Society should impose moral standards, frankly all societies do. Even in one as degenerate as ours, the fact that most people don't find the phrase "Make Racists Afraid Again" and "Punch A Nazi" shows you that there very much is a moral standard being imposed with coercion.
My only problem is that unlike a lot of the religious political factions, the government shouldn't impose those moral standards. Two reasons:
The government can't be trusted to impose moral standards without bastardizing those moral standards into their own political objectives. The concept of an ethical state is an explicitly Fascist concept for a reason. As the arbiter of morality, the government has unlimited jurisdiction and unlimited scope to cultivate and groom the population into compliance with it's orders, regardless of whether or not any good ideas have actually taken place. Even now, we see the government claiming that not getting vaccinated from covid is anti-social and immoral, justifying the removal of all rights to bodily autonomy from the individual. Similar arguments are made about the immorality of gun ownership, so that the population can be disarmed. If an institution is to be a moral one, it must not be a political one. You have to separate the church from the state, otherwise the state becomes God.
Passing off the responsibility of social enforcement to the state creates social weakness. I'm seeing more effective arguments from Christians today knowing that they have no protection from the state, than have ever been made in the past 80 years. This is because, as far as I'm concerned, the theists never argued their case effectively, mostly because they didn't know why they did anything. Just that the books said so, and that should be good enough for everyone. The reason that you have people like me who end up circling back to Christian behaviors even without actual religiosity is because there were no good explanations about why things were the way they were.
For example, I can make an argument that the reason you should ban pre-marital sex is because it is the best way to prevent abortion. Forcing men to only engage in sex within marriage completely undercuts any argument about bodily autonomy, the responsibility of society, the beginning of life, the beginning of legal personhood, or the responsibility of spouses to each other. A marriage is a statement by the man, that regardless of how a woman gets pregnant, he has a perpetual obligation to both her and any and all children. Even the argument of children from rape is irrelevant because the father has made an all encompassing commitment to all future children. This also guarantees the social and economic security of the wife who is guaranteed to be provided for.
I didn't have to appeal to religious authority, or shout that you want to kill babies if you don't agree. I don't even have to argue that the government shouldn't regulate the private sexual acts of others, because it's not, it's enforcing a private contract for the benefit of future children and the mother.
To this day, I have never heard a religious person make this argument, and I don't know that I ever will because religious people never had to make any argument further than: "it kills babies" and "it's illegal". Passing off social enforcement on the state makes those social issues an entirely political issue, and the basis for the reasoning of that social enforcement wasn't done, it was just blindly carried on because of appeals to authority.
Just like with anything else, if you pass off the responsibility to the state, it means you've abandoned your responsibility, and can't actually carry it any further. This is why armed populations are so important: not because they need to fight off cops & armies, but so that they re-assert responsibility for protecting themselves. The state becomes a crutch, and your actually ability to do your work without it gets weaker the longer you use it.
I think this is mostly true.
Society should impose moral standards, frankly all societies do. Even in one as degenerate as ours, the fact that most people don't find the phrase "Make Racists Afraid Again" and "Punch A Nazi" shows you that there very much is a moral standard being imposed with coercion.
My only problem is that unlike a lot of the religious political factions, the government shouldn't impose those moral standards. Two reasons:
The government can't be trusted to impose moral standards without bastardizing those moral standards into their own political objectives. The concept of an ethical state is an explicitly Fascist concept for a reason. As the arbiter of morality, the government has unlimited jurisdiction and unlimited scope to cultivate and groom the population into compliance with it's orders, regardless of whether or not any good ideas have actually taken place. Even now, we see the government claiming that not getting vaccinated from covid is anti-social and immoral, justifying the removal of all rights to bodily autonomy from the individual. Similar arguments are made about the immorality of gun ownership, so that the population can be disarmed. If an institution is to be a moral one, it must not be a political one. You have to separate the church from the state, otherwise the state becomes God.
Passing off the responsibility of social enforcement to the state creates social weakness. I'm seeing more effective arguments from Christians today knowing that they have no protection from the state, than have ever been made in the past 80 years. This is because, as far as I'm concerned, the theists never argued their case effectively, mostly because they didn't know why they did anything. Just that the books said so, and that should be good enough for everyone. The reason that you have people like me who end up circling back to Christian behaviors even without actual religiosity is because there were no good explanations about why things were the way they were.
For example, I can make an argument that the reason you should ban pre-marital sex is because it is the best way to prevent abortion. Forcing men to only engage in sex within marriage completely undercuts any argument about bodily autonomy, the responsibility of society, the beginning of life, the beginning of legal personhood, or the responsibility of spouses to each other. A marriage is a statement by the man, that regardless of how a woman gets pregnant, he has a perpetual obligation to both her and any and all children. Even the argument of children from rape is irrelevant because the father has made an all encompassing commitment to all future children. This also guarantees the social and economic security of the wife who is guaranteed to be provided for.
I didn't have to appeal to religious authority, or shout that you want to kill babies if you don't agree. I don't even have to argue that the government shouldn't regulate the private sexual acts of others, because it's not, it's enforcing a private contract for the benefit of future children and the mother.
To this day, I have never heard a religious person make this argument, and I don't know that I ever will because religious people never had to make any argument further than: "it kills babies" and "it's illegal". Passing off social enforcement on the state makes those social issues an entirely political issue, and the basis for the reasoning of that social enforcement wasn't done, it was just blindly carried on because of appeals to authority.
Just like with anything else, if you pass off the responsibility to the state, it means you've abandoned your responsibility, and can't actually carry it any further. This is why armed populations are so important: not because they need to fight off cops & armies, but so that they re-assert responsibility for protecting themselves. The state becomes a crutch, and your actually ability to do your work without it gets weaker the longer you use it.