Well, let’s remember that all law establishes morality [bold mine-DL]. That’s what law does. The law of speeding is saying that it’s immoral to go at 85 miles an hour. The morality is that we have established a 65-mile-an-hour limit. So that’s what all law does: It establishes that it is wrong for me to murder you. ~Mike Huckabee
Via Ambinder
Set aside for the moment the crazy idea that speeding is immoral. If we take Huckabee’s remarks as they stand, he seems to be saying that it would not be immoral to murder someone unless the law says so, which makes his opposition to abortion rather puzzling. Surely legalised abortion stands out for pro-lifers as a prime example of how law and morality do not coincide and how law can be turned to perverse ends. A few moments earlier he was mocking a federalist position on abortion and marriage as a kind of moral relativism, yet according to him “all law establishes morality,” which would have to mean, everything else being equal, that one state statute is as good as another. Since he claims that “all law establishes morality,” by what standard would he judge the justice of any particular law? The inevitable conclusion of Huckabeean morality is that coercive power has to be made as far-reaching and uniform as possible to “establish” the same morality in as many places as possible. On the national stage, it would lead to a call for consolidation and homogenisation, and on the world stage it has to lead eventually to a call for global government. Think about what this says about Huckabee’s understanding of the relationship between coercive power and morality. I will grant that law can codify or enforce moral norms, but the idea that law establishes morality, which makes the public authority the source of moral law, is such a heinous and blasphemous idea that I can scarcely believe that it comes from a preacher. He makes it clear that he believes that morality is purely conventional:
So if I go over that law and murder you anyway, then society is going to punish me because I have violated a moral code, which we have all agreed to [bold mine-DL].
In short, Huckabee holds absolutist positions on life that are entirely inconsistent with his understanding of morality. “We” are not all agreed that abortion is immoral, yet according to the standard that Huckabee has set up here it will not be immoral until and unless a law criminalises it. This is a strange conflation of illegality and immorality that seems to leave no room for a moral critique of the state’s actions and no basis for conscientious dissent against immoral government policies.
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November 27th, 2007 at 1:26 am
kranza
Well, maybe he’s this crazy but it could be he’s just trying to say highfaluting thinky things about Law and Justice but he doesn’t know how so it comes out rather senseless. Maybe. It is more likely that he’s crazy, I admit.
I would get into how this little philosphy of his squares with his belief that our immigration laws are immoral but I’m afraid the incongruity of it all could make my head explode.
November 27th, 2007 at 7:32 am
ducinaltum
Oh come on, ease up a bit brother.
I don’t think that’s what he was saying that at all.
My impression is that he was saying that all law is inherently based on “morality” to mean, the projection of values. I assume he said this to counter the very dreary and oft-spoken rant of leftists, ie “don’t shove your morality down my throat through law”.
I don’t imagine that he holds the belief you infer: namely that all laws are moral or the inverse.
Or that something doesn’t become “moral” (ie banning abortion) until it is enshrined in law.
Perhaps he was a bit inelegant with using “moral” instead of “morality” but he has nothing like your way with words.
November 27th, 2007 at 8:21 am
Daniel Larison
If that’s what he meant, he said it entirely wrong. I would be glad to think that he didn’t mean what he said. But the man is an ordained minister and a preacher. He has some training in how to use language, and he has presumably given at least some thought to the relationship between law and morality during his career, so I am not persuaded that he just flubbed his lines. He said that morality is based in conventional agreement and established through law. I would like to know how many of the people who liked him so much at the Values Voters Summit would agree with that statement. It’s a striking thing for the self-proclaimed “Christian leader” to say, regardless of whether he was clumsy in his expression or not.
November 27th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Leonard
I picture Huckabee at the wheel, trying to hold it to 65 as all the traffic whips by him. Sinners, sinners, they’re all sinners oh Lord. Save us from the sodomites of the road! He goes down a hill and notices a cop with someone pulled over. Good! Thank you oh Lord for hearing my prayer. God bless the highway patrol!
But righteously intent on the necessary humiliation of a sinner, Huck has not been paying attention. He looks down and is horrified to see the needle on the speedometer at 67 mile an hour! Oh Lord help me!!
November 27th, 2007 at 9:48 am
M.Z. Forrest
There’s a lot going on there. I would like to say that whenever we establish a law we make a moral choice - and this isn’t a perfect construct either - was what he was attempting to say. I’m afraid there is more of an Enlightenment ideal present, the idea of being a covenant people. I’m not familiar enough with his theology to offer broad commentary. There are some serious cohesion issues there.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:47 am
kevinjjones
Sure, Huckabee displays a sloppy confusion between malum prohibitum and malum in se, but his answer was a tedious response to a tedious cliche.
Huckabee’s dodge of the federalism question was more notable, I think.
November 27th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
James Kabala
I have always assumed that speeding and similar actions like jaywalking, running a red light, or parking in a no-parking zone were venial sins in most cases, although they could be justified in certain circumstances. (I frequently have to deal with “push the button for a walk sign” intersections where the walk sign takes ages to go on even after the button is pushed, and if the coast is clear I usually just go for it.) Why wouldn’t laws against these actions be regarded as covered by Romans 13:1?