Can someone direct me to a logical proof of natural law where the terms used are rigorously and unambiguously defined? I looked in The Ethics of Liberty, but alas there was nothing even resembling a logical deduction there. I looked to the Proving Natural Law thread, but the OP just quoted The Ethics of Liberty. I looked elsewhere and found a logical derivation, but the author failed to precisely define his terms. Alternatively, create your own proof.
OR, if no one can supply the above, can we please finally admit that no one can prove natural law or natural rights, any more than a man can prove to a woman that she ought to sleep with him?
Note that I make no criticism of natural law per se even if no proof can be supplied. Many great ideas are purely persuasive notions that gain popularity because they are almost universally appealing for other reasons even if they can’t be proven. For example, disapproval of killing an innocent person can’t be “proven,” but it’s an almost universalIy appealing notion. I do, however, suggest that we do no service to the cause of liberty by calling a purely persuasive notion a logically proven theory.
Since you already read Ethics of Liberty, then I will present you with this article by Roderick Long which he consides a defense of Natural Law theory.
I feel like a broken record because it seems that natural law and objective morality are the only things topics I’ve responded to lately. Nevertheless, I’ll attempt to give my own reasoning. Please note that in this discussion I’m not trying to make you believe in God, merely the fact that morality and Natural Law only exist if God exists and that if God exists Natural Law and morality necessarily come from him.
First, definitions. These are provided to facilitate discussion and do not attempt to prove anything in and of themselves.
Definitions:
Moral - of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; founded on the fundamental principles of right conduct rather than on legalities, enactment, or custom
Natural Law - a principle or body of laws considered as derived from nature, right reason, or religion and as ethically binding in human society.
God - an eternal, timeless, necessary, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent being; the greatest conceivable being. (note: God is necessarily the greatest conceivable being by nature of what God is. If there were any being conceivably greater than God, then that being would be God).
Universe - everything that exists in time and space.
Logical Discussion (1):
Premise 1: If God does not exist, there is nothing outside of the Universe. Things like souls, an afterlife, a mind beyond the physical brain, etc. do not exist.
Premise 2: If humans were not created with souls or eternal purpose, they are simply products of a series of physical events from the initial condition of the universe. All semblance of rationality or free will are illusory since we are but the products of the physical material and circumstances that form our existence.
Premise 3: If humans and all other entities in the Universe are simply the products of the events and physical material since the beginning of the universe and have no eternal significance, there is no such thing as objective morality.
Conclusion: Therefore, if God does not exist there is no such thing as objective morality.
Logical Discussion (2):
Premise 1: If God exists, he created everything and an eternity beyond the physical is possible.
Premise 2: God’s moral nature is expressed to us as the Natural Law which constitute our moral obligations and duties. Far from being arbitrary, these commands flow necessarily from His moral nature.
Conclusion: Therefore, if God exists objective morality necessarily exists and derives its authority from God.
If the premises are valid and the conclusion follows logically from the premises, then the conclusion must be valid. I welcome criticism of this logical discussion.
The above argument implies that if God does not exist, then the epistemological structure of the human mind is perfect. And, that is obviously a ridiculous argument. In order to prove that that argument does indeed imply that, consider this:
The epistemological structure of the human mind is causality. And, complete causality implies complete determinism. However, does the mere fact that the basis of our mind is determinism imply that the basis of the universe is determinism? No way.
Here is a relevant quote from “Theory and History”:
"WHATEVER the true nature of the universe and of reality may be, man can learn about it only what the logical structure of his mind makes comprehensible to him.Reason, the sole instrument of human science and philosophy, does not convey absolute knowledge and final wisdom. It is vain to speculate about ultimate things. What appears to man’s inquiry as an ultimate given, defying further analysis and reduction to something more fundamental, may or may not appear such to a more perfect intellect. We do not know.
Man cannot grasp either the concept of absolute nothingness or that of the genesis of something out of nothing. The very idea of creation transcends his comprehension. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whom Pascal in his Memorial opposed to that of the “philosophes et savants,” is a living image and has a clear and definite meaning for the faithful believer. But the philosophers in their endeavors to construct a concept of God, his attributes, and his conduct of world affairs, became involved in insoluble contradictions and paradoxes. A God whose essence and ways of acting mortal man could neatly circumscribe and define would not resemble the God of the prophets, the saints, and the mystics.
