Did you ever stop to wonder why prostitution is illegal? I did. Aside from explicitly religious moral reasons, I can't see why it is.
Pick your jaw off the floor. Got it? OK, then, I'll continue.
When you get down to the nuts and bolts of it, what is a prostitute doing? She…I know men prostitute themselves, too, but definite pronouns are less confusing…She is selling the use of her body for a span of time. Why is that illegal? It's her body. It's not like there isn't legal precedence for it.
Anyone who does physical labor, be it working in a coal mine, building a house, or being a body guard, is selling his body. His physical strength and endurance is an economic asset to himself, his family, and his employer.
Take athletes for example. They sell the use of their highly trained bodies to sports teams. They can be beaten up repeatedly and left with a multitude of lingering physical ailments when they retire. Nobody's arresting them (at least not for what they do for a living). Not only do they sell their bodies for competition, but they also sell themselves as clothing racks. Companies pay millions of dollars for a sports star to wear their logos or their brand.
Athletes aren't the only ones who sell their bodies as advertizements. These days, any ordinary Joe can walk around with an ad for GoldenPalace.com tattooed to his forehead. It's happened. There have even been pregnant women renting out ad space on their extruded abdomens. That's not illegal. It's capitalism.
Let's not forget the quintessential walking billboard, models. In fact, not only are they paid to use their bodies to show off clothing, they're paid to do so with sex appeal. Models use their sexuality as a business asset for themselves and for their employers, something they have in common with prostitutes.
Pornographic models are even more closely related. They're not just selling sexiness, they're selling eroticism. One might even argue that the goal of their work is to assist in bringing about sexual gratification for viewers. We Christians consider pornography vulgar and sinful, and rightly so, but it's quite legal (except under certain extreme circumstances).
What, then, makes prostitution illegal? What's the difference between a guy paying for a dirty magazine, looking at it, and pleasuring himself, and a guy who pays for someone else to arouse and pleasure him? From the preceding, it's clear that the selling of one's body, even for sexual purposes, isn't illegal. Nor is the purchase of goods and services rendered by another body. It must be the sexual act itself.
I suppose one could argue that prostitution detrimentally affects society in the form of broken marriages and the like. Then again, so do spending too much time at work or play, drinking too much, and adultery. When was the last time you saw someone get arrested for any of those?
Maybe prostitution is a public health hazard because prostitutes often carry and spread diseases. Well, there are a hell of a lot of people engaging in consentual unprotected sex and spreading diseases. Are we going to arrest them?
A common arguement is that prostitution is degrading to women. I could list a number of legal things that are degrading to women, but I'll refrain for fear of being mislabeled as sexist. Of course, for a lot of prostitutes, the job goes well beyond degrading when their pimps beat them or otherwise treat them as cheap property. Well, abuse is illegal on its own, so that's a red herring. Besides, this problem, and the health hazards, could be more effectively dealt with if prostitution were legal, which brings me to my next point.
Not only can I find little reason for it to be illegal, I can think of potential benefits of making it legal. In fact, legalization could help alleviate or ameliorate most of the problems mentioned above.
Prostitution's hard work and could permanently damage prostitutes' bodies. OK, give them health insurance. Better yet, force their pimps to pay for their insurance. As it stands, they're working anyway, but without insurance.
I mentioned that people sell themselves as billboards. Well, if prostitution were legal, the possibility of endorsement deals would open up. Condom makers, for instance, could endorse prostitutes. Another possibility would be clothing designers paying for their clothes to be worn on the job. There are other economic benefits, though. As a legal form of employment, prostitution would generate tax revenue through income tax collection.
How about the public health hazard? Well, that can be helped in two ways. The first is that legalization would put prostitutes and pimps into a legal employee-employer relationship that would be regulated by applicable laws concerning fair hiring practices, fair wages, etc. The second would be regulation. Corner hotdog vendors have to have 1) a sales permit that allows them to legally solicit on the premises and 2) a health permit that says that their equipment, methods, and raw materials have been inspected and found to produce safe foodstuffs. Why couldn't the same ideas be applied to prostitution? Permits for solicitation and health code certification could be required. Furthermore, periodic health screenings would help ensure not only the health of the workers, but also their customers.
As legally recognized members of the workforce, prostitutes could unionize. This would give them leverage against their pimps and result in better treatment and probably better pay.
Another considerable benefit of legalization would be spare law enforcement man-hours. If cops didn't have to investigate and arrest, lawyers didn't have to prosecute, and judges didn't have to judge and sentence prostitutes and pimps, they'd be free to pursue other, perhaps more dangerous, criminals.
All in all, the only harm I can see in legalizing prostitution is moral in nature. There are a great number of societal ills, as defined by religious morality, that open acceptance of the practice would cause. Since when is that a reason to make something illegal, though? If it were, there'd be a lot more we're not allowed to do, and we wouldn't be very free people. If, as a country, governed by representatives elected to wield legislative power by the free consent of the governed, we can agree that moral grounds are sufficient to make laws, so be it; prostitution should remain illegal. A corollary to that, though, is that the same moral grounds could justifiably be used to ban abortion and homosexual marriage. If, on the other hand, the electorate decides that moral grounds are insufficient by themselves for legislation, prostitution should be made legal.
