Absolutely. Natural law is not concerned with ends. If it were it would be in the bussines of answering the question of ‘what should one do’. Instead it is in the business of answering ‘what does one have the right to do’ which is different.
Natural law can say you have not got the right to murder, but it does not say that you should not murder. Likewise it says that you have the right to dispense justice on a murderer, but it does not say to do it.
I don’t see how this follows. It is certainly an objective fact that the human body requires sustenance to continue functioning. It is also a fact that, without sustenance, man will suffer pain. I don’t see how these facts allow you to conclude that the consumption of food is an “objective end.” You’re jumping from biological facts about the human body to desires of the human mind.
It would help to understand exactly what you mean when you talk about an end. You appear to define an end as a desirable good; which, again, seems to me like a conceptual leap.
Okay that’s fine, I’ll answer with regard to the normative “right/wrong” sense.
If you mean, “can someone who cannot choose (in other words a non-agent) have moral judgments?”, then I would say no, because moral judgments imply values, and values imply agency.
If you mean, "can someone who cannot choose be judged morally?, then that depends on the person doing the judging. Humans have made moral judgments regarding child-killing dogs and even have impulses to violently punish recalcitrant machines (I’m thinking of a certain scene from Office Space here).
Does that answer the general thrust of your questions, or would you like me to respond (tomorrow) to your other ones?
While true, I’m attempting to point out that food is an objective end that all individuals have. […] the physical sensation of pain is proof that there are some objective ends held by all humans.
I don’t see how this follows. It is certainly an objective fact that the human body requires sustenance to continue functioning. It is also a fact that, without sustenance, man will suffer pain. I don’t see how these facts allow you to conclude that the consumption of food is an “objective end.” You’re jumping from biological facts about the human body to desires of the human mind.
It would help to understand exactly what you mean when you talk about an end. You appear to define an end as a desirable good; which, again, seems to me like a conceptual leap.
Fair analysis. I’m still in the process of reasoning out the details, but I would say that the fact that the body requires sustenance, the fact that pain results without sustenance, and the fact that pain in and of itself - or pain, ceteris paribus - is objectively not desired by anyone (or, more clearly, the absence of pain is ceteris paribus desired by everyone) all tie together under the assertion that sustenance is objectively desired by everyone.
How about this:
Human beings decide what is right and wrong.
If human beings are unable to decide there is no right or wrong.
Moral means there is a right choice.
Absence of choice is not moral.
Edit: I noticed your reply above after I posted this. I will digest your reply.
Again, universal does not mean objective. The dictionary definition of objective is “Not dependent on the mind for existence”. By very definition, there is no such thing as a desire that is not dependent on the mind for existence. Therefore there can be no such thing as an “objective desire.”
sustenance is objectively desired by everyone.
Again, universal does not mean objective. The dictionary definition of objective is “Not dependent on the mind for existence”. By very definition, there is no such thing as a desire that is not dependent on the mind for existence. Therefore there can be no such thing as an “objective desire.”
I would subsume “mental” or “conscious” desires underneath a larger category of just “desire,” into which things like “instinctual desire” would also fall. For instance, I don’t think animals have “minds” or “consciousness” in the sense that we typically use the terms, but, using my terminology, I would say that they have desires.
Our faculty of reason does not itself provide us with the ability to eradicate our instinctual desires and instinctual ends… I would even theorize that the former developed as a response to (and means of satisfying) the latter.
Yep.
“For we are not, in constructing a theory of liberty and property, i.e., a “political” ethic, concerned with all personal moral principles. We are not herewith concerned whether it is moral or immoral for someone to lie, to be a good person, to develop his faculties, or be kind or mean to his neighbors. We are concerned, in this sort of discussion, solely with such “political ethical” questions as the proper role of violence, the sphere of rights, or the definitions of criminality and aggression. Whether or not it is moral or immoral for “Smith” - the fellow excluded by the owner from the plank or the lifeboat - to force someone else out of the lifeboat, or whether he should die heroically instead, is not our concern, and not the proper concern of a theory of political ethics.[5]” - TEOL Chp 20.
