It should be noted immediately that choosing is not the ONLY law of human nature. All other ideas cannot be derived solely from the necessity to choose. That is the fallacy of the last few arguments against natural law.
hashem: It should be noted immediately that choosing is not the ONLY law of human nature. All other ideas cannot be derived solely from the necessity to choose. That is the fallacy of the last few arguments against natural law.
free-will a natural law of human nature? I know there's arguments and have been plenty of them over the centuries (determinism) that says no. But curious how you would answer this.
laminustacitus:So self-defense is "anti-Natural law" since you are diminishing your attackers ability to choose.
No. Choosing is not the only law of human nature. There are others that conflict with aggression (the behavior of an attacker).
wilderness:free-will a natural law of human nature? I know there's arguments and have been plenty of them over the centuries (determinism) that says no. But curious how you would answer this.
Absolutely. [EDIT -- SEE MY COMMENT 2 DOWN]
Jacob Bloom: hashem: Jacob Bloom:then how can natural law make an argument against taxation? This goes back to what I brought up in the beginning. In order to make any case regarding property, you must first have a case for rights. The case for natural law against taxation would then be that the ethics for man derived from the laws of human nature allow for rights, particularly to property. These ethical rights forbid theft of property. This argument about natural rights and ethics being the foundation of property...seems really weak to me. Without some kind of force behind a claim of ownership, there is no ownership. Let's say, for example, that you have a nice new laptop. I steal your laptop.
hashem: Jacob Bloom:then how can natural law make an argument against taxation? This goes back to what I brought up in the beginning. In order to make any case regarding property, you must first have a case for rights. The case for natural law against taxation would then be that the ethics for man derived from the laws of human nature allow for rights, particularly to property. These ethical rights forbid theft of property.
Jacob Bloom:then how can natural law make an argument against taxation?
This goes back to what I brought up in the beginning. In order to make any case regarding property, you must first have a case for rights. The case for natural law against taxation would then be that the ethics for man derived from the laws of human nature allow for rights, particularly to property. These ethical rights forbid theft of property.
This argument about natural rights and ethics being the foundation of property...seems really weak to me. Without some kind of force behind a claim of ownership, there is no ownership.
Let's say, for example, that you have a nice new laptop. I steal your laptop.
My argument holds. There is no property without rights. The laptop would never exist without the enforcement of SOME kind of property rights allowing for its creation and my purchase.
wilderness: hashem: It should be noted immediately that choosing is not the ONLY law of human nature. All other ideas cannot be derived solely from the necessity to choose. That is the fallacy of the last few arguments against natural law. free-will a natural law of human nature? I know there's arguments and have been plenty of them over the centuries (determinism) that says no. But curious how you would answer this.
"The critical and unique facts about man and the ways in which he must live to survive -- his consciousness, his free will and free choice, his faculty of reason, his necessity for learning the natural laws of the external world and of himself, his self-ownership, his need to "produce" by transforming nature-given matter into consumable forms -- all these are wrapped up in what man's nature is, and how man may survive and flourish."
wilderness:Self-defense is a natural right since the attacker is violating liberty and thus is violating and going against natural law of human action by narrowing the choices.
And biological impulses are anti-natural law by narrowing the choices of when one drinks? Coercion, and biological impulses are hence classified the same as, for a lack of a better term, things that reduce choice, and are hence immoral because they violate the natural law.
wilderness:The defender and attacker had plenty of choices such as persuasion, negotiation, and bartering, etc... depending on the event at hand before the initiating of physical aggression took place. Reasoning has the ability to fulfill and meet the demands of more and more potential choices by - reasoning it out.
And the attacker decided to attack because he reasoned that he had far more to gain by violent means, than by civil means.
wilderness:Coercion on the part of the attacker diminished the choices and thus violated Natural Law.
You cannot diminish "choice", you can only increase the costs, and motivate the subject to choose the desired ourcome; ergo, coercion is a form of costs.
Biological impulses on the part of the individual's need to drink diminished his choices, and thus violated natural law.
wilderness:and do read my signature after this before you do any more dog-chasing the tail activity.
Free-will does not imply that one must be free from all constraints, it merely means that one is free to choose one's actions.
Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.
- Edmund Burke
laminustacitus: wilderness:Coercion on the part of the attacker diminished the choices and thus violated Natural Law. Biological impulses on the part of the individual's need to drink diminished his choices, and thus violated natural law.
Diminishing of choices does not imply absence of necessity to choose. The law stands.
laminustacitus: wilderness:and do read my signature after this before you do any more dog-chasing the tail activity. Free-will does not imply that one must be free from all constraints, it merely means that one is free to choose one's actions.
