Pick a deviant or criminal act or status. It will be more fun to avoid major crimes. How about speeding, computer hacking, cheating in school, being a nudist, or crackhead, or tattooing SATAN on one’s forehead.
How has this act, or status, been defined as deviant or criminal? For example, our opinions about marijuana use appear to be changing rapidly. How did this happen? How did they get defined as they were? What about homosexuality? Until very recently, this was a crime. What about tattoos and piercings?
– Who benefits from this social construction. Who is harmed?
Explain the difference between mala in se and mala prohibita crimes.
Aren’t we just making this stuff up? Omitting select and often contradictory biblical or other spiritual guidance, is anything truly inherently wrong?
– In fact, isn’t all crime socially constructed? For example, killing is totally legal if we pick the correct context (food, war, self-defense, human sacrifice, state-sanctioned punishment, etc). Wasn’t all drug use inherently wrong in the minds of many people, just a few years ago, while today, cannabis and a variety of hallucinogenic drugs are being legalized. Again, just a few years ago, it was legally impossible to be raped by a spouse and homosexuality was defined as a mental illness.
– How are courts supposed to make reasoned decisions, in an orderly and somewhat predictable process, in such a dynamic society?
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