Please realize that this post is a long out-loud thought. I'm not irrevocably attached to any of the preceding arguments. I just thought they'd spur interesting conversations. So, dear readers, what are your thoughts on this matter?
Addendum 02/08/06: A certain theme in the comments has convinced me that some clarification is needed. A representative sample:
"I was just aghast that so much ink (or pixels, as the case may be) would be spilled on a Christian website arguing that prostitution should be legal."
If nothing else, it is my hope that a rational debate about this matter would aid in Christians in the pursuit of moral legislation on non-moral grounds. If we could be convinced, and then convince the secular world, that there are good reasons other than divine writ to ban (or maintain bans) on practices like prostitution, we'd be well on our way to formulating and executing more effective plans for getting wholesome legislation passed. Learning how to argue better on secular terms would be an invaluable asset in our efforts to abolish abortion, for instance.
Funky Dung
Comments 73
The arguments that apply to the legalization of homosexual marriage, divorce, abortion, and many other things that Christians would traditionally be opposed to apply equally well to legalization of prostitution and recreational drugs.
That's not to say that any of those things should be legal, however. There is no natural right to do wrong, and in my opinion, legal rights should be based on natural rights.
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 4:42 am ¶First, you must define wrong. You cannot define a right to perform a wrong action, or lack thereof, until there is agreement of what is wrong.
One approach that I deliberately avoided due to lack of education would be to to justify its illegality based on non-religious natural law. I'm totally unequipped to start that argument, though.
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 4:55 am ¶Boy, it's a sad day when you have to explain to a fellow Christian why prostitution should be illegal.
When sex is seen as merely physical pleasure, it becomes commercial. But sex isn't merely physical pleasure: it's an act signifying indissoluble union, and it's the means for transmitting human life. We seem to forget this fact when we treat sex like a chocolate shake to be shared with someone "close", and when we throw up shields like condoms, birth control pills, and abortion. What we try to deny through these acts, though, merely makes more obvious (in a reverse way) what sex is really about.
Bottom line, prostitution is objectively destructive to the human person, period. Like homicide, in a less visible, but no less serious, way. Things which are that objectively and gravely destructive should not be legal.
Why is is that we have lost common sense in our age of enlightenment?
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 5:18 am ¶Adrian, that was a load of conceited crap. And what's more, I think you know it.
You're argument was moralistic, and funky had established a priori that he was disregarding moral arguments.
Furthermore, the Age of Enlightenment was an eighteenth century movement. Even the broadest conception of the term would put a cut off date of 1918.
Furthermore, historically prostitution laws began as nuissance laws. The goal was not to prevent women from selling themselves, but just to prevent them from doing it in places where "descent" people would have to see them.
Also, they've never been that successful. If you want to stop prostitution (on whatever grounds) you'll be far more successful going after the Johns than the prostitutes. Ultimately there's little threat you can hang over the head of someone already selling her body for money. Once case I know of working was that in the 80s Boston had a serious problem with prostitution, so they started giving the name of every single person arrested for soliciting a prostitute to the newspapers. These lists being printed every day put an end to the problem real quick.
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 5:48 am ¶So who said "If you expel prostitution from society, you will unsettle everything on account of lusts"?
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 6:05 am ¶Apparently, St. Augustine did. Interesting.
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 6:19 am ¶"Boy, it's a sad day when you have to explain to a fellow Christian why prostitution should be illegal."
Since I was, as John bluntly pointed out, ignoring moral, and by extension Christian, arguments for the sake of argument, perhaps it's not such a sad day.
"When sex is seen as merely physical pleasure, it becomes commercial. But sex isn't merely physical pleasure: it's an act signifying indissoluble union, and it's the means for transmitting human life. We seem to forget this fact when we treat sex like a chocolate shake to be shared with someone 'close', and when we throw up shields like condoms, birth control pills, and abortion. What we try to deny through these acts, though, merely makes more obvious (in a reverse way) what sex is really about."
That sounds suspiciously like a natural law argument. Kudos for responding to the call. However, I don't think you've made your case. Simply saying sex is more than pleasure and treating it as less than an indissoluble union is wrong (two separate though related, arguments, btw) does not make it so. Humor me, please, and connect the dots. There may be non-Christians reading who might well be educated by your arguments.
"Bottom line, prostitution is objectively destructive to the human person, period. Like homicide, in a less visible, but no less serious, way. Things which are that objectively and gravely destructive should not be legal."
Again, you've begged the question. Please explain in logical terms why it is objectively destruction (without resporting to Scripture or Tradition).
"Why is is that we have lost common sense in our age of enlightenment?"
I assume you mean that I've either lost or always lacked common sense. Gee, that's an awfully nice thing to say from the safety of an comment lacking both email and web address. Since when are drive-by insults part of proper Christian behavior?
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 6:39 am ¶"A common arguement is that prostitution is degrading to women. I could list a number of legal things that are degrading to women, but Ill refrain for fear of being mislabeled as sexist."
