Hamilton versus Jefferson
Hamilton, you can understand his philosophy in one day by reading Paine's common sense. He was actually a very bad self-taught lawyer who didn't finish college.
Jefferson, you have to read at a minimum Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Aquinas, Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and Rousseau. Not surprisingly,about one in a million understand Jefferson's natural rights in this country, especially because stupid community-college courses on Hamilton preen their egos so much they believe they know everything.
Hamilton actually created such a legal nightmare people are still arguing about rights to own muskets in order to suppress slave rebellions. Of course, politicians still echo the propaganda so frequently, no one actually questions it at all. Jefferson gave up on the inanity and went to France.
That is called real thought, based on real knowledge, I believe that the absence of such thought is the main philosophical explanation why America is in the dumps.
People frequently challenge my thought on that in no uncertain terms. So I created a poll to prove I am right. I look forward to your responses )
Jefferson, you have to read at a minimum Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Aquinas, Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and Rousseau. Not surprisingly,about one in a million understand Jefferson's natural rights in this country, especially because stupid community-college courses on Hamilton preen their egos so much they believe they know everything.
Hamilton actually created such a legal nightmare people are still arguing about rights to own muskets in order to suppress slave rebellions. Of course, politicians still echo the propaganda so frequently, no one actually questions it at all. Jefferson gave up on the inanity and went to France.
That is called real thought, based on real knowledge, I believe that the absence of such thought is the main philosophical explanation why America is in the dumps.
People frequently challenge my thought on that in no uncertain terms. So I created a poll to prove I am right. I look forward to your responses )
Comments (103)
How many lawyers in Hamilton's day (or Lincoln's, for that matter) were NOT self taught, and had not gone to college?
Only 300 people in the US understand Jefferson's natural rights?
What have you got against Common Sense?
Was Hamilton a better thinker than Jefferson? In what areas? Jefferson was a very poor financial manager; Hamilton was a very good logistics and financial manager. Jefferson was a profligate spender in his private life, and was bankrupt when he died.
Why do you suppose that "People frequently challenge my thought on that in no uncertain terms"? It's OK to have unpopular opinions -- why do you need a poll to prove that 8% agree with you, and 6% do not, the rest not giving a rat's ass one way or the other?
I did write something on that but it is 20,000 words and I am not allowed to share a link.
So I think it likely that Hamilton became a lawyer by "reading the law" as most did. How good of a lawyer he was I don't know really, but from what I understand he was generally successful though long-winded, unlike his nemesis Aaron Burr, who was succinct and on-point. They tried a few cases together.
Jefferson, of course, was a lawyer as well (we are a nation of lawyers, not men). Both were remarkable, highly intelligent men. Who was the better thinker? John Adams.
Truth is not democratic.
Quoting ernestm
As you clearly already know.
Ah, I get it now, you expect us all to disagree with you, thus proving you right. Right?
So? Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Oprah Winfrey dropped out of college too.
Quoting ernestm
The gods are merciful.
Amateurs. Leiden University had its first university course in 1575 and Leuven probably before that. Tssk. Tssk. No wonder US law is such a morass, it's still 200 years behind continental Europe. :P
I don't agree. From a legal perspective, the debate centers around the woman's right over her body versus the state's right to regulate. From a philosophical perspective, the debate most often centers around the concept of personhood and when the fetus gains inherent rights. Regardless, the abortion issue no more centers around intuition than any other issue.
The School of Law at Bologna was founded in 1088, and is by my understanding the oldest in the Western world--one of the many great things brought into the world by Italy.
Exactly wrong. Roe v. Wade held specifically that the unborn child was not a person: "All this, together with our observation, supra, that throughout the major portion of the 19th century prevailing legal abortion practices were far freer than they are today, persuades us that the word "person," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn."
That is, the unborn child is not a person and therefore has no rights at all.
As the Court stated with regard to third trimester abortions: "For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother."
That is, the State has the right to promote life in the third trimester by prohibiting abortion regardless of the wishes of the mother unless the mother's life or health is in jeopardy.
There are therefore two interests being weighed: (1) The mother's and (2) the State's. The fetus' rights are not weighed at all. The distinction is critical. If a particular state chose to allow 3rd trimester abortions to viable fetuses, it would not run afoul of the Constitution.
Regardless, you current comment is incorrect for two reasons (at least). 1. The wrongness of Roe v. Wade is weighed by how correctly it interprets the Constitution, not by its fidelity to natural rights theory. It strikes me that you wish to impose natural law as some sacred rule of construction on the Constitution, and perhaps you even want to discard the text of the Constitution and simply infer what natural law might require. Regardless, that rule of construction is highly idiosyncratic (aka one you just sort of made up), and not one generally (aka not at all) accepted.
2. Natural law theory does not mandate any particular definition of "person." It's just as consistent with a natural law theory to accept that life begins at conception as it does to say it begins at viability or at birth.
Regardless, no one (that I am aware of) suggests that the abortion debate is just a tug of war of competing interests between two different people. That is, it's not like everyone admits the fetus is a person just like the mother, but mom has the right to kill her kid while unborn, but kid also has the right to live while unborn, so the grand compromise is to let mom have the right to kill her kid for 6 months but then give the kid the last 3 to live without fear of murder. And then to say that this result is somehow the consequence of natural law theory (to those few souls intelligent enough to understand it) is just to add an additional layer of nonsense to this discussion.
Would, under your interpretation of the Constitution, the state be able to force women who are pregnant as a result of rape or incest to carry their pregnancy to term?
Also, to all members of the discussion, are we referring to natural law in regards to a moral theory or natural law as a legal theory?
The purpose of the rights are simply to avoid that social conflict. If such social conflict exists, then the human law needs to change to remove it, or the society self destructs. When the human law embodies natural law, it is successful in creating peace and prosperity. when human law is in conflict with natural law, it causes civil strife.
