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Ethics
Law
Sex

Hello, I would like to ask a question about ethics involved when nudity is permitted in public places. I live in Sydney, Australia. At one of the most popular beaches here (which hosts tens of thousands of people per day and is freely available to anyone who wishes to go there), a man was arrested and fined $500. This was punishment because he had been on the beach with a camera, surreptitiously photographing women who were lying on the sand, with no tops on. He was discreet such that almost none knew at the time that he had photographed them - after they apprehended him, police went around with his camera, identifying people and approaching them with the images in hand. Many people using this beach choose to sunbathe disrobed, of their own free will. The man admitted that his actions were intended to further his own sexual gratification. Although I think the man's behaviour was in poor taste, using others as mere means to his own selfish ends, on consideration I cannot see why it should be held...

NB: The categories of this question were expanded to include "Law" and "Ethics", after Professor Soble's response above was posted.
Justice
Law

If, as George Washington said, "All government is force," is not resistance to government a necessary and morally superior corollary to resistance to force in general?

That may be a corollary to the general claim that one ought to resist all force. But is the general claim true? Presumably, the thought behind the general claim is that all force is morally wrong and so resistance to it is morally permissible if not required. But is all force morally wrong? This is one way of casting the central topic in political philosophy: whether, and if so under what conditions, the state could have the right to use force over individuals to compel compliance with its commands. Anarchism takes the answer to be No. Utilitarian and social contract approaches believe the answer is Yes: under certain conditions, the establishment of a state that wields power over individuals can be justified. (See Question 452 for some references.)
Justice
Law

Is there such thing as true freedom? (My thought is that only in an anarchist society there would be-meaning that even the slightest rule or law would detain one's freedom to do as one pleases...)

It's worth distinguishing between what one is free to do and what value to one that freedom has. Perhaps you're right that in a world in whichthere was no political society (a State of Nature, as some politicalphilosophers call it) we would be free to do many more things than weare now (since no laws would exist that restrict our freedom). But the worth of those freedoms would be very small. Yes, we'd be free to travelwherever we wanted (without the need for passports, etc.), but mostlikely, absent the security that a political society provides, thelevel of industrial development would be so low that there would be nocars, no planes, no roads, etc. Even if there were roads, it would beso very dangerous to set out on them that I wouldn't dare risk it.Whereas now, my freedom to travel is worth something to me: I can drive(I have a car, I can buy fuel for it, there are roads!) confidently tothe airport (there are airports!) and take a plane (there's anaerospace industry!) to Reykjavik. The freedom to...
Justice
Law

I've been wondering a long time about this and I can't come up with an answer. Hopefully you can help me. What is the point of government?

The short answer that many political philosophers (such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, John Rawls) have offered is that we are all far better off in a civil society structured by basic institutions (legal, economic, political) that constitute the government than we would be if we were left on our own. Hobbes and Locke called the condition in which man does not live under a government the State of Nature. Both believed that living in the State of Nature was far more uncomfortable and dangerous than living under a government. In fact, Hobbes famously wrote (in his Leviathan ) that life in the State of Nature would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short".