tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post8153903801639456499..comments2024-03-27T20:37:09.185-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: Moral bindingness and levels of jurisdictionAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-36532832784589784992021-09-27T07:51:26.834-05:002021-09-27T07:51:26.834-05:00I always thought those warnings were just intended...I always thought those warnings were just intended to frighten people. The federal government has massively greater law enforcement resources than any local jurisdiction, so the idea of getting 'the feds' after you is (supposed to be) scarier than offending against some law the local police, with their limited resources, enforce.Kenny Pearcehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05561248709234656660noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-23905139778616985152021-09-15T09:44:08.159-05:002021-09-15T09:44:08.159-05:00In the US, murder is usually handled at the state ...In the US, murder is usually handled at the state level.<br /><br />Maybe. But in a university setting, a lot of the time federal law gets invoked is for things of no greater intrinsic significance than a lot of the local stuff. To give one example, federal law enforces confidentiality requirements on student records, which while moderately important, in the end is less important than good roads.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-77843191732320871012021-09-14T14:44:03.316-05:002021-09-14T14:44:03.316-05:00I think the reason people view breaking federal la...I think the reason people view breaking federal law as, in most cases, worse than breaking local laws is because it tends to be the case that we associate with federal law the more 'morally pertinent' areas of the law. Local laws are generally about public utilities, parks, roads. Federal laws tend to be about things that involve murder, activity that threatens human welfare (terrorism, cyberattacks, national security), or activity that hurts the government (fraud, tax evasion). As such, we make the general correlation that breaking federal law involves breaking some of the highest moral codes (or, at least the moral codes more important than those involved with local laws). Thus, we form the view that breaking federal law is generally worse than local law. <br /><br />This is more of a psychological explanation than a philosophical explanation. And I think that is how to treat this topic: I doubt that many hold to the maxim that "any individual who breaks any federal law has done a more morally egregious act than any individual who breaks any local law. Ibrahim Dagherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03429873450864113670noreply@blogger.com