This. If free-will implied freedom from all constraints, then by that logic, scarcity (a well known constraint) would prevent free-will from occurring, which would be rather absurd.
"Look at me, I'm quoting another user to show how wrong I think they are, out of arrogance of my own position. Wait, this is my own quote, oh shi-" ~ Nitroadict
Nitroadict: laminustacitus: wilderness:and do read my signature after this before you do any more dog-chasing the tail activity. Free-will does not imply that one must be free from all constraints, it merely means that one is free to choose one's actions. This. If free-will implied freedom from all constraints, then by that logic, scarcity (a well known constraint) would prevent free-will from occurring, which would be rather absurd.
The natural law of human nature: free-will stands. What you are now talking about is liberty. A person(s) can either go with natural law or go against natural law. To go with natural law is to go with choice. To limit, narrow, and diminish all the current or potential choices is to go against natural law and to constrain human action - this is what liberty when derived from natural law of human nature explains. A criminal has free-will. All humans can choose. To place physically coercive limits on free-will is an act suppressing the natural law of human nature that still exists. Thus, this natural law of human nature would not be flourishing if diminished by physical coercive measures. Of course the choices are still present, but instead of reasoning those choices in a civil manner these choices are being limited to more brutish ways of making a decision.
hashem:to be necessarily means to be something
That sounds like something Descartes would say. Almost like his infamous line 'I think therefore I am.' Why is it that the most simple statements are always the most profound. It is as if excessive words is a social devolution.
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael
wilderness:To limit, narrow, and diminish all the current or potential choices is to go against natural law and to constrain human action - this is what liberty when derived from natural law of human nature explains.
Man's choices are, by nature, narrowed, limited, and diminished; ergo, there is absolutely no ground for this assertion.
laminustacitus: wilderness:To limit, narrow, and diminish all the current or potential choices is to go against natural law and to constrain human action - this is what liberty when derived from natural law of human nature explains. Man's choices are, by nature, narrowed, limited, and diminished; ergo, there is absolutely no ground for this assertion.
No. You are talking about power it seems. I'm talking about choices.
Anarchist Cain: hashem:to be necessarily means to be something That sounds like something Descartes would say. Almost like his infamous line 'I think therefore I am.' Why is it that the most simple statements are always the most profound. It is as if excessive words is a social devolution.
The greatest thinkers weren't generally legendary for what they got wrong ;).
wilderness: laminustacitus: wilderness:To limit, narrow, and diminish all the current or potential choices is to go against natural law and to constrain human action - this is what liberty when derived from natural law of human nature explains. Man's choices are, by nature, narrowed, limited, and diminished; ergo, there is absolutely no ground for this assertion. No. You are talking about power it seems. I'm talking about choices.
I'm talking about choices as well, choices, and the ability to make those choices (power) cannot be seperated without leading to absurdities.
wilderness:No. You are talking about power it seems. I'm talking about choices.
A valid statement. I can make the choice of being omnipresent but the question lies if I have the power to make it so.
Maybe I'm missing something, but why does human nature, whatever you say it is, have anything to do with why someone should not steal your purse?
This is the crux of what I was getting at before. Let's assume there is a human nature. So what of it? My nature says that I can use reason to follow my ends. I can use my reason to steal your purse, no? I should use my reason to steal your purse if it is more rewarding and more cost-effective to getting something from you, no?
existence is elsewhere
Wilmot of Rochester:Let's assume there is a human nature. So what of it? My nature
"Your nature" is different from "human nature". Your tendencies are not absolute and immutable throughout all times and places for all human beings.
(Laws of) Human Nature:
"The critical and unique facts about man and the ways in which he must live to survive -- his consciousness, his free will and free choice, his faculty of reason, his necessity for learning the natural laws of the external world and of himself, his self-ownership, his need to "produce" by transforming nature-given matter into consumable forms -- all these are wrapped up in what man's nature is, and how man may survive and flourish." (As opposed to how you alone may survive at any given time.)
hashem: Wilmot of Rochester:Let's assume there is a human nature. So what of it? My nature "Your nature" is different from "human nature". Your tendencies are not absolute and immutable throughout all times and places for all human beings. (Laws of) Human Nature: "The critical and unique facts about man and the ways in which he must live to survive -- his consciousness, his free will and free choice, his faculty of reason, his necessity for learning the natural laws of the external world and of himself, his self-ownership, his need to "produce" by transforming nature-given matter into consumable forms -- all these are wrapped up in what man's nature is, and how man may survive and flourish." (As opposed to how you alone may survive at any given time.)