…
"IT IS NOT THE intention of this book to expound or defend at length the philosophy of natural law, or to elaborate a natural-law ethic for the personal morality of man. The intention is to set forth a social ethic of liberty, i.e., to elaborate that subset of the natural law that develops the concept of natural rights, and that deals with the proper sphere of “politics,” i.e., with violence and non-violence as modes of interpersonal relations. In short, to set forth a political philosophy of liberty.
In our view the major task of “political science” or better, “political philosophy” is to construct the edifice of natural law pertinent to the political scene." - Chp 5, TEOL (The Task of Political Philosophy)
…
"Libertarianism, then, is a philosophy seeking a policy. But what else can a libertarian philosophy say about strategy, about “policy”? In the first place, surely-again in Acton’s words-it must say that liberty is the “highest political end,” the overriding goal of libertarian philosophy Highest political end, of course, does not mean “highest end” for man in general. Indeed, every individual has a variety of personal ends and differing hierarchies of importance for these goals on his personal scale of values. Political philosophy is that subset of ethical philosophy which deals specifically with politics, that is, the proper role of violence in human life (and hence the explication of such concepts as crime and property). Indeed, a libertarian world would beone in which every individual would at last be free to seek and pursue his own ends-to “pursue happiness,” in the felicitous Jeffersonian phrase." - TEOL, Chp 30.
…
"The Libertarian Forum - 1973**, exchange between Halliday and Block. This is part of the Editors note.**
"How about Professor Block’s second premise, that evil is only the initiation of violence? Here I think it is possible to partially reconcile the Block and Halliday positions. It is a question of what context we are dealing with. I would agree with Block that within the context of libertarian theory, evil must be confined to the initiation of violence. On the other hand, when we proceed from libertarianism to the question of wider social and personal ethics, then I would agree with Halliday that there are many other actions which should be considered as evil: lying, for example. or deliberately failing to fulfill one’s best potential. But these are not matters about which liberty - the problem of the proper scope of violence - has anything to say. In short, qua libertarian there is nothing wrong or evil about breaking dates, being gratuitously nasty to one’s associates, or generally behaving like a cad: here not only do I join Professor Block, but I would expect Mr. Halliday and all other libertarians to do the same. On the other hand, qua general ethicist, I would join Mr. Halliday in denouncing such behavior, while Professor Block would not."
I agree with Blocks response to Halliday, but also Murray’s note. I emailed Mr. Block, wondering if the characterization was correct. Response: *“*I’m shocked that I ever wrote it. I don’t think I meant it. I agree, fully, with Murray." So, Walter would also join.”
In terms of personal ethics;
This:
"Rasmussen and DenUyl are not satisfied. The view just canvassed confines ethics to rules that apply to everyone. Questions about the good life have no objective answers: here mere preferences reign supreme. In brief, the right is prior to the good:
“The general tendency has been to consider the good as essentially privatized and the right as universalized. The good. . .has come to be regarded as the object of one’s own interest, the object of one’s desires, or those things one regards as beneficial. It is said to stand in contrast to what one may do with any right. What one may do by right is what is allowed to, or demanded of, or required by, all agents equally and universally. . .there is an inevitable tendency in the distinction between the good and the right to deprecate the moral nature of the good to the enhancement of the right. In other words, what is impartial and universal tends to take precedence over goods, which are, almost by definition now, partial and particular.”(pp.22, 26)
They defend instead an Aristotelian view. The good for a person does not consist of his whims and desires, whatever they may be—far from it. Rather, each person has a natural end or function: his leading a flourishing life. This view, which they term perfectionism, “holds that eudaimonia [happiness or flourishing] is the ultimate good or value and that virtue ought to characterize how human beings conduct their lives.”(p.111)
Does not a problem at once threaten them? They deny that the good life reduces without remainder to preferences: the good is objective. Yet they are also favor a political system in which people are free to act as they please, so long as they do not initiate or threaten force or fraud. But are there not many actions that fall within these bounds that an objective ethics would condemn? Suppose that I spend most of my days drinking myself into a stupor. I threaten no one with force, but surely I am not living in accord with my Aristotelian natural end. I am doing what is objectively wrong: how then can I have a right to do it?