There is no magical recipe, or hidden higher order. In a correctly constructed system of government, the balance between restrictions and rights is self modifying and homeostatic. In an ill-constructed system, the conflict between opposing sides increases until there is civil war.
In a constitutional system, the authority of the constitution depends on proper promulgation of rights and restrictions from natural law, otherwise the government collapses. The main reason why the USA has grown in the past was because that promulgation was working.
In the last century, the promulgation started to break down, and now other superpowers such as China and Russia are slowly taking over. That's the way it is.
What?
You do know France erupted into a violent revolution which was a complete and utter failure to protect the people's liberty to such an extreme degree that they spread war to all of Europe all for nothing under an egomaniacal dictator and eventually straight up abandoned the republican project altogether and restored the monarchy just to stop the madness, right?
Also, Lin-Manuel Miranda is a racist. A great songwriter, but also a huge racist. He's like a 21st century Richard Wagner. Puts on huge impressive stage musicals constructed out of leitmotifs, and is super racist in his politics. Totally Wagnerian.
So, can the state (governing body) just dictate that women cannot have abortions unless their health is severely threatened? In other words, could all 50 states have a policy that automatically rejects abortions on the grounds of rape and incest?
I'm Pro-Life. The media and pro-abortion activists always seem to assumr this is an irrational religious thing. That only shows they're in an echo chamber. They aren't listening or thinking.
Pro-Lifers are logical. They aren't just expressing a personal dislike of abortion as being icky or disgusting. They are reasoning from the premise that abortion is murder and that's not an extreme position in the Pro-Life movement -- that is the mainstream Pro-Life view. So they do of course want to ban abortion / murder.
Are rape and incest babies somehow less human than other babies? If abortion is murder, then no exception for rape or incest can be rationally justified. Such a thing would be logically indefensible.
I thought that natural rights theory answered the question of who a person was and who should be afforded rights? Why do you now withdraw from your all encompassing theory and present your personal opinion, as if there is no answer?Quoting ernestm
What does federalism have to do with natural rights? Are you now suggesting that the 10th Amendment check against the federal government is a dictate of natural rights? I understand that you believe there are areas of disagreement regarding abortion and they should be submitted for democratic decision, but I don't follow why you think state legislatures are more principled than federal legislatures on this point.
Good point. I agree that the legality and morality of an abortion should not be determined by the cause of the pregnancy. But if abortion is not murder or otherwise morally objectionable, then it follows that abortion ought to be as easy for someone whose pregnancy was caused by consensual sex as it is for someone who was raped.
Abortion is like every act of potentially immoral killing- it needs to be dealt with on its own. Simply calling it murder and the opposition an echo chamber is not exactly productive.
Even if abortion is immoral, it appears that a young girl who is raped into pregnancy who then decides to have an abortion is not blameworthy. There is nothing necessarily good in this case (though we can argue about that), there is nothing necessarily wrong either. Even if there is, it seems the two options: force a young girl to carry a pregnancy that was the result of rape, or allow an abortion, the abortion seems like the lesser of the two evils. Yes, it might be logically consistent to hold no abortions except in the case of adverse health effects, but it is also logically consistent to say, "lying is always wrong, regardless of the circumstances." Being that act utilitarian who kills innocent people gain one more unit of utility over not killing them is logically consistent. Peter Singer might be logically consistent when he says that moral status of personhood does not really happen in the conceptus until two years old when they start forming conscious desires, but I doubt you think of his theory as good for that.
This appears especially true in the political. Effectively, it is an overstepping of the state to say that teenage girls must carry a pregnancy from rape to term. The conception of "right to life" does not automatically trump "right to liberty". The state cannot force excessive and insane tax rates on you and the economy just because it saves a statistical life (and there are a lot of laws and policies that can be put into place that do just that). In fact, I think there might be a bit of the right to life and the right to liberty because simply existing in and of itself may not be very good. The right to life appears to cover more than just surviving- it means also having a life to live. The state cannot ruin the liberty of its citizens to the point where we seriously begin to question whether the right to life is being preserved.
As an aside, whether you like it or not, most people, even those against abortion, claim abortion is morally permissible in the case of rape. I believe that Ronald Dworkin and thinkers like him used this notion as a springboard, using it to try and reexamine why we intuitively find abortion moral in some cases and abortion immoral in others.
Except we're not.
Natural rights theory doesn't mandate defining personhood at viability. Here you just adopt the Roe v. Wade reasoning. A fetus at the age cited has only about a 20% chance of survival by the way. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_viability&ved=0ahUKEwiuyOy8lZLTAhVFYiYKHWq0Ao4QFggcMAE&usg=AFQjCNHKM7UyjCNU3l1bMRAZ7CEc3ERzTw&sig2=XVx2DO16vVxU_ddy6YdK9Q
This begs the question entirely and it is unresponsive to the entirety of this discussion. The question is "what is a child"? You have argued a fetus is a child when it is viable, which is simply an adoption of the Roe v. Wade analysis. The bottom line, which I've argued all along, is that natural law does not define personhood. It simply affords certain rights to people, whoever they may be. For that reason, you cannot assert that natural law answers the question of when abortion is acceptable or not, except to say that it's not acceptable when the fetus is a person, but you have no idea what a person is. That is, natural law is not helpful in figuring out when to abort or not.
Quoting ernestm
And yet this isn't true either. You may be personally opposed to the death penalty, but this simply does not follow from a natural right analysis. We have all sorts of natural rights aside from the right to live, including the right to liberty. Surely you're not suggesting that no person can every have their liberty restrained, as in being imprisoned, for a crime they've committed. The point being that rights can be denied after due process of law, including the right to live and the right to be free. That is, you can have all sorts of rights, but they can be denied. If you don't accept that, then you'll have to explain how you expect to restrain people who violate the rights of others.Quoting ernestm
Your shying away from Constitutional analysis isn't based on the fact that natural law trumps the Constitution, but it's based upon your woefully limited knowledge of the Constitution and prior Supreme Court rulings. That is, you don't want to argue the Constitution because you accept your inability to respond to the Supreme Court citations you'll receive when you offer a misinterpretation. At any rate, you need to explain why you dispense with Constitutional theory yet you adopt the Roe v. Wade viability analysis and try to tie it in to natural law, despite the fact that the Court never said that viability was chosen as the abortion criterion because it was faithful to natural law concepts.