Great reply. Without actually saying one single thing.
I'll try again:
Wilmot of Rochester:Maybe I'm missing something, but why does human nature, whatever you say it is, have anything to do with why someone should not steal your purse?
It doesn't, except that without rights, you would have no property (no purse); and without natural law, you would have no rights. You need natural law in order to form a coherent theory of rights, and a coherent theory of rights on which to base a coherent theory of property.
Rights, property, and ethics are derived from the natural law.
You're attributing an inherent value to coherence. However, coherence, consistency and conclusiveness are only valuable if you think they are.Even if we operate within your framework, I have yet to hear a coherent case against microbe rights which does not rest on arbitrary separations (i.e., we are self-conscious and they are not).
Sphairon: You're attributing an inherent value to coherence. However, coherence, consistency and conclusiveness are only valuable if you think they are.Even if we operate within your framework, I have yet to hear a coherent case against microbe rights which does not rest on arbitrary separations (i.e., we are self-conscious and they are not).
So? And some people don't believe there was a moon landing and other people are completely convinced that aliens live amongst us.
And if you are talking about property, talking about the natural law of human nature and the effort is living any one of these then it is natural rights and natural law being enacted. I can value gravity or not. I can value natural law or not. But it happens anyways. And since I freely choose to go with natural law, then I'm all about liberty.
Check my signature and do what you will.
@sphairon:
non arbitrary seperation is as follows
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_agency
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
hashem: I'll try again: Wilmot of Rochester:Maybe I'm missing something, but why does human nature, whatever you say it is, have anything to do with why someone should not steal your purse? It doesn't, except that without rights, you would have no property (no purse); and without natural law, you would have no rights. You need natural law in order to form a coherent theory of rights, and a coherent theory of rights on which to base a coherent theory of property. Rights, property, and ethics are derived from the natural law.
OK. Fair enough that does clarify.
But how do you derive rights from that? Why is it a fact that one possesses rights that others should not infringe upon due to natural law?
Wilmot of Rochester:[*1] But how do you derive rights from that? [*2] Why is it a fact that one possesses rights that others should not infringe upon due to natural law?
Let's see... It would seem proper to clear up what we mean by rights. We mean natural rights.
"Natural rights are those which, [by his nature], he must be invested with to fulfill the ends to which his nature calls him" - Theodore Woolsey
*1. Due to the nature of man -- his consciousness, his free will and free choice, his faculty of reason, his necessity for learning the natural laws of the external world and of himself, his self-ownership, his need to "produce" by transforming nature-given matter into consumable forms -- we say he has a property right in his person. It follows that he owns what he produces -- the property right in his produce. This is the base from which all property rights and all other rights are deduced (because all natural rights are essentially property rights derived from the property right in one's person). If, then...Because, therefore. The nature of man requires such.
*2. Is that a trick question? The fact/value dichotomy comes to mind whenever the word "should" is introduced in these topics. It is better to say that it is contrary to the law of man's nature for him to violate his nature, or the rights of men; that is not the way mankind survives. For if it were a law of man's nature to violate his nature, he would quickly perish. I.E. if it was good that all men murder each other, they would die, therefore it isn't a law (it is unnatural, it violates the property right in your person). If it was good that all men steal from each other, they would all quickly starve (it is unnatural, a violation of the right to your property). A way in which one man might survive at a given time under a given circumstance is not necessarily the way in which all men for all times in all places survive and flourish.
hashem: For if it were a law of man's nature to violate his nature, he would quickly perish. I.E. if it was good that all men murder each other, they would die, therefore it isn't a law (it is unnatural, it violates the property right in your person). If it was good that all men steal from each other, they would all quickly starve (it is unnatural, a violation of the right to your property). A way in which one man might survive at a given time under a given circumstance is not necessarily the way in which all men for all times in all places survive and flourish.
For if it were a law of man's nature to violate his nature, he would quickly perish. I.E. if it was good that all men murder each other, they would die, therefore it isn't a law (it is unnatural, it violates the property right in your person). If it was good that all men steal from each other, they would all quickly starve (it is unnatural, a violation of the right to your property). A way in which one man might survive at a given time under a given circumstance is not necessarily the way in which all men for all times in all places survive and flourish.
This is how I conflated natural law and natural rights - though - by this what I mean is I didn't explain it fully and began to say what you're saying here in less words. I would state: such and such violates natural law. As I've stated in this thread I can see how this may lead to confusion by natural law and natural right inept people. Not directly knocking them for it's a learning process and I have a long ways to go in connecting natural law to economics but I'm getting there. It's my inclination.
