My point is that even in your next example, where again, physical harm is caused, that harm could be punished by a law which does not criminalize the act of prostitution itself. In fact, that John has paid the prostitute for sex has no impact whatsoever on the injury inflicted by the wife; had he engaged in the sex act "for free", the scenario would be the same. (One may argue that prostitutes are inherently promiscuous and therefore more prone to pass on assorted STDs and other diseases, but I believe you and I would already reject that claim as specious: one does not criminalize behavior merely because a statistical connection can be made between it and undesirable outcomes.) In any case, John could contract the same disease, and pass it on to his wife, through perfectly licit means, as well.
You leave out one way, in which I would agree that John could be held legally culpable for his actions: breach of contract. By having sex outside of his marriage, he has breached the contract between himself and his wife, and may reasonably be held culpable for that breach in court. (This assumes he and his wife have a traditional marriage and not an "open" one.)
Another way of looking at the overall picture:
Government is like a hammer. It's a good tool. You can fix a lot of things with a hammer.
But not every problem society has is a nail. :)
I know I'm rather preaching to the converted here anyway. I would like to note that while I do not think that the list of behaviors (gambling, drug use, etc.) should be criminalized, this isn't one of my bedrock, I'm-positive-of-it, convictions. I have my doubts. :) And I put "generally speaking" into my original list of "things upon which I have solid convictions" because it's something I believe applies, oh, 99.9% of the time, but there's still that occasional clear-cut case where the law can and should intervene.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2003-01-17 02:03 pm (UTC)You leave out one way, in which I would agree that John could be held legally culpable for his actions: breach of contract. By having sex outside of his marriage, he has breached the contract between himself and his wife, and may reasonably be held culpable for that breach in court. (This assumes he and his wife have a traditional marriage and not an "open" one.)
Another way of looking at the overall picture:
Government is like a hammer. It's a good tool. You can fix a lot of things with a hammer.
But not every problem society has is a nail. :)
I know I'm rather preaching to the converted here anyway. I would like to note that while I do not think that the list of behaviors (gambling, drug use, etc.) should be criminalized, this isn't one of my bedrock, I'm-positive-of-it, convictions. I have my doubts. :) And I put "generally speaking" into my original list of "things upon which I have solid convictions" because it's something I believe applies, oh, 99.9% of the time, but there's still that occasional clear-cut case where the law can and should intervene.