So let's completely degrade women in the name of consistency… I don't buy it.
The argument you make is not unlike what the Dutch and Germans have argued, as they have legalized prostitution. That has not prevented the extensive sex slavery where Slavic women are deceived into thinking they can find honest work in the West, only to be kidnapped, raped ("broken in") and sold. Legalizing prostitution, therefore, even in a highly regulated, "enlightened" milieu like Western Europe is no guarantee. A larger, more heterogeneous country like the USA that isn't so welcoming of regulation is certainly going to be even harder. Especially since we have no shortage of illegal immigrants that can get sucked into this (on top of the sex slave rings that we have here, to boot).
In "Salt of the Earth", a book-length interview by Peter Seewald, Ratzinger does acknowledge that position of Augustine, but said that this cannot work well in a modern society since sex can be so pervasive with the media. Where it may have been the lesser of two evils in Augustine's time, it may only further damage the fabric of our society.
Regarding the health aspect: pimps (and even prostitutes in some cases) would have an interest in working even with HIV or Hep C. How frequently would you test them? Weekly? That still gives the "johns" a chance to get infected on Friday by a prostitute who caught a bug on Monday but gets tested on Saturday.
Actually, the "johns" (which is the usual slang for the men who procure prostitution) bring me to the best remedy: go after the guys who get hookers in the first place. Pittsburgh has had an interesting run with doing that. In return for not getting busted on lewd conduct or whatnot (and having to explain to the wife why they got jailed), they must attend a workshop where ex-prostitutes talk about how they got exploited and how prostitution fed the abuse and the drugs that kept them there. I got the impression that it made an impression on some of the fellas.
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 1:34 pm ¶Dear Funky Dung,
I apologize if I seemed off the cuff–I was just aghast that so much ink (or pixels, as the case may be) would be spilled on a Christian website arguing that prostitution should be legal. (Though you have stated you're not irrevocably attached to the argument.) I guess it's a purely intellectual exercise, but to the ungrounded it could be scandalous. Please forgive me if I have been insulting, and thank you for being more gracious in your response than I was in mine. I will attempt to provide a more thorough line of reasoning later today.
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 1:53 pm ¶"So let's completely degrade women in the name of consistency… I don't buy it."
That's not my point at all. I'm merely stating that the argument for illegality cannot depend on degradation since there are lots of legal means of degradation that society seemingly has little or no drive to make illegal. Put more succinctly, there is little or no legal precedent for establishing or maintaining illegality of an action based on its psychological impact. i think abortion is degrading to women, but that's hardly an argument for making it illegal. Rather, I must rely on natural law and medical science to make my case that 1) it can be physically harmful to women and 2) it ends the life of a human person and constitutes murder.
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 3:08 pm ¶Don't apologize, Adrian. It is far from clear whether you've hit hard enough… Funky occasionally drinks too much from the libertarian (enlightenment rationalist) bottle and needs a swift kick in the ass to sober up.
The reason prostitution (and pornography and adultery and fornication and exhorbitant interest rates and unbridled suburban sprawl and excessive fuel consumption and dangerous drugs &c. &c.) should be illegal is that we live in society. The idea that the economic arrangement between the prostitute and the patron is ONLY between them and ONLY affects them is a pure fiction. The transaction affects the families of those contracting for such services. It affects the quality of life in the area where the transaction occurs. Ultimately it affects people completely unknown and unrelated to the participants, since the unhindered provision of such services promises future demand on the part of new consumers and ostensible careers for new service providers.
Society therefore has a stake (a say) in whether prostitution (or any other societal "ill") ought be legal. Reducing the question to a private economic arrangement between consenting participants (which is a rule that Libertarianism applies to everything) makes it SEEM logical to suggest that there is no natural law against prostitution. But the fiction of Libertarianism is that ANY such question can be so reduced. They cannot. The view fails to take seriously the way people actually live, i.e., interdependent, in community, in society.
[/Rant]
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 3:10 pm ¶"I was just aghast that so much ink (or pixels, as the case may be) would be spilled on a Christian website arguing that prostitution should be legal."
If nothing else, it is my hope that a rational debate about this matter would aid in Christians in the pursuit of moral legislation on non-moral grounds. If we could be convinced, and then convince the secular world, that there are good reasons other than divine writ to ban (or maintain bans) on practices like prostitution, we'd be well on our way to formulating and executing more effective plans for getting wholesome legislation passed. Learning how to argue better on secular terms would be an invaluable asset in our efforts to abolish abortion.
Hmm…perhaps I should have made some of these points in the epilogue to the post. I may do that. Thank you for proding me into explaining myself better and, in fact, discovering benefits to this discussion that I had not previosly considered.
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 3:17 pm ¶"Don't apologize, Adrian. It is far from clear whether you've hit hard enough…"
Gee, thanks. With friends like you…
"Funky occasionally drinks too much from the libertarian (enlightenment rationalist) bottle and needs a swift kick in the ass to sober up."
