One concern I have with legalizing behaviors that I view as immoral is that I suspect there is a reciprocal relationship between law and morality. Changing values lead to new laws, and new laws cause a change in values.
Using GSS data, I looked at the strength of the relationship between: 1) illegal drug use and favoring marijuana legalization, and 2) one's view on homosexual sex and favoring gay marriage. Eta-squared for the first relationship is .057 which indicates moderate strength. The gamma statistic for the second relationship is .79 which is very strong. Supporting a law, of course, does not logically require that one is in favor of the behavior in question, but sociologically the two seem to move in tandem.
Showing posts with label Law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Law. Show all posts
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Should people always obey the law?
GSS respondents (N = 2,475) were asked, "In general, would you say that people should obey the law without exception, or are there exceptional occasions on which people should follow their consciences even if it means breaking the law?"
The graph shows that Mexican Americans are more likely than any other large ethnic group to say one should always obey the law. I'm not sure that this is the best attitude, but Mex-Ams clearly stand out. Blacks and American Indians (on the right end of the chart) are also above average; it looks like higher IQ groups have less absolutist attitudes.
I checked by cross-tabulating this question with IQ (WORDSUM). Wow, smart people respect the following of one's conscience.I guess my first attempt to find a pro-Mex-Am stat didn't quite work out.
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Are gun owners mentally ill?
Some anti-gun people think owning a gun is a sign of some kind of mental abnormality. According to General Social Survey data, gun owners ...