Natural law itself does not derive from some abstraction, but rather as a necessary consequence of the human condition, as Cicero first pointed out; and which was first implemented as a system of promulgation into human law by Justinian. But those ideas were unfortunately lost during the dark ages, primarily due to Augustinian objections. So they were reformulated much later, during the early states of Western empirical thought, albeit in much more detail, by Locke as follows.
All are Created Equal
First, Locke argued, each individual is endowed by the power of WILL, to choose one action over another; by which our souls are formed, which in divine judgment may know joy or suffering, depending on how our choices affect the lives of others. For that reason, the premise of natural law is All are Created Equal in the Eyes of God. All must be equal in accordance with the principle of inalienability-- making any exception destroys the peaceful society which natural law strives to create, because it violates the universality of the social contract, and therefore causes the societal conflict that Locke called 'a state of war.' Including God in the premise is necessary to the formulation of the United States social contract for two reasons:
Locke's own perspective, common to the era of his life, is that it's so obvious we should desire to please God, it requires no further explanation:
The point of Locke’s premise is that all are equal IN THE EYES OF GOD, because God is only concerned with how we respond to our situation and thus are judged by God. Inequalities of property or family privilege are really of no importance in that premise. If Jefferson had written "all men have equal rights," one would know it is referring to human justice. But the phrase "all men are CREATED equal" refers to our equal status in the eye of the Creator, and is therefore a moral or ethical value, rather than a legal right, no matter how often it is interpreted otherwise.
For this reason, Jefferson originally stated that the truth is sacred and undeniable as a statement of faith. Franklin changed it to self-evident, to allow for people to accept the empirically derived conclusions. However, it it is clear that these conclusions are not self evident, as France instead formulated the natural rights as liberty, fraternity and equality--also believing that to be self evident. However, the French formulation was not derived empirically, hence it did not become the basis of a promulgation to human law, but simply devolved into a maxim. On the other hand, Locke's formulation for the rights themselves is based on the human condition, improving on Hobbes' negative view (leading to an authoritarian system of punishment) by postulating a benign democracy based on positive law, starting as follows.
Right to Life
Locke starts this thread of thought by considering how we would exist if there were no more than the power of free will. Locke's observes that this power of will, endowed to all, is without purpose in and of itself. He deduces we would remain unmoving, as rocks and stones, seeking neither change nor progress nor civilization. So God in his infinite wisdom gave us, through the Laws of Nature,hunger and thirst. For, Locke observes, as each day these needs must be satisfied, these biological needs create the appetite from which all other human happiness flows.
Therefore Life is the Primary Natural Right, which is a right to our simplest biological requirements—Our needs for water, food, sanitation, health, shelter, and to have our own families. Due to the great increase in understanding of our biological condition, this fundamental right is well understood. But the other rights, like the premise and the social contract itself, are most definitely misconceived in the modern world; and indeed, even the right to life as a primarily necessity to avoid a Lockean state of war is overlooked, leading the common modern misconceptions about rights to abortion, the acceptability of capital punishment, and the right to kill in self defense. None of those are acceptable within the Jeffersonian formulation, because they deny the inalienability of the social contract.
Right to Liberty
Locke has observed, because of hunger and thirst, there is a perpetual Uneasiness of the Soul, whence springs Desire. But to each person, desire is different, for whatever reason of nature or nurture it may be, it does not matter. Each person's unique desire cannot be defined or predicted by any other person, but is only known to each of us ourselves individually. Therefore we require Liberty to choose the satisfaction of our desires for ourselves. And that is the main foundation of the Jeffersonian social contract. Within this contract, each person may seek more or less, through effort of work, to obtain as much, or as little, or in whatever way each person finds best, fulfillment of desire; and to whatever each may desire, no other can say. Hence from necessity of hunger and thirst, Laws must grant liberty to choose how the soul, in its uneasiness, is fulfilled in different ways for each one separately. Thus Liberty is a Necessary Secondary Right.
Note how this definition of liberty is different than the naïve view. The liberties to which natural rights entitle us are those which enable us to have choice in that which we acquire and desire. It is not a blanket statement as to all that which we may do. For example, if you are on someone else's property, they can restrict your freedom, and not contravene your rights. As a trivial example, a supermarket can require you to wear a shirt while you are inside it—as long as it does not contravene the third natural right.
Note also that this view of liberty permits individuals to believe in the religion of their choice, even though the rights which individuals receive are based on a theistic premise. Jefferson found it necessary to explain this to some baptists, which he did as follows.
The exist4e3nce of God as a premise in USA's social contract has sadly become increasingly objectionable, or rather unfashionable. More recent attempts to reformulate the Jeffersonian social contract have therefore attempted to remove the precondition, which I refer to briefly at the end of this already long post.
Right to Pursue Happiness
Liberty is not of the same order of importance as the natural right to life, but still a natural right whence pleasure results, in the course of each person seeking to fulfill their own desires. The satisfaction of hunger and thirst creates Pleasure—a simple happiness of the first order. But for true happiness, we cannot consider our own pleasure alone, but also the needs and desires for others. Locke's argument is that happiness is illusory if we do not account for others in the actions of our own will, by Acting for the Greater Good. Because of the needs of others, we sometimes need to suspend our own desires—a fact for which Locke is, if anything, apologetic. But Locke also explains that we actually discover greater liberty in pursing the greater good, because it frees us from living only for our own desires:
Locke is pointing out that happiness from the satisfaction of physical desire is temporary and transient. By suspending our own desires and acting for the greater good, we can obtain a more permanent and solid happiness. The similarity of this to the four Noble Truths, the foundation of Buddhism, is not because Locke himself knew the theories of Buddhism, but rather that both methods start by considering the fundamental nature of our existence, and so both systems arrived as the same conclusion independently.