I won't deny needed an occasional boot up the rear (who doesn't?), but *libertarian*? It never ceases to amaze me how when one's beliefs are neither hard left or hard right, they equally reviled by both. I've had conservatives call me a liberal (and spit on the ground as they say so) and liberals call me a conservative (and spit on the ground as they say), but I must say that "libertarian" not a label I've heard applied to me before.
"The reason prostitution (and pornography and adultery and fornication and exhorbitant interest rates and unbridled suburban sprawl and excessive fuel consumption and dangerous drugs &c. &c.) should be illegal is that we live in society."
Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're just opened a new can of worms. You can't just lump all those societal ills together without justification, especially when 1) they were not previously part of the discussion and 2) they are currently legal and in little danger of becoming illegal.
"The idea that the economic arrangement between the prostitute and the patron is ONLY between them and ONLY affects them is a pure fiction. The transaction affects the families of those contracting for such services. It affects the quality of life in the area where the transaction occurs. Ultimately it affects people completely unknown and unrelated to the participants, since the unhindered provision of such services promises future demand on the part of new consumers and ostensible careers for new service providers."
Let us then discuss the effects on society that legalized prostitution would have rather than waving our hands about them. Then, and only then, can we have a meaningful discussion about why those ill effects warrant criminal legislation.
"Society therefore has a stake (a say) in whether prostitution (or any other societal 'ill') ought be legal."
But should civil government be concerned with actively supporting contested societal constructs? I'm not saying it shouldn't, but others might (and not just libertarians, unless the ACLU counts), so I think it's worth discussing.
"Reducing the question to a private economic arrangement between consenting participants (which is a rule that Libertarianism applies to everything) makes it SEEM logical to suggest that there is no natural law against prostitution."
I do not see how libertarians' proclivity for resorting to that hackneyed argument makes natural law arguments seem illogical. I was unaware that liberatarians considered themselves immune to natural law arguments. Please explain.
"But the fiction of Libertarianism is that ANY such question can be so reduced. They cannot. The view fails to take seriously the way people actually live, i.e., interdependent, in community, in society."
This is true, but one could argue that civil government is not the appropriate arbiter and protector of social constructs and relationships and that other aspects of societal leadership, religion for instance, should bear that responsibility. No society is entirely homogenous and the larger it is, the less likely is to be even close to homogenous. I think here the notion of subsidiarity might come into play. The lowest level (that is, the one that manages the fewest number of people) that can effectively maintain and protect societal interests should be the one that is employed. IOW, civil government, at least at the federal level, should not be busied with enforcing norms and mores that could be more effectively and uniformly enforced by leadership at a lower level. I'm not saying I agree with that argument entirely, but I think it's worth discussing.
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 4:09 pm ¶Not necessarily a logical or rational argument, but how about:
Because we don't want our daughters to feel like selling their bodies for sex is merely another 'enlightened career choice'?
Because in places where prostitution is legal in Europe, a woman can be kicked off unemployment for refusing to take an available job in the 'sex-industry' no matter how personally repugnant or morally distasteful she considers that job to be? Given the US government's predilection for removing everyone possible from public assistance, I don't think it would be any different here.
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 6:01 pm ¶Dear Funky Dung,
From your comments, I understand better now your intent, which is cause for some relief on my part. Nevertheless, I have attempted to summarize what I believe to be the error of your argument.
I find the argument you have laid out to be very inhuman, removing the human from the reality of their identity, and then asking why something is contrary to this commercialized identity.
First off, to divorce laws from morals is a false starting point. Laws are by nature about what a society considers right and wrong, just and unjust. Laws are about the relations between humans, and humans are moral actors. As such, trying to reason why a law exists while not relying on morals, is like asking a man to stand up without using his legs. So the question is not so much whether you can legislate morality, but what morality can be legislated.
Nor do i think morality is the sole domain of the Christian. Human experience and reason illuminate for us certain truths. We may not always agree on all of them, but there are certain ones we hold in common that form a basis for our society. These laws are observable from nature ('we hold these truths to be self-evident').
Political laws form the outer boundaries within which civil society can exist. They're not so much prescriptive as punitive; the presumption being that if you break a law, you are sufficiently outside the bounds of what is considered the common good as to place yourself and/or others in a grave jeopardy (such as speeding on a highway).
Why is it that, in the name of reason, we often fail to see what is openly in front of us? Is it that much in question whether prostitution is bad? Do not the motivations that lead to prostitution, the clandestine nature in which the act is committed, and the observable effects of the practice on people and society, sufficiently mark it as destructive? Sorta like controlled substances. There's a point after which it is clearly evident that a thing is gravely destructive to the human, and a society which promotes the common good ordered to the elevation of the human, free though it may be, should not permit it, and indeed punish it (the appropriate punishment being an altogether different topic).
To summarize, prostitution should be illegal because it is objectively destructive on the order of severe. Said differently, it is in no way good, and the degree of its bad is grave.
I know I have argued strenously here, but my intent is not to be overbearing, but rather as succint as I can without sacrificing clarity for couched phraseology. Please pardon any inadequacies.
