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Is it moral to join law enforcement?

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Zoso

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... I'd imagine any officer who doesn't enforce a law he is required to, would be in danger of losing his job.
And that is what EC is saying, I think: that in the U.S., as things stand today, morality demands that people not join law-enforcement.
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And what I want to know is under what circumstances morality would allow people to join law enforcement. If it is not proper to enforce some of the laws of the United States, which even with all its flaws is the most free country in history that I know of, what would have to be true of a country for one to enforce the laws? A jurisdiction in which every single law was rational and objective would be wonderful, and should absolutely be the goal. But if all of a jurisdiction's laws were rational and objective except for one, then what?

And how is one to know whether laws are rational and objective? Well, of course he is to use reason to determine that for himself. He must not take others on faith. So, my previous question to EC (which I now raise to anyone else who cares to answer it) still needs to be answered. Must an officer think every law is proper before he can be an officer? Must he at least know the propriety of every law before he can be an officer? If not, what is he to do about enforcing a law he is unsure of? Look at the controversial areas on this forum. Immigration, children's rights, the death penalty. Even Objectivists have disagreements. Objectivism is such a young philosophy, there are still so many questions to be answered.

Many questions require not only knowledge of general philosophy but specialized philosophy as well. It's been said on this forum, for example, that something "is a question for the science of law, not Objectivism." Sometimes (maybe RC can tell us how frequently based on his experience), officers serve process on people. Must the officer know the ins and outs of each summons he serves? What if it turns out that the summons was issued frivolously? Must he know what the right answers are to the questions raised in highly complex legal fields like civil procedure? Talking about drug laws is much more colorful and exciting, but remember too that there can be immoral laws about who has to pay whose court costs, or who is subject to subpoena, or who has to withdraw his legal representation, or who has to a duty to disclose what, or who . . . .

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Here is one way to look at this: The morality of working for law-enforcement that -- in part -- enforces immoral laws is one side of the coin; the other side of the coin is obeying the rule of law even if some of those laws are immoral.

At one extreme, is a situation where the law is predominantly evil. For example, in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. One would not respect the rule-of-law in such a case. One would not be an enforcer either. [barring some unique situation like spying or somehow subverting the system.]

At the other extreme is a predominantly Capitalist country (not the U.S., I mean some country that is really close to the Capitalist ideal an Objectivist would want). In most situations, it would be practical to suffer the ill consequences of the few immoral laws and fight them by trying to change them. If one disobeys them, one would do so with the full understanding that one will bear the consequences. In such a situation, it would also be moral for a law-enforcement person to enforce the few immoral laws, while also advocating their removal and also perhaps doing whatever little he can -- at a personal level -- to lessen their impact.

I can see that one might raise one of two objections.

  • One might disagree with the second scenario; or,
  • One might say that he can see that as the way to act in an almost-Capitalist society, but the the U.S. today is far from that scenario

Or, perhaps there's another objection that I have overlooked?

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With respect to your second objection, then, what is the U.S.? "Predominantly evil"? Some middle category?

And what is a "predominantly capitalist" country? If one thinks the U.S. is not a predominantly capitalist country, why not? What criteria make a country predominantly capitalist, and how does the U.S. not meet those criteria?

I'm not expecting you to have all the answers to this softwareNerd, but these are questions I see that would need to be addressed if one agreed with how you have framed the issue.

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I noted those two possible "objections" to my own arguments to see if we want to take the discussion to where we attempt to place the US on a scale from good to bad, or if we still need to resolve the issue of morality when acting in an almost-Capitalist country.

If it is question of judging where the US falls on that "scale", I'd start by saying that there's room for disagreement. Here is my personal view:

Viewed as a whole, the U.S. is far, far, far..... far from "predominantly evil". Nowhere close. Some will say that one ought not to judge the US by comparisons with other countries. However, comparisons illustrate the following: they illustrate the wealth of good laws in the US. They let one see what rights the US does protect. Most people who have grown up here cannot fully appreciate the way the law protects their rights because they take it for granted, since they've never known otherwise. Take the transaction of buying and selling a house. I wonder how many people in the US and Europe realize that this simple transaction is fraught with problems in many parts of the world. In a large part of the world, many such deals are done on trust, with the knowledge that if something goes wrong, the law will do little to protect one.

