Last week, Damon Linker listed the “3 best arguments against legalizing pot – and why they all fail.” His main point:
As with the lightning-fast evolution of the country on gay marriage, the change in judgments about pot use has been accomplished because of the rise of moral libertarianism. Americans increasingly believe that individuals should be free to engage in behavior that harms no one besides the person who consensually chooses to engage in it, especially when the harm is either minimal or wrapped up with traditionalist religious convictions that (supposedly) have no business being backed up by law and the coercive power of the state. Once the solvent of moral libertarianism is applied to just about any contrary argument, that argument’s cogency dissolves right before our eyes.
And then we are left with an absence of reasons not to engage in behavior that was once presumed to be both immoral and justifiably illegal.
Noah Millman responds:
[W]hat is Linker referring to when he talks about “behavior that was once presumed to be both immoral and justifiably illegal.” What, exactly, is immoral about smoking pot as such?
I can only understand that view within a framework according to which a wide variety of other worldly pleasures – drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, probably even wearing fancy clothes and eating fancy food – are grouped under the rubric of “vice.” Now, that’s a perfectly fine framework; it served our Puritan ancestors well, and it serves the LDS Church, the various Anabaptist sects, and other groups pretty well today. But it’s simply not true that we must choose between this kind of framework and “moral libertarianism” according to which “do what thou wilt” is the only law (provided you’re not hurting anybody else directly). There are a variety of moral frameworks that view the enjoyment of fleshy pleasures in moderation not merely not as vice, but as essential to health – while still caring about the health of the individual, and not just his or her freedom of action. …
Burke, who did not oppose all change, is more readily enlisted on the side of decriminalization than on the side of prohibition, for the same reason that he is more readily enlisted on the side of same-sex marriage: in both cases, the law would not be driving social change but recognizing a social change that has already occurred. There’s nothing particularly Burkean about using tradition as an excuse for refusing to face that fact that a given custom is now honored largely in the breach.
The Dish 