[TruthAndDare]

Yes, deciding what others are allowed to do is something I am morally uncomfortable with. That is not to say that I have come up with something else that is not also questionable.

In any case, I do think that we should strive toward having just a bare minimum of laws. However, it seems to be too much fun to make laws, once you get in a position to do so, for people to abstain from it.

[infinite8s]

What are you talking about? Do you wish to live in a human society? Litter of plastic bags is an externality - all this law does is to impose the costs on those who incur it.

[cmurf]

I think this is pure free markets are the only moral structure, coercion is immoral, etc. ideology. I do not find it compelling because adherents' apply the "coercion is wrong" absolutely when it comes to governments enforcing it through fines, but deny economic coercion applies when e.g a bank charges overdraft or late fees no matter how ludicrous.

There is a suggestion that ultimately a bank doesn't put you in jail, where governments can do that if you continue to not pay fines. But increasingly governments take unpaid fines from income tax refunds or other mechanisms for collection rather than consider outstanding fines a criminal offense rather than civil.

[TruthAndDare]

> deny economic coercion applies when e.g a bank charges overdraft or late fees no matter how ludicrous.

That would depend entirely on whether the bank and its customer had agreed upon it before hand or not, wouldn't you say?

[infinite8s]

Also most free market adherents opposed to government coercion forget that contractual obligations are only enforceable through government coercion (unless they would like to go back to the time of private armies).

[TruthAndDare]

> Do you wish to live in a human society?

As far as I can see, that is orthogonal to the issue at hand.

> all this law does is to impose the costs on those who incur it.

We might consider littering to be immoral, and might therefore feel that we have a right to prohibit others from doing it, but it does not follow that we have a right to prohibit people from using, selling, owning or manufacturing bags (or fine or tax them for doing those things).

[collyw]

Do you feel the same way about theft? Immoral but it doesn't follow that we have the right to prohibit people doing it?

[Retra]

I would say your moral failing is thinking that "others" is somehow separable from "self" in the abstract. If I can decide for myself, then I can certainly decide for others: that's the whole reason I want to be good at making decisions. If I'm only allowed to decide things for myself, then what's the point? I'm basically a corpse who hasn't gotten cold yet. In what way should I contribute to the betterment of human life, if I can't tell other people what I've learned that they should do?

You are an individual. But you're also a member of your family, a member of your country, a member of your species, and a living creature. Your identify is not confined to your individuality. You speak English not because of your individuality, but because of your culture. It is as much a part of you as you of it.

With that said, you have a responsibility to decide what others should do. You have a responsibility to make sure those decisions are correct, and a responsibility to enforce them insofar as they are correct and such enforcement doesn't undermine our humanitarian goals. And instead of being overly-conservative in the face of the possibility that you are mistake, take comfort in knowing that experiments can fail, and that this doesn't mean they shouldn't be undertaken. Make decisions, enforce them, and if they're wrong, you change your mind later. The only alternative is stagnation or 'progress by accident'.

>In any case, I do think that we should strive toward having just a bare minimum of laws.

Why should this take priority over having the most correct laws?