Therefore Pursuit of Happiness is the Tertiary Right because, in pursuing true happiness, we act not simply for ourselves, but for the greater good, which results in the product of our noble society. On this basis, individuals are entitled, for example, not only to property, but also to state-supplied education. But individuals can only pursue happiness insofar as it does not interfere with life and liberty. Nonetheless, while pursuing happiness is a right, acting for the greater good is not a requirement. In order that God may judge us in our treatment of others, our acts for the greater good cannot be forced against our will, except in as much as necessary to maintain the social contract.
Locke tried very hard to find a way of defining "pursuit of happiness" without including a need for God to judge our actions, but he couldn't quite do it. So the United States decided that pursuit of happiness is a natural right to its citizens, and therefore the declaration of independence is Under the Law of God. But other countries do not acknowledge God in their constitutions, and therefore the modern statement of natural rights, as Human Rights in the United Nations, does not include pursuit of happiness for all. Pursuit of happiness is a unique natural right to the United States, because the nation was formed under God. And that is why the pledge of allegiance is an oath under God (some want God removed from the oath of allegiance, but if it were removed, the natural rights under the constitution would be broken).
Those familiar with natural law sometimes state that existence of God is not necessary to it. And in fact this has become a very big problem in America, because the social contract, as Locke defined it, assumed that pursuit of True Happiness is acting for the greater good of all. As America has slowly removed God from the social contract, Locke's vision has started to break down. For example, according to Locke, the very rich should look after the very poor, and according to the nation's natural rights, the rich cannot be forced to do so. But pursuit of happiness is now mostly considered only a selfish motive in people's minds. The rich do not look after the poor, but instead seek influence and money only for themselves, also manipulating legislature to reduce their own taxes. So an undue proportion of welfare now falls into the tax burden of the lower and middle classes.
Happiness, not Property
Locke's original Treatise on Government defined Property, rather than Pursuit of Happiness, as the third natural right. Because the third natural right is pursuit of happiness, the government has authority over other fields of human activity besides that which people own. For example, it can create transport systems, public schools and universities. Also, it can enforce the rights of people to recreation, resulting not only in its ability to operate public parks, but also permitting it to limit the number of hours that an employer can require of employees. Further, it can help with healthcare and retirement. However, the pursuit of happiness is secondary to liberty, so the extent to which the government can tax and enforce such matters is limited.
Most people who study politics only read Locke's Treatise on Government, and so are unaware of how Jefferson decided on the "sacred and undeniable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." However, it remains the task of the Supreme Court to exercise and interpret the natural rights as Jefferson intended, which is as Aquinas previously defined, promulgation from natural rights. Up to the 1930s, this mostly unknown process of reason not only influenced all of American government, but also remained the highest consideration in the opinions of the highest court in the land, until it was partially supplanted with ideas of legal positivism in the last century; which has attempted to define what is right and wrong purely based on precedence, rather than with the higher moral objective of creating a benign world for the better judgment of each and every soul by God, regardless whatever any particular individual may think of that goal.
As one example, in the original formulation of how this nation would work, it was assumed that the rich, in their pursuit of everlasting happiness, would support the poor houses; and that children would support their parents in old age; thus removing the need for the state to provide social security.. But as it transpired, the idea of acting for the greater good, as the real definition of 'pursuit of happiness.' lost out to a new interpretation of atheistic selfishness, thus requiring the state to mandate taxes in Roosevelt's New Deal. And as perfectly predictable from the above explanation--which should now be abundantly obvious--this is in conflict with the natural law on which this nation was founded, and so the extent of entitlements that the rich should support has become a total stumbling block to the further growth and prosperity of this nation.
.Hence, while others may disagree with their theistic basis, it cannot be ignored as the foundation of peace and lawful order in the nation created by Jefferson's declaration. And the denial of validity for the original empirical formulation of natural rights has not only led to its growing collapse, but also to a widespread ignorance as to what it actually was. And that accounts for the length of this post.
If we are to assign rights that are inalienable, then the federal-state distinction is nonsensical, as it means a large governing body can take your rights away. The fact that it is called "California" and is relatively smaller than the entire U.S. does not change what is going on. To my knowledge, for a good portion of U.S. history, the rights in federal documents (Bill of Rights) were only applicable on the federal level, meaning that they were not guaranteed on the state level.
My purpose of bringing up abortions under the case of pregnancy from rape is to illustrate an issue: even if personhood does apply, it does not automatically follow that the right to life always supersedes the right of other's liberty. If I was hooked up on a life support machine by a third party to an innocent, ill person in order to help keep that person alive, I do not think the state or any person can demand that I remain hooked up to this person, even if it means his death. I cannot have the entirety of my liberty and freedom sacrificed to save a life. This, again, returns to economic concepts. There are actions the government can talk- regulations, increasing taxes on certain industries, increasing taxes to pay for programs- that will save lives. We know this. It does not follow from this that the state must implement those programs to the point of the act utilitarian's dreams.
This, of course, assumes that the conceptus is a person in the legal sense, as well as the moral sense, both of which can be doubted (or, at least, doubted enough to create problems for the pro-life side).
And it was not construed in terms of limitations, but rather as an enforcement of 'positive law'--- as to all people having the right to freedom of choice in speech, religion, and political preference within those bounds. This was because it was believed that people would naturally choose to act for the greater good. But with the grown of atheistic selfishness, the system no longer works, and people instead quarrel about their selfish desires, rather than look to a benign future with faith and hope. That is to say, they regard the rights selfishly, rather than thinking of the desire of God for all His children to live peacefully and without struggle. That is why you think life is less important than liberty.
