Liberty and Sex

The Dutch Parliament just passed a law making it illegal to have sex with animals.

http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2008/03/13/1364382-dutch-parliament-bans-sex-with-animals

This new law promotes liberty in the sense of living under laws made by our representatives in a legislature--or self-government. Before this law was passed, the representatives of the Dutch people decided to make it legal to have sex with animals, so long as the animal was not harmed. Now the representatives of the people have changed their mind. Either way, the people are living under laws made by their representatives.

The real question here has to do with liberty in the sense of having a large area of personal choice without interference from government--or personal liberties. Is it the business of government to tell people with whom--or in this case, with what--they can have sex? To answer this question, it may be helpful to go back to an old definition of personal liberties, the definition in the common law as we inherited it from Great Britain.

The name that Blackstone uses for personal liberties is civil or political liberty--the liberty of a citizen, as opposed to the liberty of a person living outside of any political society. Outside of political society, according to Blackstone, people can do as they please so long as they do not harm anyone (in his words, the only limits are those imposed by the law of nature). Once we live in society, however, there will be more limits on our behavior than just not doing any physical harm. It is necessary in political society for government to impose further limits on people for the public good, for the general advantage of society as a whole. Blackstone insists, however, that these limits must not go beyond what is of advantage to society. When government limits our behavior in matters of indifference, it is a tyranny, even if these limits are imposed by the people themselves through their representatives.

We may infer from this that, in a free society, our area of choice may be too large as well as too small. If a government limits our behavior in matters of indifference to society, the people are not free. Yet if government fails to limit our behavior in matters that do affect society as a whole, the people are not free in this case either. In a society in which the area of personal choice is too large, it will become increasingly difficult for government to accomplish the purpose for which it was established. What is that purpose? According to Locke, Blackstone, and the Founders of the United States, the primary purpose of government is to secure the three basic rights of human beings--personal security (or life), personal liberty (or simply, liberty), and property.

So how does sex with animals fit into all of this? Or, to repeat the broader question, is it the business of government in a free society to tell us with whom or with what we can have sex--or to limit our sexual behavior in any way whatever? A good question--and one that I am not yet prepared to answer. Stay tuned until the next entry.