Your servant,
Adrian
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 6:06 pm ¶"Because in places where prostitution is legal in Europe, a woman can be kicked off unemployment for refusing to take an available job in the 'sex-industry' no matter how personally repugnant or morally distasteful she considers that job to be? Given the US government's predilection for removing everyone possible from public assistance, I don't think it would be any different here."
That's an excellent point. Thanks.
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 6:20 pm ¶At some points you seem to be saying "we can't prevent all degradation, so let's legalize all degradation!" That's a foolish consistency.
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 6:28 pm ¶"From your comments, I understand better now your intent, which is cause for some relief on my part."
Good.
"First off, to divorce laws from morals is a false starting point. Laws are by nature about what a society considers right and wrong, just and unjust. Laws are about the relations between humans, and humans are moral actors. As such, trying to reason why a law exists while not relying on morals, is like asking a man to stand up without using his legs. So the question is not so much whether you can legislate morality, but what morality can be legislated."
I agree, and I have argued similarly against "don't impose your morals on my uterus" types. There is a fundamental flaw in that line of reasoning, though. Who defines morality? Should laws only pertain to those rights and wrongs that are nearly universally agreed to or should a mere plurality or majority of the electorate be allowed determine right and wrong for the remainder?
"Nor do i think morality is the sole domain of the Christian. Human experience and reason illuminate for us certain truths. We may not always agree on all of them, but there are certain ones we hold in common that form a basis for our society."
Those would presumably fall into the category of natural law. So, I ask again, what are the natural law arguments against prostitution?
"These laws are observable from nature ('we hold these truths to be self-evident')."
How would legalized prostitution be contrary to the pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of hapiness?
"Political laws form the outer boundaries within which civil society can exist. They're not so much prescriptive as punitive; the presumption being that if you break a law, you are sufficiently outside the bounds of what is considered the common good as to place yourself and/or others in a grave jeopardy (such as speeding on a highway)."
While there are notable exceptions, I agree with the broad strokes of this argument. However, you have not explained why prostitution should be considered to be "out of bounds".
"Why is it that, in the name of reason, we often fail to see what is openly in front of us? Is it that much in question whether prostitution is bad?"
I could say the same for a great many things, including sex outside of marriage, but the laws against that are either gone or not enforced. To be bad is insufficient for a ban. An action must be very bad, and you have not explained why it is very bad.
"Do not the motivations that lead to prostitution, the clandestine nature in which the act is committed, and the observable effects of the practice on people and society, sufficiently mark it as destructive?"
No. I could say the same things about pornography and casual sex, which remain legal.
"To summarize, prostitution should be illegal because it is objectively destructive on the order of severe. Said differently, it is in no way good, and the degree of its bad is grave."
Saying so does not make it so. Please humor me and logically demonstrate why it is objectively bad. Imagine you're arguing your point in Congress.
"Please pardon any inadequacies."
Only if you pardon mine.
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 6:37 pm ¶"At some points you seem to be saying 'we can't prevent all degradation, so let's legalize all degradation!' That's a foolish consistency."
No. I'm merely saying that just because an activity is degrading doesn't necessarily mean that it should be illegal. If all degrading activities were made illegal, there'd be no White House press secretaries or mimes.
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 6:39 pm ¶Dear Funky Dung,
Boy, you drive a hard line.
Tangentially, it seems odd to me that you did not comment on the part of my post where I think I came closest to answering your question. (middle of the sixth paragraph: "There's a point after which…")
Also, I don't see a flaw in the "it's not a question of whether to legislate morality, but rather what morality should be legislated" argument, as much as a struggle which is characteristic of the human experience every day and in every age. It would be folly to wait for one of these moral truths to be universal before legislating it ('cause we humans can never all seem to agree on one thing at the same time), thus the rule of the majority provides a remedy. But I see great wisdom in the balancing principle of our system of self-government which places emphasis on the respect of minority rights. This question interests me greatly, but we'll need to set it aside for the time being.
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 7:34 pm ¶An activity that is degrading to public morals should be illegal. There mere fact that pornography and adultery luxury SUVs are legal, doesn't imply that some other vice should also be legal. There is no guarantee of equal rights for vices, either in natural or positive law AFAIK. If you wanna vice, go get yourself a nice legal one… like smoking!
You're point about regulation at the appropriate governmental level is a good one. But when I advocate government action (prohibition), I am not (God forbid!) automatically advocating Federal action. In fact, this is where I usually agree with Libertarians, that regulation should be applied (when it is applied at all) at the lowest practical level of government.
To wit, prostitution is NOT illegal in America, i.e., there is no federal law banning it. It IS illegal in 49 states. If you want to make it illegal at the local government level, I'm fine with that…
But I'm not fine with making it legal… at any level. We live with a tense and uneasy and perhaps thin majority of people who are now opposed to it. Their will should trump, not merely because they are the ones who will inherit a society further degraded by such practices, but because the moral reasoning of the vast majority of people is so weak that legalization (or decriminalization) of prostitution will lead many of that thin majority to take up the yet more damnable Personally-Opposed-But… view.
And that is, I think, what you're advocating here: I'm personally opposed but… You better get busy having some kids who will have to grow up in such a world. That'll change your mind!
