has a narrower interpretation at the margins than wider social mores. This is exactly what you're observing here. There is a moral equivalence between murdering thousands of people via a bureaucratic decision and pulling the trigger on the gun, but the law treats them differently, society does not. /This/ is why so many people condone the shooter's actions.
You aren't getting it. The law does not matter. The law is a reflection of society, society is not a reflection of the law. The law is a tool of language to try to explain, communicate, and enforce something that exists outside of it, but the thing which gives law power is the thing which exists outside of it. Morals are way more important than laws.
For all situations that actually matter, nobody gives a shit what the law says, and they never will. They only care about what other people will think of them, what they will think of themselves, and how their moral compass and social mores guide their decision-making process. This is exactly why we generally think of people who murder as being sociopaths, lacking a moral compass, because it's the moral compass and not the law that prevents most people from being murderers.
You think I'm being flip, I'm actually making an incredibly cogent point that you continue to miss, just as you missed the point of the person you replied to originally.
> You think I'm being flip, I'm actually making an incredibly cogent point that you continue to miss, just as you missed the point of the person you replied to originally.
I think it's a bad approach to assume that you're making incredible points and I'm just not getting it, rather than assuming we're just disagreeing and that, potentially, you are wrong.
> Society is bound by social mores, not by laws, laws are intended to encode social mores and give a vehicle to systematically enforce those mores without relying on vigilantes.
Maybe we're talking past one another by talking about whether the law "matters" or not.
Social mores are against adultery. Many people do in fact commit adultery, and continue to have totally fine lives, despite this.
On the other hand, lots of people hate taxes. Try not paying your taxes, and you'll end up in jail.
I don't think the law is a reflection of social mores - almost everyone agrees that the law, while obviously based on many in society, shouldn't encompass all social mores, and has to include things that are not, prima facie, moral. You shouldn't, in general, put someone in jail for being too poor to afford food, and stealing some food. Very few people agree that that's moral in a specific instance. But if you don't jail people for stealing, very soon society breaks down.
I'm not sure which of the above, if any, you disagree with. Maybe none of it - in which case maybe we just agree with each other and are using different language to explain ourselves. If you disagree with something in specific, maybe we should drill down on that.
> On the other hand, lots of people hate taxes. Try not paying your taxes, and you'll end up in jail.
You seem to be making the argument that the law has a life of its own, which isn't entirely untrue, but case in point: While most people don't enjoy paying taxes, they do so because they understand it's necessary to have a functioning society they want to be part of. There are many legal ways to get around paying most or all of your taxes, but they're generally so costly to setup that they're only available to the very rich and to corporations, and most people morally judge this as a negative thing even though it's legal, they don't generally morally judge paying their taxes as a negative thing, but the avoidance as negative.
We do disagree, and it's not a question of semantics, it's a question of causality. You are essentially saying that the law and social mores have no causality relationship, I am saying the law comes from social mores, and the law does not influence them. The law is /subordinate/, which is why nobody really cares about it. Obviously "nobody" is intentionally overbroad, policy-makers, lawyers, and judges care quite a lot about the law, but the vast majority of the population (99%+) does not, they do however care very very deeply about social mores and cultural norms.
I would say almost the entire body of social science and moral philosophy (setting aside the replication crisis for the moment) more or less proves the correctness of saying "nobody gives a shit what the law says". Society is bound by social mores, not by laws, laws are intended to encode social mores and give a vehicle to systematically enforce those mores without relying on vigilantes. Without the law, we'd have more direct culture clashes around topics like immigration, because people try to bring their cultural values and social mores with them, the law encodes and enforces whatever social mores exist, as much as the people of a society can control its laws.
It's not the law people care about, it's the social mores. And the social mores extend from the collective consensus of morality. People don't generally kill other people, not because it's illegal, but because it's wrong. But sometimes, killing other people isn't wrong, such in the case of self-defense or protecting your family. Sometimes the law even convicts and punishes people for committing crimes, because the law has a narrower interpretation at the margins than wider social mores. This is exactly what you're observing here. There is a moral equivalence between murdering thousands of people via a bureaucratic decision and pulling the trigger on the gun, but the law treats them differently, society does not. /This/ is why so many people condone the shooter's actions.
You aren't getting it. The law does not matter. The law is a reflection of society, society is not a reflection of the law. The law is a tool of language to try to explain, communicate, and enforce something that exists outside of it, but the thing which gives law power is the thing which exists outside of it. Morals are way more important than laws.
For all situations that actually matter, nobody gives a shit what the law says, and they never will. They only care about what other people will think of them, what they will think of themselves, and how their moral compass and social mores guide their decision-making process. This is exactly why we generally think of people who murder as being sociopaths, lacking a moral compass, because it's the moral compass and not the law that prevents most people from being murderers.
You think I'm being flip, I'm actually making an incredibly cogent point that you continue to miss, just as you missed the point of the person you replied to originally.