What you've not responded to is:
1. Why viability defines personhood under natural rights theory;
2. Why states should be given the right to decide when abortion is appropriate but not the federal government under natural law theory; and
3. How can you argue that rights can never be legitimately denied and still maintain a criminal justice system?
Enumerate your answers 1, 2, and 3 or instead admit you can't respond because you lack the intellectual discipline to organize your responses to the questions asked.
don't expect rhetoric 101 to work on someone who has read Plato in Greek. Translation is not effortless, so one has plenty of time to consider the tricks.
Where did you answer the question about how your version of natural rights applies to viability as the definition of personhood? The "we are all created equal" part? You have to answer the specific questions and show how your answer applies to them. How you answered those questions is not clear.
First, natural law is based on the human condition. In accordance with the laws of nature, when a woman is pregnant, then she has a baby if there are no untoward events. When a person interferes with that process, the person is taking individual power over that of life of the person that will be born. But natural rights must be accorded to all people without exception. Therefore that is a violation of the child's natural rights.
Additionally, in the American formulation of natural rights, which is based on a theistic premise, the child is also a child of God. By not permitting the child to live, one is depriving God of the ability to grant eternal life to that individual in the manner that God intends. While I understand that is not a concern to most people these days, it remains the argument that Jefferson would have believed true had the legal issue of rights to abortion existed in his own life. .But it wasn't a legal issue in his life, not because it wasn't possible, but rather because that belief was rather considered obviously true in his time. No one at all wanted legal rights to abortion., Thus, for those holding that the 'intent of the founding fathers' should govern constitutional law, however ridiculous that Hamilton's formulation to assert constitutional law over natural law may be, it still remains true.
As for liberty or pursuit of happiness taking precedence over life, that results from a misunderstanding of *why* liberty is a natural right in the first place. Similarly for pursuit of happiness So I explained if fully.
finally, for the question of a bad pregnancy where either only the child or only the mother cdould survive, there is no clear answer to that from natural rights, and so it should not be a part of federal law, but a decision for the States to answer. And a similar case would now be made for severely deformed children, such as from the Zika virus; and for conceptions that are not of the mother's free will.
Thank you for phrasing the question so I could answer it.
You've claimed that natural rights theory ought to guide us in all abortions decisions and you've criticized American Constitutional jurisprudence for its failure to adhere to natural rights theory, yet you rely upon that same criticized jurisprudence for your basis for allowing certain abortions.
This is to say: natural rights theory offers us no practical way of determining when abortion is acceptable, so we must fall back on Constitutional theory for an answer, which creates an internal inconsistency in your position.
The distinction isn't between natural and constitutional law, but it's between natural and positive law. It's entirely possible to interpret the Constitution in a natural law way. There is not a consensus regarding the best way to interpret the Constitution, but law schools typically embrace those Justices who have offered creative interpretations based upon general priciples of justice instead of those who have insisted the text be strictly construed. That is, law schools tend to be liberal leaning. Quoting ernestmIf what you mean by "natural law" is absolutist, non- relative moral principles, there most certainly hasn't been an abandonment of that in US society. The battle between the left and right in the US is ideological, with both sides arguing their principles are right.
NO, that's impossible in a theory of natural law in this nation. If there may be a difference of opinion in interpretation, then there is no basis for a social contract that avoids a Lockean state of war. That is why the natural law must be inalienable--equally applicable to everybody--and undeniable, as Jefferson originally stated.
It is possible for such a conflict to exist in a social contract based on Rousseau's theory. But as Rousseau defines the social contract as driven by the will of people, rather than by a state of nature, it is not based on natural law. That would mean the social contract in the USA is not based on the laws of nature and God, which would void the source of authority for an independent nation, and we would only be a rogue British state which, as USA's enemies claim, deserves to be eradicated.
What the political process attempts to do is to corrupt the natural law in favor of one group. So in fact, Rosseau's social contract is ALSO in operation in this country. However, it is a corruption of the original social contract, which was Lockean, and which allowed for no such variation of opinion as to how it should be interpreted, because all its tenets derive directly from the human condition
For example, does natural allow for the death penalty? Does nature forbid the taking of life absolutely, or does it permit it under certain circumstances? What about in cases of self-defense? It is entirely possible that a liberal and a conservative can arrive at different conclusions, yet both insist God is on their side. The inability to determine what natural law decrees is a Philosophy 101 objection, yet instead of trying to offer a response to it, you act like it doesn't exist.
And that was issue with abortion law. You have never offered any explanation for why natural law attaches only to viable fetuses and not pre-viable ones, as if viability is a God given framework that coincidentally defines personhood and that was discovered in 1973 by Justice Blackmon as describing when a State's interest begins and ends.
The taking of life in self defense is also against natural rights. There exist plenty of means of self defense which are not lethal.
A liberal and conservative can have different opinions about their own desires. The point of positive law is that it does not exist to curtail the rights of any individual, and the point of the natural law in the united states is that the choices people make which are constructive for society are those which are for the greater good. THEREFORE pursuit of happiness is a natural right. The problem with your questioning is that it imposes a negative and selfish perspective of rights which people have by some kind of entitlement BECAUSE they have natural rights,. That is not answerable.
I answered the question on abortion three times now. It is a POSITIVE perspective, not a NEGATIVE perspective. When a woman is pregnant she will have a baby, unless there is some untoward circumstance. She has the right to have that baby, and the baby has a right to life. For cases where only the mother or child could survive, there can be no resolution from natural rights, and therefore it falls on the states. In cases where the baby has serious deformity or illness that impede natural life, then there is no answer from natural law and it falls on states to decide, so that people can choose their preferred result. Having said that, I am personally rather offended with your attitude for untoward events as a justification. When there are untoward events and either the mother or baby cannot survive, then it is a very tragic situation, and everyone, in a benign social contract, should want all babies to live. But if you are forcing me to answer your question yet again, then I have to say, you sir, are a cad. and that is my final answer.