When it comes to the issues of morality of working for law-enforcement or morality of obeying the rule of law, I think one has to work at a more detailed level. All immoral laws are not the same in their scale of immorality, and all enforcement jobs are not the same in the amount of time spent enforcing immoral laws and in the type of laws enforced. I do not see how one could formulate a moral theory about the quantity/scale at which one becomes "comprador". I think the moral theory states the principle and the rest is up to an individual's judgement.

I do not think it is easy to enforce a law one considers immoral. In many cases, it is more difficult to be in the enforcement role than to be in the role of a person complying with that law. So, in the context of the U.S., and in the context of a specific law-enforcement job that has much good in it, I will not say it is immoral to take up that job. Indeed, I know it is in my interest to have a good guy in the role. My concern would be whether the person taking up the job fully understands the degree to which he will be required to enforce immoral laws in his particular role, and whether he has the stomach for it.

As I said, this is more of a personal view, not an attempt at say what conclusions must necessarily follow from an Objectivist ethics.

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And that is what EC is saying, I think: that in the U.S., as things stand today, morality demands that people not join law-enforcement.

Right, this is why I constrasted it with anarchy. If we had no laws we'd have anarchy, and we'd end up with a much worse situation. I think based on this, that you can see that there is a strong moral case to be made for joining law enforcement.

I do believe police officers should attempt not to enforce eggergiously bad laws, however.

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The core principles underlying this thread are ones that I have to wrestle with. Rules can sometimes be specific enough that it is clear whether they have been broken, and when that happens there is a consequence, according to that rule. This is simply the law of causality applied to interaction between people: effects have causes, and a particular cause leads to a particular effect. If man is to live in a civilized society according to rules (rather than live by the law of the jungle where there are no rules), he must depend on the law of non-contradiction, where rules are rules. If a rule is stated but then totally ignored, the rule does not describe an actual cause-effect relationship, and it may as well not exist as a means of regulating conduct.

On the other hand, rules are a means to a particular end, and are not themselves an end. Rules should be evaluated in terms of their purpose -- a good (rational) rule is one that does accomplish that goal, and a bad rule is one that does not accomplish that goal. (Rational) societies operate by identifying a goal, then identifing a rule which realizes that goal; and the rule is judged according to whether it realizes the goal. The primary is the goal -- it is not that man invents rules and then deduces what goals are consistent with the rules.

The first paragraph says that you should follow the rules; the second says that rules are there for a reason. What should you do when the rule does not lead to the supposed goal? Especially, what should a person charged with enforcing a rule do, when presented with evidence that the rule is bad: particularly when the person judging does not have the authority to replace the rule with a better rule? Strict enforcement of the rule may result in an injustice, but it upholds the virtue of objectivity and non-contradiction (in terms of how rules pertain to man's conduct). Ignoring the rule recognises that rules are there to bring about particular ends, and that the ends are primary, but rule-breaking embraces a contradiction, in saying that the rule does not have a certain consequence (and, potentially, saying so in some cases but not all cases).

Frankly, I can't balance these virtues satisfactorily. In an ideal society, we would be talking about single cases, where it would be realised that a particular rule leads to an injustice -- and then the rule is changed in response. I don't live in that ideal society. What I observe is that the rules are very difficult to change, and very easy to ignore. Reality can be evaded, by denying that bad rules have bad consequences. The conclusion which I have tenatively come to is that in a rational society, rules should be enforced so that the consequences of rules -- good and bad -- can be concretized for all. Otherwise, the concept of a "bad rule" is meaningless.

Note that I've used the word "rules", which includes laws designed to protect an individual's rights but also general rule for clubs and jobs. I'm talking about basic philosophical principles, not narrowly about crimes.

I'd appreciate input on this matter. Please save me from the scourge of legal positivism.

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For now, I would just like to say that I agree with most of what softwarenerd has posted since my last post. Later when a I have more time, I will come back and state the few differences between our opinions.

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