Law makes no sense without a baseline of moral thought.

If there's one thing that's been itching at me for some time, it's the political activism and the strident attitudes that come with it, which seems to come from people who seemingly haven't spent any time studying moral philosophy.

We're seeing plenty of posts about whether or not we can be friends if we disagree. Well, the only reason why we can't be friends if we disagree is if your political identity comes first, your morality comes from your gut rather than your mind, you think that shouting slogans and slurs qualifies as an argument, and you've never really scouted your moral intuitions.

I get that it's not high on anybody's Friday or Saturday night's list of fun things to do to sit down and read Hume, or Kant, or Bentham, or Spooner, or whoever, and ponder the arguments between deontology, utilitarianism, and consequentialism. Still, where do you think any and all of these politics that we're pissing at each other comes from?

Law makes no sense without a baseline of moral thought.

I know people who are more morally sophisticated, and better read than I am who voted every way, not just both ways, in this election.

If you have a moral bedrock, you see politics for the freak show it is. You realize that some people are more pragmatic than others. You realize that some issues on which you're deeply passionate are too complicated to be neatly solved by your gut or your heart, and you need to let your brain tap into the arena from time to time.

I fear that the loudest voices are, and always will be, the shouts coming from those who were foolish enough to build their political houses upon the sand.