http://libertariannation.org/a/f42l1.html#4.2
Who Has the Burden of Proof?
But first let me make a point about the burden of proof. Most critics of Natural Law assume that the burden of proof lies with the proponent of Natural Law — presumably because they see Natural Law as something bizarre and implausible, something one couldn’t sensibly believe unless there were a knock-down argument for it. But in fact, to believe in Natural Law is simply to believe that there are moral standards that transcend the practices and customs of any given community — that there are rational grounds for condemning the Nazi regime as immoral, that it is possible to be justified in so condemning it, even if we assume that what the Nazis did was perfectly in accordance with the values of Nazi culture. When we condemn Nazism, we don’t ordinarily take ourselves to be expressing a purely personal, subjective preference, like the preference for chocolate over vanilla; rather, our ordinary practices of praising and condemning seem to implicitly assume that there are objective moral standards, i.e., that there is a Natural Law to which manmade laws are answerable.
Now of course the fact that ordinary practices implicitly assume something is no guarantee that what they assume is true. But such a fact does seem to shift the burden of proof.
Consider: the fact that it seems to me that I am sitting in front of my computer typing these words doesn’t guarantee that I really am doing so; I might be dreaming, or hallucinating, or I might be trapped in an incredibly realistic virtual-reality program. Now a philosopher like Descartes would say that I have the burden of proving that I’m not dreaming, hallucinating, etc. — that I have to be able to rule those alternatives out before I can be justified in thinking I really am here, awake and typing.
But if Descartes were right — if we couldn’t be justified in believing anything unless we first ruled out all possibility of error — then we would never be justified in believing anything, since whatever evidence we pointed to in order to prove our starting beliefs reliable would in turn have to be justified by appeal to further evidence and so on ad infinitum. And if that were so, then we couldn’t be justified in holding the
belief that started us down this infinite regress in the first place — namely, the belief that in order to be justified in believing anything we must first rule out all possibility of error. So Cartesian skepticism ultimately undermines itself: if everything should be doubted, then the claim that everything should be doubted is itself one of the things that should be doubted — and once we go doubting that, we lose our original reason for doubting everything else.2
What that means is that we are, after all, justified in accepting the way things initially seem to us as a true picture of the world, despite the possibility that those beliefs are mistaken. Now that doesn’t mean we’re justified in clinging to our beliefs with blind faith, defying all evidence to the contrary. But it does mean that those who oppose these ordinary beliefs are the ones who have the burden of proof; we’re justified in accepting our initial beliefs as true until we find convincing evidence that they’re false. This must be so, because the contrary position, as we’ve seen, is rationally incoherent. So if our ordinary practice of moral judgment commits us to believing in Natural Law, then Natural Law is part of our picture of the world, and we’re justified in accepting it until someone gives us good reason to reject it. The burden of proof thus rests with the opponents of Natural Law.
That is not to say that I think there is no positive case to be made for Natural Law. On the contrary, much of my own philosophical research is devoted to making such a case, relying on the insights of the Aristotelean tradition combined with the philosophical discoveries of the last thirty years. My point is simply that the justifiability of accepting Natural Law as part of one’s picture of the universe does not require that the positive case for Natural Law be established first.
Now let’s turn to some of those common objections to Natural Law theory.
The post is still waiting.
Actually… that means I am right. All you have is personal disgust, which stems from your own sense of morality. Since all personal morality is subjective, it is meaningless. Political ethics on the other hand is not, as I explained above, and that which you chose not to respond to.
Oh no I am disgusted regardless, the difference is mine is founded on logic and is axiomatic, whilst yours is merely a value preference. You would do nothing to those who committed genocide, and I would hold that they are punishable to the extent they violated anothers rights.
No I don’t. I asked questions, you responded to some and completely ignored others. I’m not conflating anything and your lack of objectivity is obvious. Are you ever going to go address my previous post that refuted your objections to Natural Law? Eh?
A women is attacked. Their normative rights have been violated. In this society, the legal and de-facto rights say it is ok and legal to do (for women to be raped for eg.) The “society” says so. You are fine with this, you have no legal / political ethical objection to it.
The woman can try defend herself, but she is beaten back by the law. Your response is in essence “take it or leave it”.
Why should the victim leave? Why? Are you not blaming them if you ask them to leave? If you don’t blame them, then again - why the hell should they leave their home and property?
Why shouldn’t the criminal be asked to leave?
- Slavery is Natural
- Slavery Has Always Existed
It’s unfortunate you’re selective in the questions you respond to.
“what is your legal / political ethical objection to the Holocaust? Do you have one?”
- If you say you don’t have one, (alternatively provide one) I’ll be happy to let this issue / conversation rest.