Many supporters of natural law view matters exactly as these questions suggest. There can be no right to violate the demands of morality. Thus, Heinrich Rommen, a distinguished historian of natural law, remarked that rights are: “the sphere of right that is ‘given’ with the nature of a person.”(p.64) Your rights are defined by your duties, and there cannot be a “right” to do what is wrong.
The authors answer with their key thesis: The mandates of personal ethics do not directly determine the nature of political arrangements. Liberalism [or Libertarianism] is not “a ‘normative political philosophy’ in the usual sense. It is rather a political philosophy of metanorms. It seeks not to guide individual conduct in moral activity, but rather to regulate conduct so that conditions might be obtained where moral action can take place. To contrast liberalism directly with alternative ethical systems or values is, therefore, something of a category mistake.”(p.34)
The combination of an objective personal ethics with a political system of freedom is, then, logically consistent. But why should we adopt it? Why not, rather, enact a political system whose metanorms require that people conform to their objective end?
The authors’ version of ethics excludes this suggestion. They embrace “individualistic perfectionism.” There is no fixed pattern to which every individual, in his pursuit of eudaimonia, must conform. Rather, “the generic goods and virtues that constitute human flourishing only become actual, determinate, and valuable realities when they are given particular form by the choices of flesh-and-blood persons. The importance or value of these goods and virtues is rooted in factors that are unique to each person, for it is not the universal as such that is valuable. . .Human flourishing is not simply achieved and enjoyed by individuals, but it is individualized.”(pp.132-33)"
I equivocate “natural law” with the idea of a “political ethic,” but I haven’t thought the same way of “natural rights” for some reason (it sounds to me more like an examination of morality). So, I apologize if I derailed the thread somewhat. I would still be more than happy to discuss my points further in another thread or in private with anyone who’s interested.
I must, therefore, reject natural rights. Thank you, this has cleared things up for me.
This is the source of my confusion. I care about what people should do, that is, what means they should pursue in order to obtain their desired ends.
Conza, I don’t think anyone here has exhibited that they think natural rights has to do with non-political matters.
Moreover, Rothbard, although limiting himself to political affairs, is still claiming that certain value judgments or “correct” while others are “false”, which is entirely untenable, for all the reasons Adam, Ryan, zefreak, Liberte, and I have discussed at length these past few days.
This is most welcome news, Mr. Esuric! Score one for Misesian clarity.
I think Lilburne has brought up two important points: 1) Universality should not be confused with objectivity.
And, 2) the ranking of desires; that is, valuation. That a man will suffer from lack of food, and that he may have a desire to not feel pain, isn’t very significant without looking at the man’s scale of desires. If your reasoning is focused on the existence of the desire alone… well, aren’t our desires limitless? What good is it to merely say we desire food?
I don’t see what is unsatisfactory with, “It is a biological fact that man requires sustenance to survive. And as man commonly prefers life over death, and the absence of pain over the feeling of pain, man will commonly seek food.” Why go beyond this and attempt to prove the objectivity of the matter? Ditto for moral sentiments.
(time now for me to say that I’ve enjoyed the discussion this week, particularly the insights of Lilburne and Liberte)
I want to address this question:
If I put a pin in your eye, blinded you and robbed you, before you could do anything about it… what system is it that will come along and show that it is wrong???
A question of law should be posed:
if i put a pin in your eye, blinded you and robbed you, before you could do anything about it… what system is it that will come along and show that it is right or wrong?
Natural law.
Might makes right. Whoever sells the most beliefs wins.
Law is not enforcement. Law defines the rules.
I like your (Christian) way of expression. You “reject” natural rights.