The logical structure of his mind enjoins upon man determinism and the category of causality. As man sees it, whatever happens in the universe is the necessary evolution of forces, powers, and qualities which were already present in the initial stage of the X out of which all things stem. All things in the universe are interconnected, and all changes are the effects of powers inherent in things. No change occurs that would not be the necessary consequence of the preceding state. All facts are dependent upon and conditioned by their causes. No deviation from the necessary course of affairs is possible. Eternal law regulates everything.
In this sense determinism is the epistemological basis of the human search for knowledge. [1] Man cannot even conceive the image of an undetermined universe. In such a world there could not be any awareness of material things and their changes. It would appear a senseless chaos. Nothing could be identified and distinguished from anything else. Nothing could be expected and predicted. In the midst of such an environment man would be as helpless as if spoken to in an unknown language. No action could be designed, still less put into execution. Man is what he is because he lives in a world of regularity and has the mental power to conceive the relation of cause and effect.
Any epistemological speculation must lead toward determinism. But the acceptance of determinism raises some theoretical difficulties that have seemed to be insoluble."[emphasis mine]
The point is that the mere fact that we can not comprehend some thing does not imply that that some thing is not possible. Although we can not comprehend the existence of free choice (because the epistemological basis of our mind is determinism), that does not imply that free choice is impossible.
An other important point is that God is not the only possibly existent concept that we can not comprehend. Whether God exists or whether God does not exist, most of the universe is probably incomprehensible to our mind.
The definition of “the universe” that you provided is “everything that exists in time and space”. Does the mere fact that the framework of the human mind is spacetime imply that the framework of the universe is spacetime? No. Again, you implied that the nonexistence of God implies that our mind correctly and completely comprehends the nature of the universe.
If God does not exist, then it is apparent that evolutionary mechanisms imputed to the human mind a self-evident moral code. Therefore, if it is possible to objectively understand such mechanisms, then it is possible the understand the objectivity of the results (such as our self-evident moral code) of such mechanisms.
If God is “the greatest conceivable being”, then God can not exist outside the physical and comprehensible and deterministic world. However, I believe that you meant “the greatest” possible “being”. In that case, why do you believe that “eternal[ity]” and “timeless[ness]” and “omniscien[ce]” and “omnipresen[ce]” and “omnipote[nce]” are possible?
Does the existence of the possibility of “omniscien[ce]” not imply the existence of determinism? In that case, why would the existence of such a God be the necessary condition of free choice (which is inconsistent with determinism)?
Does the assumption that God is “omnipresent” not imply that we are part of God?
Also, here is a relevant quote from “Human Action”:
"The praxeological categories and concepts are devised for the comprehension of human action. They become self-contradictory and nonsensical if one tries to apply them in dealing with conditions different from those of human life. The naive anthropomorphism of primitive religions is unpalatable to the philosophic mind. However, the endeavors of philosophers to define, by the use of praxeological concepts, the attributes of an absolute being, free from all the limitations and frailties of human existence, are no less questionable.
Scholastic philosophers and theologians and likewise Theists and Deists of the Age of Reason conceived an absolute and perfect being, unchangeable, omnipotent, and omniscient, and yet planning and acting, aiming at ends and employing means for the attainment of these ends. But action can only be imputed to a discontented being, and repeated action only to a being who lacks the power to remove his uneasiness once and for all at one stroke. An acting being is discontented and therefore not almighty. If he were contented, he would not act, and if he were almighty, he would have long since radically removed his discontent. For an all-powerful being there is no pressure to choose between various states of uneasiness; he is not under the necessity of acquiescing in the lesser evil. Omnipotence would mean the power to achieve everything and to enjoy full satisfaction without being restrained by any limitations. But this is incompatible with the very concept of action. For an almighty being the categories of ends and means do not exist. He is above all human comprehension, concepts, and understanding. For the almighty being every “means” renders unlimited services, he can apply every “means” for the attainment of any ends, he can achieve every end without the employment of any means. It is beyond the faculties of the human mind to think the concept of almightiness consistently to its ultimate logical consequences. The paradoxes are insoluble. Has the almighty being the power to achieve something which is immune to his later interference? If he has this power, then there are limits to his might and he is no longer almighty; if he lacks this power, he is by virtue of this fact alone not almighty.