And Eric, you need to stop with this left, right, middle thing. They are meaningless terms. You ought to know that, and you ought resist thinking in such terms. The view you're espousing here is CLASSIC libertarianism (except for the Hookers' Union part). I'm not calling YOU a libertarian, but merely this particular argument. It is a natural outgrowth of social contract (rationalist enlightenment) theory. If you enshrine protection of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" as the sole purpose of government, then, yes, there is no argument to be made against legalized prostitution (as long as no one "gets hurt"). But if you enshrine such principles, then you are very American and very mainstream and very libertarian… AND you're also not thinking straight at all, instead hoodwinked by America's own set of noble lies.
So your error here is not in finding no argument in late liberal democratic (i.e., Locke & Jefferson, not Kerry and Hillary) thinking against legalized prostitution, but in accepting late liberal democratic thinking in the first place.
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 10:12 pm ¶Someone might want to check on the "have to take a job as a hooker" bit. Originally, it got media play that way, but it turned out the original report was incorrect. Darned if I remember how it actually went, and I can't find it on Google.
I say legalize prostitution, but let OSHA set the workplace rules.
Think about it….
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Posted 08 Feb 2006 at 10:21 pm ¶Eric:
"non-religious natural law?"
WTF?
There is only Natural Law. . . it's neither religious nor irreligious.
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Posted 09 Feb 2006 at 5:58 am ¶Perhaps my wording was poor, but I meant the same as you've said. I'm interested in natural law arguments because they are areligious. I'm interested in talking about social order issues, and ultimately morality, outside of a strict Judeo-Christian context. Since so many these days are keen on running our government in an entirely secular manner , I'd like to know how to discuss morality in law without resorting to religion. I'm thinking along the lines of the beginning of "Mere Christianity". Know what I mean?
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Posted 09 Feb 2006 at 12:43 pm ¶Well, after those several pages of comments, I have $0.02 to add as well. Some of my points were hinted at or even briefly noted, so forgive me for any repetition.
First, there's been a lot of discussion on the topic of "natural law". I had my own idea of what that
means, but it didn't seem to make sense with the discussion, so I looked it up. I found about 30 definitions, many very different from the others. Some based on the concept of a God, others on nature, some on moral theory, and others still on rationality.
In my humble opinion, natural law is only the basic laws which must form for a society of any size to function. For example, random wanton murder is naturally outlawed, because one would expect that if it were commonplace, folks would begin to band together for protection in small groups, outlawing such a practice amongst themselves, then forming larger groups for protection against other small groups, and so-on, and so-forth.
Frankly, however, I think its easier to look at the basis of the law. In Pennsylvania (I know the discussion is broader than PA law, but I think you can extend my point), if I recall my history lessons, a lot of the laws are based on the Puritans who settled here. I don't see anything immoral about selling liquor on Sunday, yet it is illegal. In fact, until the mid-70's it was illegal for any business (with a few exceptions) to be open for business on a Sunday. If you ask me, the Jews got screwed on this one…no business Saturday or Sunday! That's precisely the reason why I think its very dangerous to legislate morality based on a single religious value system.
This is where pluralism comes in pretty handy, rather than majority rule. Think of it this way, if some religious moral systems had the majority in PA, it would be illegal to kill a cow. I don't think that's right either. I mean, tacos made with ground turkey are okay, but they just don't taste as good as beef.
Its not enough to say, think of the effect of prostitution on families either. By that argument, a number of other things that are perfectly legal are not, including adultery, poor spending habits, and general disrespect. The last of which is actually protected in one form in the US constitution as freedom of speech!
Frankly, our laws are quite inconsistent when it comes to legislating morality with regard to vices. Leisure drugs are outlawed…except for alcohol and caffeine. Sex for money is illegal, but not sex for fun, or sex for non-monetary favors.
I guess the reality of the situation is status-quo and politics. No lawmaker who wants to get votes is going to recommend legalizing prostitution. Similarly, none would outlaw alchohol (especially after what happened last time!). Right now, it might be very popular for some politicians to outlaw gay marriage, so the laws may go on the books. Over the next few decades, sentiment may shift, such that it would not be popular to create the same laws, yet it would take an incredibly compelling reason to attempt to remove them.
In my estimation, that status quo reasoning is why we see so many "moral" laws that don't seem to fit today (I'm not arguing that prostitution doesn't fit). This is part of the reason why it is so dangerous to create such laws.
I like that this law exists. It works for me. That doesn't make it right. My moral compass tells me prostitution is bad. It also tells me missing church on Sunday is bad. If I legislate one, should I not legislate the other?
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Posted 09 Feb 2006 at 3:22 pm ¶Thank you x 1000, Lightwave. In essense, you've restated most of my points in clear and concise language. That status quo thing is a nice addition, too. It's something that was kind of implicit in my original thoughts on this matter. I (for reasons unknown to me) suddenly found myself questioning a law that had been unquestioned (at least in the public forums I encounter) for a very long time. When I tried to understand why the law existed, the answer wasn't so clear.
