Well, then, from a pragmatic point of view, what is the difference in legislating behaviour and legislating morality? What would be an example of legislating morality?
Any law that punishs acts that to not do harm to another. I view government as a 'social contract' a term I've carried all the way from grade school to explain Law.
The idea is simple. Humans need to function as a group in order to maintain our dominance of the planet. In order to exist as a group, we must agree to not hurt one another.
In order to ensure we all keep to this agreement, mediators are selected from time to time to remedy faults, and to punish wrongdoers.
'Harm" however becomes a complex word when property, honor, and pride come into play. In the case of property, simple reembursement normaly should suffice. But how do you restore someones honor? Pride once brusied can turn to bitterness, and hatred. Some behaviors, while they do no phsyical harm to anyone, so greatly disturb others that they feel compeled to act against them.
What could any mediator do to remedy such problems? Punishment is the primary method of coersion avalible to outside forces. Punishment harms the individual of group that commits the offending behavior directly, be it loss of freedoms, physical harm, or financal loss. But by what right do you harm someone who has done no harm? In my simple opionin, by no right, doing someone harm is always wrong. It sometimes becomes nessasary to do wrong in order to prevent further wrongdoing, or to right a previous wrong, but if the person has done no harm, no harm should be intentionaly done to them.
