The question "What is the basis of morality?" is obviously an extremely difficult one, and it can sometimes seem as if there are as many answers to that question as there are philosophers who have thought about it. Or maybe more. But I take it that the questioner's central worry is whether there is any real possibility that law might not "derive its power...from some kind of (religious?) moral basis". And that is quite a different matter. There are, I think, two important things to say about this. First, it's not at all clear that religion is capable of providing the kind of basis for morality that is sought. This is often regarded as one of the central points of Plato's great dialogue Euthyphro . There, Socrates poses the question, whether what is good is good because the Gods will it, or whether the Gods will what is good because it is good. And his point is that neither answer is very happy. If what is "good" is good only because the Gods will it, then even torturing babies for fun would be...

As well as the important question of principle (which I shall largely leave to others), there are ipmortant practical questions here: Exactly which religious sensitivities should be given legal standing? What counts as offense? How should it be determined whether publication serves a particular public interest? Perhaps more importantly, by whom should it be determined? And why limit it to speech? To borrow from a recent column in the Boston Globe by Jeff Jacoby (with whose overall point I do not actually agree), should the eating of beef be banned on the ground that it is offensive to Hindus? Should women be forced to "cover up" on the ground that the display of female flesh is offensive to many extreme traditionalists? Quite apart from the question of principle, this does not seem a road down which one really wants to travel. For that matter, why limit it to religious sensibilities? There's a lot that offends me, some for religious reasons, some not. Why privilege the former? None of...

Well, you're in a tough position. (And I agree with you: I see no reason marijuana should be outlawed when alcohol and tobacco are not.) But I don't think you're likely to be compared to the Nazis. So you should let yourself off a bit. Still, as I said, you are in a tough position. I take it that deliberately not busting people for pot could get you in a fair bit of trouble, even fired. Obviously, if you felt sufficiently strongly about this issue, you might find yourself with little choice but to quit being a cop. That'd be a tough choice to make, I'm sure. So I wonder if there are alternatives. To what extent is it possible for you to speak out on this issue, given your profession? The issue of mandatory sentencing is a very important one here. Could you speak out on that issue?

I'm inclined to think, yes, that if a law is unjust it should lose its status as a law, but it doesn't immediately follow that one has no obligation to follow that law. In the case of profoundly unjust laws, such as those regarding Jews in Nazi Germany, presumably it would, at least, be permissible not to follow the law. But there are many other laws that might be regarded as unjust that are far less oppressive. One might suppose one had an obligation to follow such laws out of a kind of respect for the law. What one ought to do instead might be to attempt to get the law changed. Of course, in some cases, publicly and openly refusing to follow the law might be a way of drawing attention to its injustice: That's civil disobedience, in its simplest form.