Summary Of Patrick Devlin On The Enforcement Of Morals

In Patrick Devlin’s The Enforcement of Morals he asks three questions. “Does society have the right to pass judgment on matters of morals? Do they have the right to enforce it using the law? And what principles should it distinguish?” (Devlin 1965, 377) I support Devlin’s answers to these questions as I believe society has the right to enforce public morality. Public morality “refers to moral and ethical standards enforced in a society by law, police work or social pressure” (Wikipedia). It is also known as something that “every right-minded person would accept as valid” (Devlin 1965, 381). Social pressure can lead to enforcement by law or remain even with the law in place increasing ethical standards. The law is the minimum of ethics, it acts …show more content…
Society has adopted ideas that have become social norms in which we depend upon. Devlin’s example using marriage is perfect as at a point and time the “reasonable man” unanimously adopted the Christian idea of marriage. Adultery is publically immoral because the “reasonable man” thought of it as an “evil” allowing monogamy to be deemed a “good” and the right way of life. Marriage would not exist if it was not for the immorality associated with adultery, as the common morality holds together the institution of marriage. If we imagine marriage does not exist, what changes? With adulterous behavior accepted our parents never wed and we live with one while seeing the other occasionally or not at all. Two-parent homes still make up the majority of families in the world. If marriage did not exist, single parent homes would be the norm as childbearing would still occur but there would not be the same social pressure to be there for your family. Children from single parent homes have twice the dropout and incarceration rate and are more likely to develop a drug dependency (Stevens 2011). There would be less structure in homes and the children would suffer just as their parent assumedly did before them. I am not sure this would result in an anarchical disintegration from society but our society would be far worse off than we are when structure is in place. There would be a greater sense of hostility …show more content…
If the “reasonable man” is our chief decision maker on issues of public morality we need to designate who that is. The majority is not enough as it would not “strike the balance between the rights and interests of society and those of the individual” (Devlin 1965, 381). But nothing will ever change if a unanimous vote is required, so states must set a basis on what their “reasonable man” is, a percentage that satisfies their qualifications. This November in Florida there was a vote to legalize medical marijuana with 57% approval yet it was voted down as it did not reach the required 60 percent (Barro 2014). In Florida, 60 percent is their “reasonable man”, a number that satisfies their people as at least that amount does not see the immorality and even more may concur yet not support legalization for a different reason. This is how Florida interprets the “reasonable man”; a “right-minded” person according to Florida would not tolerate marijuana legalization as valid. In this situation society is exploring lightening their restriction on marijuana because the enforcement of the laws against it became dated morally as more research was conducted. The “reasonable man” used to take that uncertainty as a threat to society, but now that society’s stigma has adjusted states are beginning to take it out of