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Posted 09 Feb 2006 at 4:19 pm ¶There is a natural law argument against prostitution, but the idea that "natural law" is amoral or irreligious is crazy. The entire idea of "law" (whether natural OR positive) can never but be an expression of morality. Take the "morality" or "religious aspects" out of natural law, you excise any and all notion of "law", and you're left with only a flaccid strip of "natural" in your hand.
Now Christian thinkers have long held that the "social" portions of the decalogue are natural. By way of proof, what society in the history of the world has even held societal norms that flatly contradict it? No society, save late (and increasingly doomed) liberal democracies, has ever held that anyone, anywhere can do whatever they want, as long as no one gets hurt. What could be more unnatural than that?
Natural law arguments can also be applied against contraception, abortion, usury, &c. Corruption of public morals (i.e., most people don't want themselves or others to behave a certain way) is a perfectly valid natural law argument. QED.
The problem here, Eric, is that our nation does not accept, nor has it ever really accepted natural law as a basis for its positive law. America is founded on Locke's social contract theory, which suggests (stupidly) that in a state of nature all men are free and equal, and may therefore be expected to rationally bargain with each other in a mutually advantageous way. Paine said it best:
Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.
These are key formative principles of the American republic. (And I don't think I need to point out that they are thoroughly pagan. This is not to say that paganism is necessarily bad. Christianity owes an enormous debt to quite a few pagans, reformed and otherwise.) And as formative principles, "noble lies" I called them above, they are accepted uncritically by the vast, vast majority of Americans as being not merely true, but self-evident. Of course they are neither, but that doesn't stop them from being remarkably successful in governing a pluralistic society. But most importantly, Locke and Paine, and by extension, most truly American political thought, makes no room for natural law, the idea that positive laws are founded on some great unchanging principles built into the cosmos. Instead, positive law as an end in itself is founded merely upon rational, presumed egalitarian, contractarian behaviors of free people.
With this presupposition THERE IS NO rational argument against prostitution in principle. If it can be guaranteed that no one gets "hurt" or "exploited" or it presents no hazard to "public health", you cannot appeal to anything above the contract between "consenting adults". I.e., no one can rationally interfere with the social bargainers' "pursuit of happiness".
So Eric, this is your acheivement in this post: You have proved that given sufficient safeguards, and founded on the sole principle of contractarian (economic) social relationships, there is no argument against legalized prostitution. Two words: No duh! One more word: Nevada!!
So the problem here is that we, as Christians, as believers in transcendant goods that may (or may NOT) be rationally negotiated via social contract, cannot accept social contract as the basis (or at least not the primary basis) for positive law. If you do, you have already capitulated, the fight is over… let's go crawl into our catacombs.
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Posted 09 Feb 2006 at 4:28 pm ¶"So Eric, this is your acheivement in this post: You have proved that given sufficient safeguards, and founded on the sole principle of contractarian (economic) social relationships, there is no argument against legalized prostitution. Two words: No duh! One more word: Nevada!!"
1) Who pissed in your Cheerios, dude? There's no reason to be a jerk about this.
2) I think I've achieved a whole lot more. I've learned more about subject, like natural law, that I didn't understand. I hope to continue learning. I also hope others have learned something. I'm sorry this is all so bloody boring and of common sense to you, but it isn't for everyone.
3) I greatly appreciate your contributions regarding Locke, et al., because I no nothign of that stuff, not being a student of political science, philosophy, or American history. I would be very interested if you composed a post about how Christians go about working effectively within the confines of a government founded on social contract principles.
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Posted 09 Feb 2006 at 4:53 pm ¶BTW, if someone could clear up what natural law really is, I'd be thrilled. As Lightwave pointed out, there are a ton of definitions and we don't seem to be agreeing on one in this forum.
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Posted 09 Feb 2006 at 4:54 pm ¶Funky, I hope you know me well enough to know that I dole out slaps in the face with the deepest charity…
It is not that I think this is boring, nor that it is obvious, but that it is a very old, classical argument between classical conservatism and libertarianism, the latter being the overwhelming reigning political philosophy in America (think lotto). My alarm is from observing that you seem to assume the presuppositions of the "wrong" (the Whig) side. If I didn't think you were redeemable, I wouldn't waste ASCII chars. See Michael Brendan's excellent posts on Markets and Morality here, and then here to followup. He's got a few good references, too.
Cheers!
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Posted 09 Feb 2006 at 6:18 pm ¶More critique of late liberal democratic capitalism from Houellebecq (not exactly your Sunday School teacher)…
Just like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reasons, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperisation. Some men make love every day; others five or six times in their life, or never. Some make love with dozens of women; others with none. Its whats known as the law of the market. In an economic system where unfair dismissal is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their place. In a sexual system where adultery is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their bed mate. In a totally liberal economic system, certain people accumulate considerable fortunes; others stagnate in unemployment in misery. In a totally liberal sexual system, certain people have a varied and exciting erotic life; others are reduced to masturbation and solitude. Economic liberalism is an extension of the domain of the struggle, its extension to all ages and all classes of society. Sexual liberalism is likewise an extension of the domain of the struggle, its extension to all ages and all classes of society.
