The Sage of Main Street
Gold Member
Me, Myself, and Ayndenying the validity of the statement that each must be primary in order to serve their purpose?"3. Therefore, since only one authority may hold the primary place as a standard for individual behavior, morality and governmental law are mutually exclusive -- where one holds sway, the other cannot."
False assumption.
Do you suppose that two standards can both hold the primary place? Or are you denying the validity of the statement that each must be primary in order to serve their purpose? Please explain your assertion of a false assumption.
"...denying the validity of the statement that each must be primary in order to serve their purpose?"
People can get along just fine using different standards for different behaviors under different circumstances. Most behaviors most of the time can be both legal and moral. It is not a given that they will conflict. Or that people will always use the same standard when they seem to.
For someone to be a "moral person", their morality must guide ALL of their decisions. To the degree that morality is subjugated to another standard, to that degree they fail to be moral. Now there are many decisions to be made where any choice is within the framework of morality, and so there is no moral consequence; such as when choosing what color jeans to buy. But where morality is relevant, it must be heeded, or the person is not moral by their own standard.
Of course, we may fail and try again, but we cannot ride the fence and say, "Well, I'll take each situation as it comes, and where conflicts exist, sometimes I'll follow my morality, and sometimes I'll follow the law." This means that morality holds no authority in their lives; and since morality must be an authority in order to actually be morality, if it does not hold authority it ceases to exist.
Where no conflict exists between morality and law, the question of which is primary is moot. I would still say that one standard is primary, and the other is a hollow echo, but since we cannot determine which one is which until a discrepancy occurs, it's futile to discuss the situation of perfect alignment between the two.
Authority means obliging the individual regardless all other considerations. The law claims to be such an authority, regardless of your moral objections to it. It reserves the right to diverge from your morality and still oblige you to its demands. As such, it cannot be abided by the moral person. Therefore, for someone to make the claim that they are a moral person, they cannot permit governmental law as an authority in their lives. And if law cannot oblige the moral person, then clearly the moral person could not support government's claim to oblige others; for this would be to impose immorality on others, which would be an immoral act in itself. The moral person cannot support government and still be moral, regardless of the nature or cited origin of their moral standard.
I reject your pushy self-righteous claim that you are promoting ethics rather than egos. A pulpit is for bullies.