As I've stated in this thread more recently to diminish human action to more brutish decisions when human reason has the full capacity to be civil, this diminishing is thus a suppression and anti-human nature. It causes more work than is necessary. A river flows downhill, a boulder rolls downhill, and to go against human nature would be metaphorically the opposite - trying to force a boulder or river uphill when a perfectly good option to go downhill is present. Some people might call this a cost benefit (?) exposition. And this is in no way a knock against laboring. For example: If the free market offers a production process that includes higher order goods and state intervention would cripple and thereby potentially (or actually) rid some of the higher order goods (via the cap 'n trade tax to use current events) the standard of living thus decreasing. That is an economic example of going against the natural wood grain, to use another analogy, in other words the free market choice is working, available and increasingly less costly, but via state interventions (regulations, taxes, the 'middle man' costs, etc...) these healthy options are discarded involuntarily for what? Somebody's socialists agenda.
hashem: Due to the nature of man -- his consciousness, his free will and free choice, his faculty of reason, his necessity for learning the natural laws of the external world and of himself
These all stand regardless of whether he has property rights in himself or tangible things.
hashem:his self-ownership
This is an ethical concept. You need to establish this first.
hashem:his need to "produce" by transforming nature-given matter into consumable forms
Strictly speaking he only has to consume, production can be done by others.
hashem:It is better to say that it is contrary to the law of man's nature for him to violate his nature, or the rights of men; that is not the way mankind survives.
Why is rights violation a natural law violation? Mankind apparently does survive in this statist world.
hashem:if it was good that all men murder each other, they would die, therefore it isn't a law (it is unnatural, it violates the property right in your person). If it was good that all men steal from each other, they would all quickly starve (it is unnatural, a violation of the right to your property).
Good? Naturalist fallacy.
hashem:A way in which one man might survive at a given time under a given circumstance is not necessarily the way in which all men for all times in all places survive and flourish.
It does not show libertarianism is the way in which all men for all times in all places survive and flourish.
Well I guess scinearm just shut down natural law theory for all time. We'd all better pack our bags and move on.
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
hashem: Well I guess scinearm just shut down natural law theory for all time. We'd better pack our bags and move on.
Well I guess scinearm just shut down natural law theory for all time. We'd better pack our bags and move on.
Juan:we have so much to learn from 'skeptics' ...
you can't prove that
lol
scineram:Mankind apparently does survive in this statist world.
Juan: scineram:Mankind apparently does survive in this statist world. Only because the world is not fully statist. But do I need to tell you that the closest thing to full socialism/conservatism is total war ? How well do people fare under planned economies geared toward the (mutual) destruction of the 'enemy' ? Of course, whether people live or die is just another arbitrary datum which 'value-free' scientist (and philosophers) would never bother with.
Why should someone who's purpose or goal is to describe something as it is be concerned with prescribing something as it should be?
“Elections are Futures Markets in Stolen Property.” - H. L. Mencken
hashem: Well I guess scinearm just shut down natural law theory for all time. We'd all better pack our bags and move on.
Avoiding discourse with humor? Thats original.
zefreak:Why should someone who's purpose or goal is to describe something as it is be concerned with prescribing something as it should be?
zefreak: Why should someone who's purpose or goal is to describe something as it is be concerned with prescribing something as it should be?
How it is according to whom?
What does that have to do with anything? Value judgments are conspicuously absent in the whole of natural law, so you're not talking about natural law. All natural rights are void of value judgments, so you're not talking about natural rights.
I can only imagine you are talking about natural law ethics, and the person who explains what is. But he prescribes nothing, you are confused. He states the facts of nature, and what works and doesn't work for humans. When a math teacher explains that 1+1=2, he isn't telling you that you should add.
hashem: zefreak:Why should someone who's purpose or goal is to describe something as it is be concerned with prescribing something as it should be? What does that have to do with anything? Value judgments are conspicuously absent in the whole of natural law, so you're not talking about natural law. All natural rights are void of value judgments, so you're not talking about natural rights. I can only imagine you are talking about natural law ethics, and the person who explains what is. But he prescribes nothing, you are confused. He states the facts of nature, and what works and doesn't work for humans. When a math teacher explains that 1+1=2, he isn't telling you that you should add.
Read the post that I was responding to and maybe you will understand.
True.
But I guess what I said is still a good point for people who think that natural law ethics attempt to bridge the is/ought gap.
When a math teacher explains that 1+1=2, he isn't telling you that you should add. When a natural law scientist explains what works and doesn't work for humans, he isn't saying that you should do what works.