I'm still wondering what you're thinking it would be difficult to be informed about when it comes to drugs.

Sigh, I wish I had better insight about what you are going through to be of support. I guess there's nothing I can do to be of some comfort to you man.

Maybe not so much difficult as risky. Anyway, I'll probably take that risk again someday. Maybe it's just my paranoia, just always feel like a guy would if he's about to have unprotected sex with someone who gets around when I have an opportunity to partake in these kinds of drugs (which fortunately isn't often).

If you want to ask an honest question then you would be asking whether or not it is moral to break any law. — DingoJones

Asked and many times answered. Think of it this way. You put a bit of salt in your tea by mistake. You add a lot of sugar to cover it up. Your tea is now sweet. But there is still salt in it. It is immoral to break the law. Maybe you and I agree and all arguments show that it's a good idea to break that law and it should be broken. But there is still that salt in it; the breaking still has that taint of immorality.

By the way, look up "conflate."

There is nothing morally wrong with taking an illegal drug unless there is a moral/immoral reason not to take the drug. — DingoJones

Nothing? I read this as your saying it is not immoral to break the - any - law ("nothing morally wrong"). Who are you and what is it that you imagine law is, or morality, that you stand so far outside of both?

And we don't yet touch whether illegal drugs represent a danger and a hazard to both individuals and community that might justify laws controlling them. Whether existing law is best is not the question here. I suspect legalization would solve some problems and mitigate others. But what do you say? Are illegal drugs a hazard and a danger to individuals and community?

That's understandable. The issue, though, is why should other people be able to legally prohibit you from choosing to take those risks? Why would you want to give other people that sort of dominion over your life?

It is immoral to break the law. — tim wood

If the law is immoral, I have no problem with people breaking it, and ideally, I'd like the law to be nullified via tons of people breaking it, or refusing to enforce it as juries, etc.

If the law is immoral, — Terrapin Station

Who decides?

Each individual. Morality is a matter of individual judgment.

So my judgment is right simply in virtue of being my judgment?

"Right" morally refers to an preference of behavior that an individual has.

There is no objective "right" in the sense of "correct" when it comes to morality, because there are no objective moral judgments.

The issue, though, is why should other people be able to legally prohibit you from choosing to take those risks? Why would you want to give other people that sort of dominion over your life? — Terrapin Station

Well, not for the most part. I'd probably be okay with other people taking these risks (if they prefer), if I didn't have to when seeking out the same drug.I just Ser some regulatory enactments as good when people want to be risky even to the point of risking the wellbeing of others in the crossfire (like smoking in establishments and imposing second hand smoke on everyone in your proximity, drunk driving, etc.)

Last thing I want to do is give other people entitled dominion over my life though. That would be quintessentially "wrong" (immoral).

By the way, look up "conflate." — tim wood

This actually tells me a great deal about what Im dealing with here. Stunning.
How can you possibly know the meaning of the word “conflate” AND not understand how it applies here rather pointedly?! You sir, should look it up. Then, stop and think about what other egregious errors you might be making.
In the meantime Ill be here, contemplating what little hope humanity has. Little. Hope. Hopeless, one might say. I will think on the hopelessness of ALL mankind Tim Wood, because of you and what you’ve done here today.

Sure, but that's not saying that it's immoral to do drugs or take risks oneself. The issue you're bringing up is an issue of putting other persons' lives at risk nonconsensually. That's a different idea. You can put other people's lives in danger nonconsensually with all sorts of things, including texting while you're driving, including other (legal) chemicals you have on your person that are dangerous in non-ventilated spaces--like turpentine, say. Those things aren't at all specifically issues about drugs/drug-taking.

It seems like there's maybe not a clear idea (in general, based on other posts from other people, too) of the difference between consensual and nonconsensual activities?

If the law is immoral, I have no problem with people breaking it, — Terrapin Station

This, and in consideration of your posts immediately following,

Each individual. Morality is a matter of individual judgment. — Terrapin Station

There is no objective "right" in the sense of "correct" when it comes to morality, because there are no objective moral judgments. — Terrapin Station

Means that according to you, everyone can do what they like. Your view destroys (in a Kantian sense) law.

Means that according to you, everyone can do what they like. — tim wood

"If the law is immoral" --obviously I'm saying in my view.

You're doing that thing where you're figuring that people are going to defer to an "objective view." An "objective view" is a category error for this realm.

You're doing that thing where you're figuring that people are going to defer to an "objective view." An "objective view" is a category error for this realm. — Terrapin Station

I do not think I've said that. In any case, "objective" is a term of art that in every case needs explication. What I have argued is that there seems a natural evolution of tribe->community->law->morality that further evolves under reason, when communities have the luxury of being reasonable.

But you argue for self-legislation in anarchic and nihilistic terms. If all are the artificers of the right, and all may differ, then where are you? It must seem the only appeal is to the gun, the law being disemboweled.

It seems like there's maybe not a clear idea (in general, based on other posts from other people, too) of the difference between consensual and nonconsensual activities? — Terrapin Station

I've had some unfortunate life experiences on this matter. Accused of all sorts of things I didn't intentionally go into thinking to myself "this is non-consensual and I'm aware of this in my going through with [variable]" as being a violation against consent.

So to answer the focus of the thread IMO, no, I don't think it's immoral to do illegal drugs.