The review goes on to note that from Houellebecq's (deformed yet remarkably lucid) perspective,
Actionists, beatniks, hippies and serial killers were all pure libertarians who advanced the rights of the individual against social norms and against what they believed to be the hypocrisy of morality, sentiment, justice and pity. From this point of view, Charles Manson was not some monstrous aberration in the hippy movement, but its logical conclusion.
Mmmmm…. good stuff!
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Posted 09 Feb 2006 at 10:16 pm ¶I'm not going to tackle every one of your points, Steve, for fear of getting too far off track. I will, however, highlight this:
"An activity that is degrading to public morals should be illegal. There mere fact that pornography and adultery luxury SUVs are legal, doesn't imply that some other vice should also be legal. There is no guarantee of equal rights for vices, either in natural or positive law AFAIK. If you wanna vice, go get yourself a nice legal one… like smoking!"
and
"Natural law arguments can also be applied against contraception, abortion, usury, &c."
You've repeatedly referenced activities that are in no danger of becoming illegal. If you've going to lump prostitution, an activity illegal in 49 of 50 states, in with legal activities, the burden is on you to 1) explain what makes them similar and 2) why they should all be illegal.
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Posted 09 Feb 2006 at 10:43 pm ¶You've repeatedly referenced activities that are in no danger of becoming illegal. If you've going to lump prostitution, an activity illegal in 49 of 50 states, in with legal activities, the burden is on you to 1) explain what makes them similar and 2) why they should all be illegal.
1) they corrupt public morals;
2) things that corrupt public morals should be illegal.
I don't mean to be snarky. It really is that simple in my mind (Romans 13). I realize it's an uphill battle, that is to say, where it's a battle at all. Look, I'm not a short-term optimist. The Western World really is going to hell in a hand-basket, and there's really not much (at this late date, roughly a 1/4 of a millenium after the fact) that we can do about it. Of course, we should do what we can… bravely living contrarian (i.e., godly) lives, bravely holding our pinkies in the dike-n-all, but I think things'll get a whole lot worse before they get better, in the post-oil, post-choice, post-autonomous, post-therapeutic, post-apocalyptic renaissance. (the POPCPAPTPAR for short! ;-))
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Posted 09 Feb 2006 at 10:57 pm ¶I think a feminist argument would say that to make prostitution gives women more bargaining power in their relationships with me since they ultimately control when a man can have sex(this is a fair amount of power given that men want to have sex much more frequently than women do.).
I'd argue for prostitution remaining legal on the grounds of promoting greater equality between the sexes. If poor women turn to prostitution out of desperation, there are better ways to help them out than making prostitution legal. I agree about focusing on johns for the purpose of prevention of prostitution.
One can argue also that even though it is impossible to end prostitution that having it be illegal sends an important signal socially that sex is not a commodity. In this world of ours where regions that have lax views on sex are suffering greatly from the AIDS virus, this is an important message to have. I know that in Thailand, paying to have sex with a prostitute is viewed at the same level as buying a coke and a father would take his son to visit a prostitute to teach him about sex.
Lastly, sexual intercourse tends to cause an obsession that is not healthy, consider the film "The Story of Adele H", which is based on the true story of how Victor Hugo's daughter went against her family's wishes to chase after the British soldier that had seduced her and ends up frittering away her sanity trying to make him love her. It's extreme, but the danger of sexual intercourse leading to obsession, crimes of passion, or even just addiction are good reasons to set the cultural rules of the game to discourage males from being able to have sex whenever they feel like it and can afford it.
Another good movie on this theme is "The Decline of the American Empire". It's a French Quebec film and explores thoroughly how the secular permissive approach to sex is unfulfilling, with many being hurt as sex no longer serves as the bond of marriage in a family.
dlw
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Posted 10 Feb 2006 at 3:19 am ¶Natural law is traditionally thought of as more than simply an ethical or legal explanatory device; it is a thing which exists absolutely. Voltaire defines natural law as "the instinct which makes us feel justice." He defines as "just and unjust" that which "appears such (just and unjust) to the entire universe." The problem I see with this Enlightenment formulation of natural law is that, because one is made to "feel justice" in a particular situation doesn't mean that justice objectively exists in that context.
A less "enlightened" concept of natural law should, I think, capture better the absolute immanence of natural law, not only an immanence within man, but within all things. The correct way to think of the beneficial impact of natural law in its application to ethics, I believe (though I invite correction), is in an appeal to metaphysics.
Aristotle explains that one achieves eudaimonia (something between "happiness" and "fulfillment") through an actuation of one's form. One actuates one's form through perfect obedience to natural law.
This is why we say that all things are ordered toward a certain end; natural law is written on the essence (or form) of every substance. (Ordered = obedient to natural law; disordered = disobedient to natural law.)
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Posted 10 Feb 2006 at 4:16 am ¶"1) they corrupt public morals;"
How so? Don't beg the question. Humor us poor simpletons.
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Posted 10 Feb 2006 at 12:20 pm ¶Tom, thanks for the info. For some time I've thought that natural law was something Thomistic, and therefore not distinct for religious moral arguments.