Are omnipotence and omniscience compatible? Omniscience presupposes that all future happenings are already unalterably determined. If there is omniscience, omnipotence is inconceivable. Impotence to change anything in the predetermined course of events would restrict the power of any agent.
Action is a display of potency and control that are limited. It is a manifestation of man who is restrained by the circumscribed powers of his mind, the physiological nature of his body, the vicissitudes of his environment, and the scarcity of the external factors on which his welfare depends. It is vain to refer to the imperfections and weaknesses of human life if one aims at depicting something absolutely perfect. The very idea of absolute perfection is in every way self-contradictory. The state of absolute perfection must be conceived as complete, final, and not exposed to any change. Change could only impair its perfection and transform it into a less perfect state; the mere possibility that a change can occur is incompatible with the concept of absolute perfection. But the absence of change–i.e., perfect immutability, rigidity and immobility–is tantamount to the absence of life. Life and perfection are incompatible, but so are death and perfection.
The living is not perfect because it is liable to change; the dead is not perfect because it does not live.
The language of living and acting men can form comparatives and superlatives in comparing degrees. But absoluteness is not a degree; it is a limiting notion. The absolute is indeterminable, unthinkable and ineffable. It is a chimerical conception. There are no such things as perfect happiness, perfect men, eternal bliss. Every attempt to describe the conditions of a land of Cockaigne, or the life off the Angels, results in paradoxes. Where there are conditions, there are limitations and not perfection; there are endeavors to conquer obstacles, there are frustration and discontent.
After the philosophers had abandoned the search for the absolute, the utopians took it up. They weave dreams about the perfect state. They do not realize that the state, the social apparatus of compulsion and coercion, is an institution to cope with human imperfection and that its essential function is to inflict punishment upon minorities in order to protect majorities against the detrimental consequences of certain actions. With “perfect” men there would not be any need for compulsion and coercion. But utopians do not pay heed to human nature and the inalterable conditions of human life. Godwin thought that man might become immortal after the abolition of private property.[38] Charles Fourier babbled about the ocean containing lemonade instead of salt water.[39] Marx’s economic system blithely ignored the fact of the scarcity of material factors of production. Trotsky revealed that in the proletarian paradise “the average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will rise.”[40]
Nowadays the most popular chimeras are stabilization and security. We will test these catchwords later."[emphasis mine]
If God only can create organisms that mirror his “moral code” and therefore can not create organisms that do not mirror his “moral code”, then he is not omnipotent. If we are still anthropomorphizing God, then I can ask “How do you know that God did not impute to the human mind an inconsistent-with-his-moral-code moral code?”.
Could you clarify what you mean by “perfect” when you talk about the epistemological structure of the human mind in the first sentence? Perfect in what sense?
I agree that there are many things we cannot comprehend or prove, but if reason and logic are valid tools for use in debate then I see no reason why they are not valid also here. However, I see no reason why determinism isn’t the basis for everything in the absence of God.
Could you explain further? I don’t think I used either of those words in my original post.
I do not imply that our minds comprehend everything about the nature of the universe. However, our minds can and do understand some things about the universe. It seems reasonable to use such a common definition of the universe for discussion.
If God does not exist, morals do not exist. The evolutionary mechanisms you speak of are simply tools of survival. Michael Ruse, a philosopher of science from the University of Guelph, writes,
The position of the modern evolutionist . . . is that humans have an awareness of morality . . . because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth . . . . Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says ‘Love they neighbor as thyself,’ they think they are referring above and beyond themselves . . . . Nevertheless, . . . such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, . . . and any deeper meaning is illusory . . . .
I do mean the greatest “conceivable being.” However, as you have said earlier, our minds are limited and there are surely things of which we cannot conceive. For example, if God exists then he is surely greater than what we can conceive.
Omniscience does not imply determinism. Knowing that something will happen does not mean that you have caused that thing to happen or that free will does not exist.
