I have no trouble with the principle, although of course as usual the devil is in the details. I think the argument depends on the assumption that we all bear some responsibility for each other in society, and should be willing to make sacrifices for others, particularly for those who are suffering or at risk. And that’s a moral argument, not a legal one.

Perhaps a less emotive example than assisted suicide/euthanasia would be clearer. I would not object in the least to restricting gambling as was done in the past in order to protect many – maybe most – of those who are susceptible from losing all their money, engaging in crime and breaking up their families. The benefit to me of gambling (which I do very little of and have very little interest in) is of minor importance when I balance it with the sufferings of people I’ve known who never gambled excessively in the more restrictive society of our youth. A small sacrifice on my part would have a big benefit for quite a few others – but would necessarily also require a sacrifice of pleasure from those who enjoy gambling more than I do and a sacrifice of a job (with varying possibilities of replacing it) for those who work in the industry.

Sacrifice is a very unpopular concept today, but it applies in a lot of social issues. Should the pleasure people get from a park be sacrificed for the convenience of commuters who need a new road? Should funding go to home care workers or institutions? Should you be punished for assisting a suicide to protect someone who is not really a suicide at all?

Actually, I could make an entirely secular argument in favour of toleration – toleration enables stable societies to be formed of a far larger variety of people than does acceptance, because people can tolerate things they don’t really accept, and having stable societies that make room for a wide range of beliefs and practices is better for most people than having either societies that restrict belief and practice, possibly resulting in the people being restricted being injured or inspired into open rebellion and warfare. And now I’m back at utilitarianism again, which I find to be in general a far too narrow and rigid philosophy; one that lacks protection for the weakest members of society.

I’d still need something more basic than a decision to have a suitable set of laws and my own personal morality to guide both the development of the laws and my analysis of my moral crises.

Not quite. The world will work reasonably well with a common and enforced understanding of what is permissible and what is forbidden, but that’s not the same as moral. There are a great many things I regard as morally necessary I would not for a moment attempt to make into laws, and probably as many again I regard as immoral, but would not try to prohibit. I think that’s true of most of us, and it certainly should be. If you think rule by corrupt scoundrels is bad, contemplate rule by virtuous people trying to enforce EVERYTHING. It happens now and then, but seldom for long.

People do, from time to time, hammer out workable law codes, generally based on what’s already known to work–or known NOT to work, what current practice is, and what the most recent spectacular failure has been. If we’re lucky, we’ll go on doing so: most of the more spectacular crashes in human history have come from attempting to work out societal behavior from first principles.

As for sources of morality, besides religion, there’s philosophy, tradition, “reasoned inquiry” and the inarticulate monkey morality which may be encoded on our DNA. Moral relativism may involve not enforcing a system, but is not itself a system. The moral relativist still has to decide whether to cheat on an exam, his taxes, or his spouse.

But for morality or law either one, all the possibilities exist in embryo within the tradition. A system that looks at Aristotle, Plato, Kant and Singer and says they’re all Western philosophers does not have a moral code and will not lead to one. To articulate a moral code based on the Western tradition is to exclude some of these people from that tradition. The same is true for laws. The Western tradition is not a choice, but a range of options, some of which I am proud to adhere to, and some of which I find nauseating.

Each of us must for ourselves whether it is appropriate to raise babies for parts, sell a marginally safe car or cheat on a test. What I’m saying is that we have to choose within that tradition. Those answers will not be found by earnest study of philosophy, political science or even history–not even if you read the footnotes–and the people who have studied with particular enthusiasm or skill don’t seem to be any better at it. When deep study produces, as Jane says, both the United States and Nazi Germany, both Jefferson and Lenin, then deep study is not enough. As for hoping is it, we might as well wish for wings. Hopes and wishes are not a course of action.

And if it’s not capable of proof, it’s a matter of faith and belief. Or even opinion.

I don’t think a secularly derived moral code should or could be based on faith or opinion.

I’ve never bought the argument that because something which will benefit some people may be susceptible to abuse (such as assisted suicide) that it should be banned.

I usually have secular lines of arguments to use in debate, since religious ones aren’t taken seriously by most people. But they wouldn’t stand up with someone who didn’t share to some degree my views about the special nature of human beings and their subsequent rights and privileges.

And if they don’t believe that humans are in some essential way different from animals (as many people don’t), there is no secular argument that will prove to them that there is something profoundly wrong about treating another human being as lunch.

Oh, there are degrees, of course, from the ‘just another animal’ of the more radical animal rights crowd through the various attempts to define humans as those who respond in a certain way, or have a certain quality of life, or speak a certain language or belong to a certain ethnic or racial or religious group.

You have valid reasons for arguing that religion can no longer act as a cohesive social force (well, at least not over a larger social grouping than a parish, and even then it can be iffy). But you haven’t proven that there’s any secular alternative, not one that will address the really profound underlying questions. I can argue against eugenics as practiced through euthanasia and forced sterilization on the basis of the experiences of other, similar societies with it in the last hundred years or so. I can’t go deeper than that – make a generalization about treatment of people based on the nature of the human being and human society, for example – without getting into religion. The closest I can come would be some flavour of utilitarianism – and most of that seems to sooner or later end up being very nasty for the weak. And we all become weak sooner or later, unless we die instantaneously at our peak.

I wish I’d studied more philosophy. Does anyone know anything about critical realism? I came across a reference to it in an article about a writer I rather liked (N.T. Wright), but I can’t understand the details and haven’t got the time to work on it. I don’t know if anyone in that field has come up with a way to define humans in such as way as to avoid the biggest pitfalls.