It wasn't even immoral to drink in a speakeasy during prohibition, just happened to be illegal.

I know the meaning of conflate because I looked it up. I read you as attributing to me confusion on my part of two different things, which is not what conflate means.

From our friends online:
"If you confuse A with B, it means you don't know the difference between them, or you think they're the same thing. Conflate, on the other hand, doesn't mean what one might expect. If you conflate A with B, it means you combine them and come up with something that's related to both, but different from either."

Of our A and B, I neither conflate nor confuse them.

From our friends online:
"If you confuse A with B, it means you don't know the difference between them, or you think they're the same thing. Conflate, on the other hand, doesn't mean what one might expect. If you conflate A with B, it means you combine them and come up with something that's related to both, but different from either." — tim wood

As opposed to asserting that A and B are one and the same and no different, that then it's contrarily the very designation of differentiating a concept into A and B that is the fallacy.

Isn't that what you're proposing, that differentiating A (immorality) from B (illegality) is a fallacy?

Your view destroys (in a Kantian sense) law. — tim wood

And yet we (he) still go to jail if we break the law. So what was destroyed? It seems you are attributing much more to "law" than it typically entails. I have no more "duty" to obey the law than I have a "duty" to use proper grammar.

Then, stop and think about what other egregious errors you might be making. — DingoJones

Thirty-one pages into this and I have to acknowledge Dingo is correct. I have made an error, although not quite at the level of "egregious" (another word for you to look up).

The error I have made - and I claim good company in having made it - is supposing that morality is a something the essence of which gives it a quality of compulsion. In this respect I'm like Ignatz with a brick.

The error is that there is no way to compel morality, as there is with arithmetic, or a brick. Morality is instead something to be understood and aspired to. Morality requires of the moral person certain qualities. I have assumed that acknowledgement of those qualities and both their desirability and even necessity was merely a matter of geometrizing, of proof; and that those proofs were for the most part self-evident.

And some people just aren't there. And committing the common fallacy of the ignorant and self-indulgent, they suppose their ignorance is knowledge, "Because I do not know, therefore I know."

In sum that's my error, and I regret it in sackcloth and ashes because such an error does no one any good. Rather there's an education problem; and pretty clearly I have not solved that problem.

What I have argued is that there seems a natural evolution of tribe->community->law->morality that further evolves under reason, when communities have the luxury of being reasonable. — tim wood

Moral foundations have nothing to do with reason. They're purely individual preferences.

Isn't that what you're proposing, that differentiating A (immorality) from B (illegality) is a fallacy? — THX1138

Not at all. I read you as representing that our something is one or the other - because the one and the other are different. I merely adjoin the proposition that our something can be both illegal and immoral, and, immoral because illegal.

...and, immoral because illegal. — tim wood

And, in this case, you personally find the above applies to drug use. Is it accurate to infer that?

Can you give me an example of what it wouldn't apply to referring to an example that can presently be found here in the US [A not immoral because illegal] ?

I have no more "duty" to obey the law than I have a "duty" to use proper grammar. — ZhouBoTong

And this a proud statement of ignorance by an ethically immature child.

Some hundreds of years ago it may have been a fair question as to whether you were or were not a member of community. Then it might have been possible to be not a member, a self-sufficient mountain man, for example, or a hermit on a remote island. Today, however, it is nearly impossible to not be a member of a community - never mind whether or not you want to be. That imposes duties. My mistake has been in assuming that the bald statement of the fact would be compelling, like a demonstration in arithmetic. This thread has forced on me the realization that some people cannot follow that, and in finding preservation, somehow, of self in ignorance, won't do that. So if I'm as smart as I think I am, I ought to stop trying - but I've never been able to establish that I'm as smart as I think I am.

Today, however, it is nearly impossible to not be a member of a community - never mind whether or not you want to be. That imposes duties. — tim wood

How and in what sense would you say it imposes duties? Do you just mean things that you'll be possibly fined, arrested, etc. for?

And, in this case, you personally find the above applies to drug use. Is it accurate to infer that? — THX1138

Yes. And both. Immoral because illegal, and apart from illegality arguably immoral because of all the other baggage on the subject.

Moral foundations have nothing to do with reason. They're purely individual preferences. — Terrapin Station

This is just nonsense How do you make sense of a preference absent reason?

How and in what sense would you say it imposes duties? — Terrapin Station

Are you suggesting that categorically there are none? That's how I'm reading you - no duties at all. Question: assuming you drive, do you drive on the correct side of the road? Why, exactly (assuming you do)?

Can you give me an example of what it wouldn't apply to referring to an example that can presently be found here in the US [A not immoral because illegal] ? — THX1138

Clarify? The best I can do with this until you maybe refine it is to refer to many times in this thread where others have claimed and I agreed that there can exist a morality in breaking a law. This is not in itself prescriptive as to desirability of approach. There are better ways to change laws. (Assuming that the breaking is an expression of the desirability of the law's being changed and at the same time an expression of the inability to access more appropriate ways of changing it - breakage for the mere sport of breaking must be immoral.)

But that there can exist a morality in breaking, and presumably a greater morality in breaking than not breaking, does not make the immorality of breaking disappear.

Otherwise, your formulation of not immoral because illegal seems self-contradictory.