I certainly don't want to point out to you that the taking of life is irreversible, a choice made to terminate life can never be taken back, and many people are extremely envious of others having babies, and would be glad to adopt them. And finally the parents themselves might change their minds and regret a decision to kill their own offspring but cannot be saved from that tragic consequence.. That should be too obvious to even require stating So you are a cad searching for any method whatsoever to kill beautiful babies, and are just as morally destitute as the Syrian Assad terrorists with their poison gas.
Yet Jefferson was specifically in favor of the death penalty. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendVIIIs10.html
As was Locke: At the end of the opening chapter of his Second Treatise of Government, Locke describes political power in the following terms: ‘Political Power then I take to be a Right of making Laws with Penalties of Death, and consequently all less Penalties, for the Regulating and Preserving of Property, and of employing the force of the Community, in the Execution of such Laws, and in the defence of the Common-wealth from Foreign Injury, and all this only for the Publick Good.’
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1344457
Did Locke and Jefferson get it wrong?
Under your logic all punishment would be invalid. Imprisonment is a removal of liberty, a natural right also.
Can you acknowledge that a right without a remedy for its violation is no right at all? If I have the right to possess my car but no right to stop you from taking it, what does it mean to have that right?
Quoting ernestm I'm considering a hypothetical where there in no way of self defense other than that which is lethal. You can't change the hypothetical.
Quoting ernestmNope. You said viability was the cut off date for permissible abortions. Why is that the case? Do you no longer hold that position?
Quoting ernestm
And despite thinking this conversation couldn't get any stupider, just like that it did.
Thank you for answering. I now understand your exact position. I admit you did answer them, though I believe the spacing of the posts and the massive amount of text that was disconnected form those posts created issues. If I may critique your posting style, I find that the text you cite from stuff you previously wrote can make things seem like you are talking at us, not with us, if that makes any sense. I know writing out everything again is a pain, but at least try to edit out the sections a bit more and explain how it a applies a bit better.
I am interested in the topic and wish to continue discussing it. Two questions:
1. Is the right to life a positive right or a negative right (or something else, like a right that requires both negative and positive duties)? In other words, per the right to life, do I have to only not take actions to harm and kill others, or do I have to take actions to preserve and support life?
2. If the right to life is unalienable, and if the conceptus, no matter the circumstances, has a right to life, how could some individual states decide that? I agree with what one of the earlier posters said- if the right to life is unalienable and nothing can overcome this right, then the right cannot be waived just because the conceptus is the result of rape, has a mental/physical deformity (to do so would say those with disabilities have less of a right to life), and other such cases.
That was a big reversal from Hobbes, who assumed humans are on the whole bad, and thus need an authoritarian system to punish people into behaving cooperatively. It is predicated on the assumption that given freedom, people will naturally choose to steal, kill, rape, and exploit. To Hobbes, the main emotion in state of nature is fear. Therefore, in Hobbes' view, democracy is bound to fail, there can be no positive law, and he suggests that a feudal system is the only workable form of government.
One way of looking at it is to think that if the positive law in Locke's vision collapses, then society has no choice to regress into a Hobbesian state. Locke himself called this 'a state of war' arising from collapse of a social contract based on the state of nature.
On your second point, I agree with you personally, once one understands how the idea of inalienability works, it is actually a lot of effort to justify exceptions at all. I could explain some reasoning, but I am going to need a little time to answer it peaceably.
Because that results in the greatest liberty, and hence the greatest prosperity and well being of all. The most frequently cited example these days is water rights, starting from a golden era of plenty. People divide labor in the Socratic way. One person decides to farm fish and buys all the lakes. But then there is a draught. The wrong way to approach this problem is for the person who now owns all the water to ask: "why should I sell my water for less than the maximum profit I can get?" The correct question is: How much authority does the government have to limit the price which it pays the lake owner so that everyone can have water?
In this case, the answer according to natural law is, quite a bit of authority, because water is essential to life. Life takes precedence over liberty and pursuit of happiness, and only the lake owner has water, so the lake owner, in the interest of the greater good, has to provide the water. However, the state cannot deprive the lake owner himself of the ability to run a fish farm, as according to his own desires and chosen life pursuit. Therefore, the equation is very straightforward. The government pays sufficient money for the lake owner to rebuild his fish farm to the same condition as it would have been without a drought, and takes all the water needed to ensure that no one suffers from thirst.
By contrast, let's suppose there is a manufacturer of soccerballs, and there is a shortage of materials to make them. the pursuit of happiness is a much lower priority, but it still exists. If many children are playing soccer at schools, the government can legitimately have the authority, under natural rights, to raise some taxes in order to pay for the increased cost of materials to make soccerballs. But as the absence of soccer balls only limits children's' freedom to a limited extent, the amount of taxes which the government can collect is proportionally much less.
So that is the first straightforward example of how natural law works in real-world situations; it is a system of hierarchically arranged needs of the society to prosper, and a beautiful thing it is too, isn't it?
I asked: Why do you say that Locke's theory of natural rights prohibits the death penalty when Locke himself specifically said it didn't?
You responded: I refuse to talk to someone who likes to kill beautiful babies.
Might it be you don't really understand natural rights theory, so when called upon to defend it, you simply reiterate the text of the theory, and when relentlessly pressed, you resort to name calling? I mean this is a philosophy forum after all, which doesn't mean you just get to assert theories, but you actually have to offer some support and defense of them.
The only rights worth speaking of are legal rights; that is to say, those are the only rights which matter, as they are (generally) recognized and may be enforced. We may claim we have rights of all kinds, of course, and ascribe them to God or Nature--for all the good it will do us--but unless they're recognized in the law we're merely expressing our self-regard.
Rights in the law serve the purpose of restricting the government and others from restricting us from doing, saying or thinking what we wish, or at least discouraging them from doing so and making them subject to penalty in that event. It's not clear to me that a conception of something along the lines of inalienable rights granted us in some obscure manner by a creator or inherent in the universe is needed to serve such a purpose, however.
Ah well, thought I'd make a statement.
(Y)
Although I agree with the general idea, I think you're forgetting non-legal rules that are recognised and enforced, e.g. employment, family, religion, etc.
