I wrote:
Again, if we draw the veil of ignorance over a group of more less rational human beings, and ask, "if there is absolutely no danger of being discovered, should one break the law and steal?" the consensus is still likely to be "no, one still should not steal." The absence of enforcement, for whatever reason, is not a mitigating factor. Moreover, the absence of enforcement is not a guarantee that conscience will fail, but it does magnify the temptation. As I've indicated elsewhere, I have a rather low, rather Hobbesian opinion of mankind in general, and it doesn't take much in the way of magnification to make a temptation against the dictates of conscience to great to resist.
A minor amplification:
Religion sneaks into the picture here. One might respond, there is always and ever the danger of being discovered. If temporal power is not watching, the omnipotent god is nevertheless watching, and while one might escape the coercive power of the state in the here and now, one will not escape the omnipotent god's justice. This, by way of saying, we do not need god's dictate to become a moral individual. The so-called golden rule is sufficient to invoke most of what we might consider moral behavior. Because temporal power is insufficient to be on watch at all time and in all places, however, we do need God to be the enforcement of last resort. Whether or not this helps to keep a populace in line is questionable. I suspect not, but when people have difficulty imagining a "moral society" without God, they are not drawing on God for moral inspiration. They are drawing on God for ultimate moral enforcement in the face of weak temporal enforcement.
To borrow Hitchen's phrase, this is where "religion poisons everything." The ten commandments, in part, might be considered simply a codification of conscience. It is not surprising that we find, for example, "you shall not murder" as one of the commandments. I do not want to be murdered, and as a consequence I have a duty not to murder others. Ditto the commandments against stealing, adultery, and bearing false witness. I do not need the commandments to know, with some certainty, that murder, stealing, adultery, and bearing false witness are moral injunctions worthy of codification. So far so good.
The difficulty begins with the first commandment. "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other Gods before me." Here I need to make the sophomoric point that, if truly omnipotent, this commandment seems, well, unnecessary, but we can take it as a residue of poly-theistic times when there were many gods to be worshipped. Ditto the injunction against idols. If I am a sovereign, however, who wishes to maintain control over "his" people, it would be extraordinarily convenient to have god on my side, to claim power on the special mandate of god and to speak, if not as a god, then with the one true god's authority, to say "you shall have no other Gods before me" in a way akin to saying "you shall have no other sovereigns before me." I suspect, in other words, that the first injunction is altogether too convenient for Moses, though it does set the stage for a sovereign to say, not that you have challenged or disobeyed me in my temporal role, but that you have disobeyed god. I suspect, too, that the first injunction was altogether too convenient for a whole succession of Kings and the occasional queen, not to mention a whole succession of popes, who wielded temporal power, who did so in the name of god, and who did so in ways that beggared even the most liberal dictates of a normal conscience.
Imagine, for example, someone like Ted Cruz as president. Here's a sample of what he has to say:
Nothing is more important in the next 18 months than that the body of Christ rise up and that Christians stand up, that pastors stand up and lead,” Cruz said. “In this last election, 54 million evangelical Christians stayed home. If we can simply bring Christians to the polls – is it any wonder we have the government we have – we have the leaders we have if believers stay home and leave electing our leaders to unbelievers. We get exactly what we deserve and nothing is more important that having people of faith stand up and just vote our values, vote biblical values and that’s how we turn the country around.”
Of course, one wonders just what "biblical values" might be in practice and what might be justified, once the voting is done and he has been given the coercive power of the state, if those same "biblical values" are violated? I am sure that Ted Cruz is following the dictates of the first commandment, that he would place no other god before his god. His rants against Muslims help substantiate that point. I also suspect that, if elected, Ted Cruz would see it, not as a mandate from we the people, but as additional and convincing evidence of his special mandate from god, and would find it difficult to separate his own will from that of god . Indeed there would be no difference insofar as he has subjected his own free will to that of God -- and as sovereign, as "leader," the people should subject their free will to him just as they did with Moses.
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