Language has limits. Great philosophers, for instance, have struggled to articulate the truths they’ve discerned. Mystics have been rendered dumb by the beauty they’ve seen. The everyday person has been reduced to exasperation when he can’t explain why something is humorous.
The shortcomings of language give rise to certain forms of poetry in which the poet points to truths but doesn’t attempt to articulate them. Language’s shortcomings also give rise to silence, like Thomas Aquinas’s refusal to write after his mystical visions.
Those are good effects of language’s limits.
Clichés are one of the bad effects. When we use a cliché, we use a canned phrase to cut through the hassle of articulating exactly what we mean.
Clichés cause lots of problems. For instance, they frequently substitute for thought. Instead of questioning and probing an issue, a person latches onto a cliché, clumsily applies it to the situation, and blithely assumes (hopes) the matter is settled.
Clichés also tend to stifle discussion. Too often, a person throws out a cliché and expects it to be treated with the same weight as a proverb. His interlocutor often responds by (i) offering a counter-cliché, (ii) distinguishing the cliché from the issue under consideration, or (iii) conceding the point. Rarely does the opponent dismantle the cliché itself.
All clichés can be dismantled, in one way or the other. Through the use of reductio ad absurdum, for instance. Or by providing examples that debunk it.
Or by simply examining the cliché’s tenets. Some clichés are so patently ridiculous that they just need to be questioned. No tools besides an inquiring mind are necessary.
The cliché, “You can’t legislate morality” falls in this category.
Like most Americans, I have a strong libertarian streak. But I also realize that the idea that you can’t legislate morality is ridiculous.
Consider the simple law of double-parking.
Most communities ban double-parking: one car may not occupy more than one parking spot. If a person does so, he risks committing a civil infraction or misdemeanor. He also risks getting his car towed.
Why?
I can’t honestly say I’ve read double parking’s legislative history, but I assume it involves commonsense principles: A finite number of parking spaces accommodate a seemingly infinite number of cars. If people double park, others can’t find a spot to park, and the area served by parking could be adversely affected.
In other words, one person shouldn’t be allowed to be so self-regarding as to make another person walk a long distance when he could have parked close. One person should not be allowed to be so self-regarding as to adversely hamper a business’s operations by reducing the store’s available parking spaces. One person should not be allowed to be so self-regarding as to disrupt an entire district’s parking and traffic flow.
The ordinances against double parking, in other words, are justified on grounds of limiting selfishness.
All legal prohibitions are the same. There’s not a prohibition out there that does not have aversion to selfishness as its base: speed limits, anti-trust laws, disorderly person ordinances, assault felonies, environmental protection regulations.
They all say the same thing: Society has certain goods it wants to preserve, and in order to do so, it must limit certain manifestations of selfishness. Without this bedrock principle, no legal prohibition could stand. And at the base of this bedrock is a tacit understanding: selfishness is bad.
Ask yourself: If this tacit understanding wasn’t present, how could selfishness get pushed around like it does by these laws? If love were the thing getting pushed around, we’d have a truly bizarre maze of laws. If beauty were getting pushed around, it’d be an ugly set of laws.
But it’s not love and beauty — it’s selfishness. Everyone understands that excess self-regard is bad. It is, indeed, a sin. “The complete anti-God state of mind,” to quote C.S. Lewis.
If excess self-regard is a sin and it’s this sin that puts the foundation under our legal prohibitions, how can we say we can’t legislate morality? We do it every day. We do it with millions of laws.
Now, perhaps the speaker means something else when he says we can’t legislate morality.
Then let him say so. Tell him to think it through and then explain exactly what he means.
In the process, he’ll understand better the relationship of morality and the laws. He may even get an inkling of what jurists mean by “natural law.”
And maybe, just maybe, he’ll ditch that cliché about legislating morality.
© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange
Eric Scheske is an attorney, the Editor of The Daily Eudemon, a Contributing Editor of Godspy, and the former editor of Gilbert Magazine.
