| | A cost-benefit analysis presumes that one already has a hierarchically ordered set of values in place. Without that, one has no means of weighing costs or benefits. That fact leaves the article in a place where it is difficult to discuss in the terms used.
What can be discussed is the proper relationship, and nature, of the reasoning that relates to morality, the nature of the relationship of morality to law in a rational society, and the desirable relationship between peoples actions and the law.
And there is the difference between creating a structure that has value to all who live within it, and the reasoning about any constraints on individual choices relative to that structure. I.E., if it is of value to live in a society that values human life, and that society has created structures that protect individual life (such as a legal system that is based upon individual rights), then what is the proper response, or way to understand, an alleged conflict between an individual's desire to take an act that would damage that structure?
Just as there is a benefit to living in a society with laws (assuming they are at least fairly reasonable and mostly geared towards protecting rights), there is a benefit to a living with others under a moral code (assuming the moral code does not diverge too far from being based upon individual self-benefit). We need that legal code as a framework to construct our plans for the future and as a common basis for interacting with each other. Because law, as such has a value, the question of obeying the law becomes slightly more complex. Law cannot be seen as more fundamental than morality, and morality can never be as more fundamental than reason, but I would not want to discard the structure of law, or disrespect it as such, without good reason.
The same considerations apply to a common moral code. I want to know that others are Legally precluded from murdering me - and I want to know that they need to include possible legal costs if they decided it otherwise best suited their cost-benefit analysis of the moment. That law presupposes a moral value to my life (since all good law must arise from the moral values we call individual rights) and it is predicated upon a moral opposition to the taking my life that overrides anyone's cost-benefit analysis of the moment. Without these structures we are asked to start from scratch each and every time we interact. It is only the value of the segment of a moral code that is both universal and based upon an individual's life that lets us all start from the assumption that people attempting to kill us will be an unlikely thing and that we can plan our lives accordingly. That is a considerable personal value to everyone who isn't living on a desert island.
All values can be ordered into one of two categories, those that are common to everyone by virtue of being human, and those that vary from individual to individual as preferences. And of those that apply to everyone, some are necessary solely for preserving our liberty. When our reason tells us that killing another person is only moral when it is in self-defense, and that that will hold true in all cases, then we can put it into law and by having this moral stricture and this set of laws expressing it as the set of actions that are not permitted, we have a common base from which to interact, and from which to structure government, and from which to form the expectations we have others - now and into the future. We make this part of our culture and we teach this to the next generation.
------------------- If someone says that the option [to murder someone] is available, but they choose not to because the costs are high, this is viewed as dangerous and unreliable. And it should be viewed as such. Proper laws are born of rational moral values (just those defining our individual rights), and those moral values are born of reason based upon human nature. Once established, it isn't that the subject is forever closed to any modification or reevaluation, but that it should not be done without that process whereby any future change comes from that same paradigm: Reason to establish human nature leads to defining a moral value (right) which is applied to establish the law. The garden being tended to is the social structure that allows us to live together in a group in a way that maximizes our ability to flourish as an individual.
If we lived in a jungle with no laws whatsoever, I'd expect that most people would yearn for more moral/legal structure. And if they lived under a set of immoral, tyrannical laws, I suspect they would silently cheer on those who violated the rules and pushed society away from any blind obedience. In today's world, I suspect that most people understand that the benefit of the current morality (mixed as it is) and the current laws (as bad as most of them are) seeing them as adding up to being far superior to the idea of doing away with rules as such.
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None of what I say should be read as disagreement with your observation what many people have a blind, irrational attachment to rules as such. But I believe that would usually go to their individual psychology. Many people put an emotional bond to certain concepts far above reason. But you argue against that very point when you say: There's a fear that if people are allowed to consider the option, they might just go with their emotions. Surely a moral rule and blind obedience is better than letting people make the choice themselves? You have been arguing that some people do just that - engage in blind obedience to rules. So, if the rule is one that should be followed because no one has the moral right to take the life of another in anything but self-defense, then there is value in that rule being blindly obeyed by those who are so inclined. So, when you say, "... if people are going to act on their desires and emotions, a moral rule isn't really going to get in the way" you appear to be taking a contradictory position.
You say, "...trying to control people's choices with arbitrary rules is not very reliable." My first point is that the rules should not be arbitrary, but rather derived from individual rights. And it is about decreasing the violation of individual rights by having a common moral code insofar as rights are concerned, and having them in place as laws. The fact that it is is less than 100% reliable isn't relevant without a description of the structure of the society that is proposed in its place.
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