I like to think I understand both sides of the discussion, and see valid points in both directions. I can’t offer too much here because the debate is between two intellectual heavy weights that likely out knowledge me in this area. (You and Wilderness). Still I see where Wilderness comes from and I do think there are several natural norms that regardless of what you believe to be right and wrong will exist otherwise. Pretending that they don’t exist doesn’t change the fact.
Let’s focus for a second on “Natural Law”. Ignoring ethics for now, let’s use Bloom’s previous post as a wonderful example of where Wilderness’s points really shine.
This is essentially the equivalent of saying: If gravity is natural law, then all the awful things airplanes do are a part of that law. In essence he is correct, but his comment mises the point of what the natural law of Gravity tells us. It is simply making us aware of naturally occurring norms that we must adhere to, whether we like it or not. Moving objective ethics aside, there is a natural norm and natural function to many things. We can only work within these rules. There is a reason why an airplane needs large wings and a traveling speed of 300+mph to take flight, it is due to the law of gravity. Another example would be that solid rock melts and becomes magma between 1300f to 2400f degrees. There are other objective things we can take note about in the world around us, for example we acknowledge universally that rocks exist. I can acknowledge objectively that there are flowers planted outside of my office. These are objective notes we can make about the world around us. So far they are value-free. Additionally praxeology is just as much of a natural law as gravity is. We cannot refute its existence, only choose to pretend to ignore it.
So what we can find is that there are various norms that can be observed objectively from human action and the world around us. Now I understand extremely well that moving the discussion into the realm of morality becomes a nasty equivocation but I haven’t yet convinced myself that this is conclusively fallacious. I also understand full well that a fully comprehensive individual system of ethics comes down to the subjective preferences of each person. But I do think that even amongst different subjective codes of conduct you are likely to find foundational norm. I believe it would be easy to find patterns and trends on things that were universally accepted as true. I take this stance from a utilitarian position specifically. Things like exchange, property, among other economic tenants would be natural occurrences and in one form or another exist in nearly all other subjective forms of ethics. I know those examples couldn’t immediately be proven true, and could easily be proven false when citing some destruction form of ethics. So this brings up the next point.
Before I leave you with the last food for thought let me just say this. I realize I probably hadn’t placed as much thought on this topic as you or Wilderness, but non-the less I haven’t convinced myself yet that there isn’t a little bit of truth in both sides of the argument. Finally consider this point as eloquently stated by Justin Summers. I recently had a verbal discussion with Justin (I hope Justin won’t be upset by me sharing our thoughts) regarding this specific topic. He brought up and interesting thought I hadn’t yet considered.
There are things in life that you can simply deny, and you can deny them based on whatever subjective valuation you attribute it to(Like eating is evil for example), but there are things in life which you cannot defy(Like never eating forever). Another example would be, I think gravity is evil, but I cannot defy gravity. This statement is particularly interesting to me. I wonder if you would considered it. In short there are things in life you can deny(by some valuation) but some of those things cannot be defied.
At any rate I don’t have alot of emotion invested in this topic, but I do get a great deal of pleasure exploring the pro’s and cons of it. I meant no offense directed at you Grayson specifically in my earlier post. <3