Public ethics - a messy business

I've just completed a 3 day course on HIV prevention amongst sex workers, IV drug users, and men who have sex with men - and it's given me a lot to think about - in particular on the issue of legislation.

Let's take, for example, IV drug use. No government would be "proud" of having IV drug users around, and it is universally regarded as an undesirable practice. However, evidence has demonstrated complete prohibition of IV drug use doesn't really work that well, and has the downstream effects of causing the social marginalization and isolation that leads to high -risk behavioral patterns in that population. Services that would actually help these drug users cannot function effectively, as their target population is essentially underground, scattered, and fragmented.

On the other hand, by legalizing drug use, as in Victoria, we give organisations the opportunities to gather and target this particular population, providing ready access to support programmes and services that not only minimise the harm of IV drug use, but also facilatate their entry into rehabilitation programmes.

This approach presupposes a particular interaction between LAW and MORALITY. It suggests that the legal acceptance of a particular behavior does not necessary correlate with a moral acceptance of that same behavior. The corollary of that is that our moral convictions does not necessarily need translate into a corresponding legal stance on the issue.

This, obviously, flies in the face of what so many of us assume about the nature of legislation, and the role of our Christian values in the interaction with greater society. It did for me, and has now led me to rethink and reflect on my own ethical system, and how a public health physician (an area I'm working towards) engages in policy formation that affects an entire non-Christian community. SHOULD the law reflect and ENFORCE morality by force? And on what basis can we actually enforce a SPECIFIC brand of morality - religious or not (eg: why don't we take pedophilia off the criminal code)?

These are difficult issues, issues that have been around since the Church started getting involved in Roman politics. But they are also crucial issues worth reflecting on. I'll post more as I sort out my thoughts ;)

Any "objective" historians out there?

I'm currently working on a presentation on the 19th Century Cane Ridge revival in North America, in the form of a "role play". I chose to write as a skeptical young journalist, more interested in trashing the Christian faith than anything else. Here's a snippet:

Even the much touted Bible, the source of all Christian "revelation", is really full of sin, immorality, evil and plain silliness. If we read it uninfluenced by the holy banter from the pulpit, we will surely agree with Thomas Paine that “it is more consistent that we call [the bible] the word of a demon than the word of God".

It's really quite interesting to be writing from the other side of the fence. I think it really illustrates Cairn's discussion on the nature of history - that there are scientific (factual) elements, philosophical (interpretative) elements, and artistic (presentation) elements. In this case, I had to report on the factual events of the Cane Ridge revival, interpreting them as a skeptic, and present them in a journalistic format (I fail at the last, I reckon).

It's a useful reflection on the nature of all forms of reporting - that there will always be a subjective, interpretative element to things we say and do. It is much better, I propose, to recognise our inherent biasness and account for them, than to pretend that we are capable of "objective" thought, free from the influence of the world in which we live.