Government Morality
I believe that morality and goverment dont really correspond to each other for some reasons. The government is made up of hundreds of people. People speak of the governemtn like it is an object of some sort when in reality it is just a bunch of important people. the government cant really be immoral or moral because we give our rights to the government and it is the people who pretty mich decide who the government is. So how can they be moral or immoral when we the people gave out rights to them, and now we complain on how they run things? Over all i just find it amusing how people say that the government can be moral or immoral. As in kens blog he talked about the nazis and communism. was that considered immoral or no? If so then would that make the people immoral also? considering they are the ones who give their right up to them.
November 20, 2008 at 12:19 am
Great point. this would be like someone hiring a hitman and then judging them for killing the person you hired them to kill. The fact that we elect these people into office may actually make them immune to moral standards.
November 20, 2008 at 12:57 pm
[...] P., and, in the comments to his entry, Monica, give a convincing case for the plausibility of Hobbes’s [...]
November 20, 2008 at 3:09 pm
I think that individuals in the government should be held to a moral standard because we expect the elected officials to act moral, probably the reason why we voted for them. If they were elected under false pretenses then they could and should be considered immoral. That doesn’t mean that the government itself is immoral because the government would probably punish the elected official in some way, kind of like Spitzer even though he got off easy in my book.
November 20, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I agree with Kenjones. The people who are apart of the goverernment are still people who gave up their rights jus as the rest of us. I dont think they get a moral pass once they become apart of the government. They even go through a bigger ordeal when they do something immoral. Government officials are judged twice, once as a person and once as a apart of the govt. Even though some things seem to slip through the cracks, they are under constant watch and should be because we gave them our rights. Therefore i think the govt can be judged morally by us on whether what they do with our rights is moral or not. They have a duty to do right by us when they utilize our rights.
November 20, 2008 at 5:15 pm
That actually makes a lot of sense, although you have to think about the fact that people put governments into power based on certain assumptions and promises the leaders make. If the leaders break those promises then the people are guilty really of reckless negligence of their duty to be informed citizens and pick a proper government.
But there is sort of a visceral feeling that it is right; that governments are empowered by citizens, thus: People get the government they deserve.
November 23, 2008 at 7:15 pm
I think that in a way you are pretty accurate with your opinion but like Eric says, you have to take into account that people who rule in a government are put into power by its citizens under the assumptions that the polititian will keep their promises.
November 23, 2008 at 11:49 pm
We the people do decide who the governement is, but we the people can also take those people out of the government if they are acting immorally or irrationally. If the government could not be immoral than every act by everyone in the goverment would basically be viewed as correct and people would start to take advantage of their power, and if that were the case then there would be chaos.
November 24, 2008 at 12:41 am
I completely agree with eric’s comment in the sense that if the leaders do break their promises we technically are at fault and holds us accountable in the morality issue.