In my opinion, the main purpose behind law and punishment is deterrence from immoral actions. Punishment for its own sake is in no way good, it’s a necessary evil to deter immoral people from committing immoral actions. If there were no immoral people, there would be no one to deter and thus no use for law.

Sure, internal morality can get twisted, but only when it’s based in instinct (self preservation, subordination to authority, etc.), and that’s what I mean when I say pseudo-morality. Rational moral principles, on the other hand, are relatively reliable, clear and consistent. The main moral frameworks (deontology, consequentialism, virtue ethics) agree on most significant scenarios, the differences are in the specificities.

The scapegoat phenomenon you mention is a great example of instinct (the ingroup-outgroup instinct), being taken advantage of for political manipulation. Education should include teaching people to recognize these instincts and when they’re leading them astray in rational thought.

I think simply achieving material flourishing isn’t enough to make people moral, mainly because there are other instincts at play. For example the desire for status and power. This is what drives people to immorality even during material satisfaction. I also believe it is the main driving force behind capitalism.

I think that in an ideal society, everyone would follow their own moral values and laws wouldn’t even be needed. That’s probably not achievable, but we can at least try to approach it.

I think the root of immorality is the prescriptive morality which is commonplace today. People only act pseudo-moral because either:

• They are afraid of punishment (fully selfish reason)
• God, the law, or whoever else said so (deferral to authority)
• “Society would collapse” if they didn’t (still a selfish justification)

in reality, very few actually have internal moral values. As soon as those reasons disappear, they see no reason not to act immorally. Alternatively, they follow this imposed morality so strictly, that they don’t notice when it leads them to immoral actions (take for example religious fundamentalism or fascist regimes).

The solution is of course education, but our current education systems are terribly suited to producing moral people.

It wasn’t really meant to be, my opinion is that following the law for its own sake is a form of slave morality and a betrayal of one’s own moral principles, but I guess the meme is vague enough to be interpreted any which way.

git push origin main doesn’t have the same ring to it as git push origin master