The attribute of God being omnipresent does indeed imply that God is where we are, even amidst our very cells and atoms.
If God creates creatures with free will then they necessarily have the ability to go against his moral code. That does nothing to take away from his omnipotence.
Can either of you two direct me to the section that contains the logical proof?
Before continuing discussion in this thread, can you and I. Ryan define “right conduct,” “right” and “wrong”? You are implicitly agreeing on definitions (by carrying out argument on the premises at all), but leaving the rest of us in the dark.
You got it wrong. Authoritarians must prove that they have legitimate authority. Otherwise they must admit they support might-makes-right.
Natural rights is the default position. If you disagree, please disprove natural rights and provide a logical proof showing why Smith has authority over Jones.
I meant to imply that a perfect basic epistemological structure of mind would imply that no epistemological limitations exist (i.e., that the progress of human science is not limited). And, therefore, for example, if the basic epistemological structure of the human mind were “perfect”, then that would imply that spacetime is the basic framework of the universe because spacetime is the basic framework of the human mind and that spacetime is the basic framework of the human mind because spacetime is the basic framework of the universe.
It is not reasonable to use such definitions in this discussion because this discussion both involves the comprehensible and involves the incomprehensible. Conversely, it is reasonable to use such definitions in a praxeological discussion because a praxeological discussions involves only the comprehensible.
You claimed that “if God does not exist, there is nothing outside of the universe”. And, you defined “the universe” as “everything that exists in time and space”. Therefore, you directly logically implied that “if God does not exist”, then “there is nothing outside of [. . .] time and space”.
However, such a claim is obviously untenable. As I already mentioned, does the mere fact that the framework of the human mind is spacetime imply that the framework of the universe is spacetime? No; it does not. It is entirely possible that many other dimensions exist that the human mind can not comprehend whatsoever.
And, similarly, the claim that “determinism [is] the basis of the for everything” is obviously untenable. Does the mere fact that determinism is the basic epistemological structure of the human mind imply that determinism is the basic epistemological structure of the universe? No; it does not. It is entirely possible that many other non-deterministic events exist that the human mind can not comprehend whatsoever.
In your original post, you wrote:
In those definitions, the terms “right” and “wrong” appear many times. However, you did not define them. I believe that merely the claim that moral conduct is “right conduct” is extremely illusory and argumentatively empty because it merely uses the readers intuitive understanding of moral right and wrong and it therefore does not add any new information. If you wish to merely understand morality via intuition, then no reason exists to attempt to intellectually analyze it.
I completely agree with the message of that quote; I do not believe that the origin of our self-evident moral code is different than the origin of any other one of our evolutionary adaptations.
However, it is ridiculous to claim that the term “morality” can be employed only in order to describe a universal code of interpersonal behavior that a potentially existent supernatural entity imputed to the human mind and to therefore monopolize that term.
It seems that you conflated denotation and connotation. The term “morality”, to you, connotes a very powerful and meaningful spiritual connotation. However, if you choose to accept the argument that morality is merely an evolutionary adaptation, then the term “morality” would cease to connote the aforementioned connotation. As a result of that, you believe that the original term no longer applies. However, the change of meaning is merely a change of connotational meaning; the denotation of the term “morality” would remain the same.
Furthermore, if I choose to accept that my understanding of morality can not be legitimately termed “morality”, then what term can I instead employ? Or, do you believe that any one that disagrees with your explanation of morality should be completely or partially metaphorically-linguistically handcuffed?
You claimed both that the definition of God is “the greatest conceivable being” and that “if God exists[,] then he is surely greater that what we can conceive”. Those two statements are clearly contradictory.
If an entity were omniscient and therefore preperceived the entire future concatenation of events, then that clearly implies that such a concatenation of events is predetermined. If such a concatenation of event were not predetermined, then such an entity would not be able to preperceive such a concatenation events and would therefore not be omniscient.
It is nonsensical to imply that the self-evident moral code of the human mind is a reflection of the moral code of a supernatural entity because . . . how do you know? It is completely possible that such an entity imputed to the human mind a contradictory and inconsistent and ridiculous-from-his-perspective moral code.