I don’t think it actually says much to “reject” natural rights. You may reject them in the sense that you may reject the teachings of Christ. That is, you refuse to have them guide your actions (wholly or partially). But you can not reject them as a fact. No more than you can reject the fact that God wants you to live according to the teachings of Christ (if Christians are to be believed). You can only deny the validity of such a theory, but “rejecting” it doesn’t actually do anything for it. It would do as much good as rejecting gravity.
Natural law casts a certain light on every action you do. Now wether you are determined to live your life in such a way that it will never cast a negative light on your actions that is up to you.
But if you do not, and if that is all that your refusal amounts to, then that does not actually make you different from countless others adherents of natural law theory. Almost every adherent of natural law would under certain circumstances do something that he knows is not in his right to do (and that therefore now counter-force can rightfully be used against him). Eg steal a boat to save a drowning child. Further, Walter Block has written that in certain (extremely unlikely) circumstances he could be convinced to support taxation. And after seeing the movie Fail Safe, I have realised that placed in certain situation I can see myself considering murdering 8 million people (to prevent an end of the world for everyone). What makes you an adherent of natural law theory is “merely” recognising the fact that objectively speaking you irrefutably do not have the right to do these things.
So I think you have not really “rejected” natural rights. I think you have merely come to realise that rather than sort of all encompassing moral teaching on how to or how not live a life. It is merely a theory that concerns itself with a small corner of ethics, ie the question of “what can be rightfully enforced”. Well, if somebody murders 8 million people to save the world, then we can rightfully use force on him and punish him for his mass murder. But on the question of wether he should murder 8 million to prevent an all out nuclear holocaust the natural law has nothing to say on. For this we turn to other (subjective or religious) teachings, and to personal moral codes and what not…
Answer for yourself the question: In your opinion is it posssible to solely with the use of reason reliably determine for any forceful act wether or not it justifies the use of counter-force against the actor? If the answer is yes then you are a natural law person. If the answer is no then you are a moral relativist. That is the real make or break.
This is exceedingly good new. Welcome to the other side.
The point of posting was to make that clear. Several individuals that you mentioned, have actually - in the past, made that exact mistake.
Whilst you may seem to understand it, I’m fairly certain there are others that don’t.
(i.e those who call others an “ass” when they were asked and yet cannot elaborate on their conception of natural law.. but then latter ask someone else precisely that question [what is it?]… lol) Then they re-commence the circle jerk & act as some kind of welcoming party, for what they now perceieve to be a fellow traveller. Most amusing..
Well is your goal to live a life in such a way that no force can ever be rightfully brought against you? If it is then understanding of the natural law is extremely valuable. I think this goal is the goal of almost all people (albeit differently expressed), but it does not necessarily rank as the number one of their goals. For example they may value saving the world, or saving a drowing child even more. Or they may simply value getting rich more.
But no, natural law is not about ends. Lets say that your life goal is to be a wicked aggressor. Then knowing natural law is again useful. It enables you to know with total clarity which course of action is unjustified and means breaking people’s rights.
First of all sorry folks if I’m restating something which has already been said but 70 comments is a lot of stuff to go through.
Your analysis seems mostly fine, you accept the market ethic as your ethic, however this does not stop other ethics or moralities from bein better or worse in and of themselves depending upon whether one judges actions by their inevitable consequences or their intentions. Assuming we judge them by their actions then some actions are inherently worse as long as they were acting according to your societal ethic, but if they were attempting to work to the ethic of say, killing as many as possible, then their actions of mass murder would be equally correct.
Basically so long as you accept that inherently your stated ethic is no better or worse than any other ethic then youre already in the clear. I believe in the ethic of voluntary interaction to the highest degree possible, so long as society is not destroyed I care little about any negative side effects upon society (although I don’t think there will be any and if so they will be few and far between), so to me your societal ethic conforms similarly with my beliefs but it is not better or worse than mine and it is not universal to all mens values.
Sorry this is kind of rushed will expand if necessary