For Democratic Reasons, Only People's' Representatives in Parliament Should Make Controversial Moral Choices for Society: A Discussion

There is an argument that the government has the power and right to change laws and represent people without necessarily having to be elected. This can also be known as ‘Democratic deficit’. An example of democratic deficit is the House of Lords. The members in the House of Lords aren’t elected but they get to make laws and represent the people. The members in House of Lords are usually given their seats hereditarily so many people found it unfair that they’re not elected into the Parliament but they can make decisions and laws

The current approach by the legal system seems to be that the law should maintain a common morality, based on traditional, ‘common-good’ values, as embraced by Devlin . This might flow from criticism against the liberalizing values of the Wolfenden report. Cases like Shaw v DPP and Knuller v DPP made use of the offence of conspiracy to corrupt public morals (previously not been applied since the 19th century) and beckoned that the law would conceive to uphold society’s ‘moral values’ consistent with Devlin’s school of thought. This approach has continious, as the recent case of R v Brown (1994) illustrates. The defendants had voluntarily consented to varied sado-masochistic practices, and none of them complained to the police. Nevertheless, they were prosecuted, and both the House of Lords and also the European Court of Human Rights, supported public policy to defend the morality of society, upheld their convictions. The law is therefore seen to attempt to uphold what it considers to be public morality, even though

“Hence it is that such democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

Utilitarianism’s believe in that only the outcomes matter when it comes to decisions and morality, however, those outcomes can also be questioned. Mill forms the framework of utilitarianism by discussing it in a way that makes assumptions; these objections can also be questioned against also.

Criminal law is a construct of the government, enforced through tangible measures. In a democratic society, the government is elected by the citizens, and as such, laws are generally conceived with the aim to reflect whatever ethical or moral standards are presently acceptable. However, in order to be truly effective, some legislation must circumvent current sociological viewpoints in order to create laws that are genuinely in the best interests of society. This results in a delicate balancing act, as lawmakers attempt to weigh the views of the majority against the need for laws to be both reasoned and objective.

If our secondary principles are prone to revision and even deletion then either Mill is an act-utilitarian who allows use of rules that tend to maximize utility to guide our action on simple, or at least morally commonplace, decisions but holds the ultimate test of moral rightness to be the application of the Utilitarian Principle to actions; or he is a rule-utilitarian that says the criteria for determining rightness of action may be wrong, revised, or discarded.

The implementation of these laws are very significant as they are the foundation of a nation or a society. Therefore, whoever violates these laws and opposes the social order of that society must be deemed guilty and must be punished. For Kant, punishment is retribution in its legal form. John Stuart Mill as well supported the capital punishment but his view is different from Immanuel Kant. According to Mill, the death penalty is instrumental in a society, and it is the least cruel mode of punishment to deter crimes. Mill believed the severity of a punishment is intended to cause fear, therefore preventing crimes. Therefore, both the theory of utilitarianism and deontology permit capital punishment to be morally

Moreover Devlin asserts that moral legislation is crucial to maintain a social bond. He maintains that society has a right to protect its own existence by barring behavior that threatens that existence. This is distinctly divergent from Mill's perceptions on paternalism.

Universal suffrage is said to be immoral as it causes imbalance on the power of voters. Hudson (2012) believes a neighbor's money is his personal money. Therefore, only the owner of the money gets to 'vote' where the money ought to be used it. This proves social injustice among those who fund the government. Because the case is no different in government where only those who contribute in public treasury out to have the moral obligation to decide on how the funds is to be used. This policy argues for the natural order where men with property had the right to represent in parliament as to protect and represent their asset. Similarly, the same principle of representation applies to limiting suffrage rights to taxpayers who pay taxes to fund the

Utilitarianism, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, states that the morality of an action should be judged based on the extent to which it produces happiness, or the opposite of happiness—an action is good as long as the result is happiness, and deemed bad if it results in pain. A clearer understanding of what Utilitarianism is can be gained by John Stuart Mill’s characterization of what it is not. He states, “I believe that the very imperfect notion ordinarily formed of its meaning, is the chief obstacle which impedes its reception; and that could it be cleared, even from only the grosser misconceptions, the question would be greatly simplified, and a large proportion of its difficulties removed” (Mill, 2007, p. 4). In defining Utilitarianism, Mill dispels common misconceptions that are held about Utilitarianism in order to give the reader a clearer understanding of the doctrine and the rationales that support it.

Before Mill could analyse the concepts of Utilitarianism his first action was to break down any barriers that caused people to turn away from its insights. All actions exist as a means to promote a particular end; thus an action may only be deemed right or wrong based on the desired outcome of said action. If the sought out ends cause suffering towards others, the actions will be considered to have been bad; just the same as if an end causes happiness, the actions that caused this result will be deemed as good. Therefore, having a standard as to how humans can be judged between good and bad is necessary. Mill argues that “particular truth precedes general theory” (p. 2), unlike the rules of applicable sciences we know of, ethics demands ‘general laws’ in order for

Freedom is a necessary principle to abide by in order for the human race to function. On the other hand, freedom can be taken advantage of, thus resulting in harmful consequences to those directly and indirectly involved. The article, “On Liberty” by John S. Mills, places emphasis on the functioning of individual liberty and its co-existence with society. Mills stresses the limits of individual liberty through what is famously known as his Harm Principle: "the only purpose for which power may be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant" (Cahn). With special consideration placed on drug use and free

“The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable.”

In Hart’s eyes, though there may be a congruence between law and morality, it is by no means a necessary connection. (Hart, DATE)

“Democratic laws generally tend to promote the welfare of the greatest possible number; for they emanate from the majority of the citizens, who are subject to error, but who cannot have an interest opposed to