I'm not sure what you mean. There certainly are non-legal rules, i.e. rules of conduct which are generally observed without being law, but I don't think they're necessarily founded on the concept of "rights."
There are both. I don't think there is a higher authority who acts as a judge would, though, nor do I think one is required for that purpose. I don't think we need a notion of non-legal rights in order to maintain that governments and laws are bad.
When we speak of having a right to do something, or of our rights being infringed, I think we say simply that we should be allowed to do, say or think something or that someone should not be preventing us from doing, saying or thinking something. I personally find it difficult to maintain that God says I--or anyone else for that matter--should be allowed to do, etc., something, or that it is a law of nature that I of anyone else should be allowed to do, etc., something.
Non-legal rights are just another way of saying what morality requires, but I don't see the quibble over whether to call them "rights" or not is significant. We typically speak in terms of our moral duties to others, which would imply the other person has a certain right to be treated a particular way, and none of that implicates law.Quoting Ciceronianus the White
Such is the quandary of the non-religious in offering a foundation for morality in every instance. I'm not suggesting that God is necessary to be moral, but removal of some higher authority from the equation does make it difficult to explain why your moral beliefs are more correct than another's.
Regardless of where you think these higher order duties derive, I suspect that you find them to exist absolutely. That is, a government that passes a law killing all of a particular hair color would be wrong, and they'd be wrong for their violations against those people. If you set forth what rule it is that you believe is being violated, then you are declaring a non-legal rule which trumps legal rules. This higher order rule is, for lack of a better term, a natural law. In fact, I would assume your fidelity to right and wrong in a non-legal sense is higher than your fidelity to legislatively passed law, as the latter you realize is the just the best work of a group of lawmakers, as opposed to the former which is the way things truly are.
Just as we might say that I don't have the right to kill my neighbour because the law forbids it we might also say that a child doesn't have the right to stay up all night because their parents forbid it.
I don't think that a higher authority is required. We can talk about it being unfair for women to have to compete with men in certain sports without referring to something like a God. So why not talk about governments and laws being unjust without referring to something like a God? Perhaps justice is like fairness.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/1287/on-the-practical-application-of-natural-rights
That's what ethical theory is for (and the higher authority is shared human values like life and liberty not some ineffable superbeing with a carrot and a stick) "God" doesn't help at all. In fact, "God" is as often used as an excuse for bad law as good. Sometimes, insanely bad. And "God" can be shown to be on pretty much anyone's side with enough cherry picking. If you want to know how to make fair laws, read Rawls not the Bible, Quran, Torah etc. Unless you want to live in a theocracy.
Thanks ernestm. Would you mind just sending me a list of all the links you have to everywhere so I know that everything I say is wrong before I say it? Alternatively, you could just quote my post and address my actual point. Either or.
Well that reply and five bucks will buy you a coffee and a worthless article on the internet written by some pompous twit with zero social skills.
I have completed draft of the topic https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/1287/on-the-practical-application-of-natural-rights#
This will be my second article submission on the philosophy forum. My first, on 'formal logic in the post-truth era' has already been accepted and is undergoing minor copy editing.
I think it's more appropriate to say we should or should not treat another person a certain way, rather than he/she has a "right" to be treated or not treated in a certain way. To say we have "rights" which are unenforceable, and may be flaunted at will--which are not, in other words, legal rights--makes little sense to me. I think it's much like saying "I have a right which should be enforceable and which you should not flaunt, but I can't enforce it nor can you be penalized for infringing it. It is, nonetheless, a right." That, for me, is confusing.
Quoting Hanover
There is no quandary presented, though, unless you think it necessary that the creator or governor of the immense universe thinks, or has somehow mandated, we creatures living here have certain "rights" or has granted us such, in order for there to be moral conduct.
I think the reason it does not make sense to you is that the view you are approaching the issue from the wrong end of the stick. To quote from my above submission https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/1287/on-the-practical-application-of-natural-rights#
That's a quibble really. I think it makes perfect sense to say "I have a right to be treated with dignity" as much as it is to say "You should treat me with dignity." I also think that enforcement can take on many forms, from legal enforcement, to military action, to negative feedback, to ostracism. If you treat your wife, for example, in a manner unacceptable to her, she has a whole slew of methods to enforce the way she think she has a right to be treated.Quoting Ciceronianus the WhiteIf it isn't a quandary, what right do the women in Saudi Arabia (for example) have to be treated equal to men? A. there is no enforcement mechanism, and B. there is no higher good demanding such equality.
It makes perfect sense, but it has nothing to do with the USA's natural rights. The government has no authority to enforce good manners, except where it interferes with due process. So it is really nothing to do with this topic.
As I recall, our conversation left off with your explaining that the death penalty was inconsistent with the natural rights expounded by Jefferson and Locke, despite them saying otherwise, thus making you more an expert in Locke and Jefferson than Locke or Jefferson.
You hold the distinction of being one of the few people I've met here who actually fail the Turing Test from time to time, simply reciting text in response to various questions and then reciting insults when called out on your inability to respond to questions.
I don't think it's a quibble. The meaning of "I have a right..." is quite different to the meaning of "You should...". Although we might say that you should treat me with dignity because I have the right to be treated with dignity it would be wrong to interpret this claim as circular. So denying that people have rights (of this supposed "natural" kind) does not prima facie mean denying that we have an obligation to behave a certain way, and conversely accepting that we have an obligation to behave a certain way does not entail accepting that people have rights (of this supposed "natural" kind).
Virtue ethics might be an example of normativity without rights.
Yes, I think that's so.
As you speak of your right to dignity, I can only reply you have already offended mine with your continual insistence that I repeat answers on killing and worse. I made the mistake of thinking you actually could be polite and considerate of other people. Good bye again, this time for good.
There is a difference, though, between "I have a right to be treated with dignity" and "I should treat you with dignity." In the first sentence, the speaker is making an essentially selfish claim, asserting that they must be treated in a certain way." In the second case, the speaker is asserting he/she should act in a certain way towards another. The speaker in the second case has accepted or acknowledges an obligation to act in a certain way; in the first case, the speaker claims others have an obligation to the speaker, by virtue of the fact that he or she is the speaker.
Is it the case that I have an obligation to act towards X in a certain way solely because X has a "right" to be treated in a certain way? That would require quite a multiplicity of rights. Perhaps I should act in a moral way for reasons which don't require that I assume the existence of rights which cannot be infringed.
I have a right to be treated with dignity and you have a duty to treat me that way.
And we can make it more clear than that. If you kidnap me and hold me against my will, you have violated my right to live freely. Such would be the case regardless of what the law is.
You're a fraud, and I don't mean that as an ad hom. I mean that you pontificate about so many subjects, but you aren't able at all to really respond to any real question about what you're talking about. You therefore create the initial appearance that you have something to say, but in short order it becomes clear that you can't do anything but cut and paste, and most often just citing yourself. You even resort to name calling when really called down on something. I think I was referred to as an Assad like baby killer or some other stupidity.
I've gone so far as to enumerate questions and ask for enumerated responses from you just so I could avoid your spilling thousands of words onto the screen, but that didn't happen. Now you've excommunicated me, but I think anyone who might have read my post that motivated your conduct would be a little confused as to why. For that reason, I've written this post to clarify why. It's because you're a fraud.
Well, no doubt I have a right to disagree with you, and you have a duty not to infringe on that right. So, that's the end of that, I suppose. Who knew morality was so simple?
This is wrong. Jefferson actually wrote the Virginia law regarding the proportionality of punishment, holding that the highest form of punishment was death. http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendVIIIs10.html.
Long term prisons did not become common until after the Revolution, and typical Colonial punishments (as noted in the law cited above) included forced labor and the like. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_prison_systems#Colonial_criminal_punishments.2C_jails.2C_and_workhouses
That is to say, Jefferson was progressive in the sense that he wanted punishment to be proportionate to the crime, but he did not hold the untenable view that death ought to be provided to inmates as a form of euthanasia because prison was worse than death. He also did not condemn prisons to the extent you say, largely because they didn't exist in the US until 1790 when the first was built in Pennsylvania (as noted in the Wiki article cited above). Jails at that time were largely only used to house inmates awaiting trial.
More importantly, none of this is compatible with anything you previously said, which is that natural rights proscribes deprivation of life or liberty in all instances. That is the part of natural law you simply cannot comprehend, which is that people can be deprived rights (including the right to live) if they have done something to earn it.
while it may be your opinion that my description of the theory of natural law is wrong, that's nothing to do with whether my opinion is correct. In fact, nowhere did I even state my opinion. I just observed, from the perspective of Jeffersonian natural law, that certain conclusions about the practical applications follow, and if they are not followed, it creates social decay and reduces the power of the social contract. That was my observation, for which purpose, I summarized the thought, hoping that it would be understandable. Certainly a summary cannot capture all the finer details of the views, and I welcome any suggestions how to change what it says to make it more understandable and more accurate.
But its not actually anything to do with my opinion. I don't actually believe my opinion is of any real significance. I was just describing what other people think and made a new observation. That's all. The same was true for what I wrote about formal truth. For that I was called things like 'pompous' and a 'fraud' for which I really do not have anything further to say. I do have feelings, and being made to repeat multiple times why people should not be killed by people seeking a justification to kill those who are or might be innocent, even after saying I find the topic disagreeable, does eventually wear down my tolerance for evil. As I say, the point of positive law is to enable good, and especially was not conceived to justify rights to kill.
But as everyone seems so concerned with their own opinions, while looking to argue with mine, I will state my opinion. My opinion is that the USA is failing to demonstrate it deserves the rights which positive law defines, and the nation should be dissolved into smaller parts which do not wield so much power.
- After Trump's $48 billion transfer from the civilian sector to defense, the USA military industrial complex will consume two thirds of the discretionary budget, after including veteran's benefits, which is some enormous factor larger than any other nation, and totally unnecessary--while now cutting meals on wheels and arts programs costing a miniscule fraction of that, because they are considered a waste of money. it cost more for Trump to play golf than the annual cost of those programs quite a while ago.
- Also, firearms rights are enforced due to massive lobbying by the same industrial complex, and the justifications are flagrant denial of all independent scientific research on the topic. So now more than half a million have been killed with guns in the USA since 9/11, far more American citizens than terrorists could ever claim to have killed, by close to two orders of magnitude.
- Japan, on the other hand, has no standing army of its own, and only reluctantly maintains a small joint force in accordance with international treaties via the UN, which the USA of course wants to turn into another major military customer. Trump even tried to sell them nuclear bombs, illustrating exactly how much people here are so infatuated with their own superiority that they cannot even appreciate the attitude of people on whom the USA already dropped nuclear bombs. And Japan has no terrorism at all. Additionally, Japan banned guns, a long time ago, and more than a dozen shooting deaths/year is now considered a major national disaster there.
But that is nothing important, because I am not so arrogant to consider my opinion that important.I do have some real respect for greater thinkers than me who can conceive far more noble ideas than my own, and that is why I write about their thought. Thank you for reading.
Actually we are interested in your opinion (to the extent it's based on facts and reasoning, of course). That's pretty much the point of this place: not to be a static repository of the thoughts of the recognized greats but a dynamic stage on which the rest of us can strut our stuff.
Well, I agree with most of the opinions you have given above. I'm sure others would too, and some would disagree. The idea is to get stuck in and support them until and unless someone can show you you are wrong. Please do that.
I was speaking more in general. Whether those particular opinions are on topic enough to present here is up to you to decide. But all sorts of things are debated on the site in appropriate places.
Ok, but walls of text that are simply stanceless summaries of the thinking of the greats as well as subsequent referrals to these texts are likely to be deleted from discussions in future simply because they serve no useful purpose in a forum like this.