Ciceronianus

Jefferson was a hypocrite among other, better things. Regardless of his personal failings and accomplishments, though, I think he was wrong about our ...

As Voltaire said of another loathsome thing--Ecrasez l'infame! (I don't know how to do the accents, sorry).

Yikes. What you've experienced is almost unimaginable even to me, an old altar boy who attended a Catholic elementary school and a Catholic high schoo...

But where great functionaries of a legal system (especially Ulpian--a Praetorian Prefect as well as a jurist) acknowledge slavery is an institution in...

I know. I don't know if I could do more. I can see that as authority came to be questioned and the advantages of unrestrained thought and conduct came...

It may be more accurate to state that we would be less inclined to follow them absent the protection.

Well, it's been argued (by Grotius, for example) that the Roman conception of natural law, and even its institutional law, recognized the concept of i...

I suspect the ACLU was defending a First Amendment right, which is dependent on the law of the U.S., not on a natural or universal right apart from th...

I would propose that we're inclined to find and should find certain conduct objectionable, or ignoble, even if it doesn't directly infringe on what we...

It's not something I've studied in any detail, but my guess would be that the emphasis on individual natural rights started to take place in the 17th ...

But who's the despot?

Well, I don't know that we can say it will do so ironically.

Doesn't seem to matter who you vote for, though. The very act of voting merely perpetuates corruption it seems. Maybe we need Platonic totalitarianism...

I don't understand how your example establishes the ancient Greeks believed in natural rights as distinguished from natural law.

On what basis is their conduct objectionable, if it doesn't involve infringing the rights of others?

Yes. I'm addressing what I think we can fairly call the modern view of rights, as something we're all entitled to regardless of the law. While I think...

Reading this thread, I feel guilty for having voted for Biden. Indeed, for voting at all.

I'm not arguing against morality based on natural law. I'm questioning one based on claimed inherent rights. I think our concept of rights was unknown...

One of the difficulties I have with the concept of rights is that I think acceptance of them gives rise to an ethics in which good, or moral, conduct ...

Why wouldn't a "naive realist" (a phrase which strikes me as an oxymoron) simply say it's dark when there's little or no light? What more of an explan...

As I think I said, though, I think rights which exist by virtue of law are real, and so are not necessarily bullocks. My thought is that legal rights ...

I think legal rights--rights dependent on law--are the only rights. So, I think the "right to property" exists only to the extent recognized by law. B...

Well, consider the "right to property." It can (and has been) been construed as prohibiting government from obtaining money from citizens to assist ot...

Any claimed right that isn't dependent on governing law, which would exist regardless of the law. For example, there are people who say "I have a righ...

We do that already, all the time.

My personal feeling is we have no good reason to believe (at this time, anyhow) there's anything beyond the universe. Nothing, therefore, that transce...

Thank you. Freud was a great man, but I think his focus was too narrow. Still, I think I prefer him to Jung, who it seems to me may not have had enoug...

Legal rights are significant because they protect our civil liberties by restricting government authority. We should support the adoption of legal rig...

Epictetus said: "Do the best you can with what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens." Stoicism isn't just about acceptance. Stoics should...

I distinguish between legal rights and rights which are claimed, but not recognized in the law. "Rights" which aren't legal rights are what people thi...

Not at all. I'm merely saying we know of nothing indicating he had sexual or romantic relations with any other persons. Masturbation, in that case, ma...

General Jack Ripper was more concerned with the physical act of sex with a partner. The trick, as he saw it, was to deny them your essence.

I meant to say I had nothing I could contribute as a lawyer, being largely ignorant of international law. But I think it clear that if one nation free...

Sorry, I'm not sure just what you mean. I'm something of a legal positivist, or realist, and think morality and the law are different things. My knowl...

We may have myths, legends, stories and imagination without accepting the existence of a collective unconscious. Heroes, I think, incline us too much ...

Masturbation may have the only sexual act in which poor Kant engaged. I think there's nothing indicating he had sexual, or romantic, relations with an...

For a short, pithy, instruction-manual sort of presentation of Stoicism, you might look at the Enchiridion of Epictetus (actually summary notes of his...

Of course we are all humans, and so have certain characteristics and needs in common. That commonality has consequences as it means that that there ar...

It's apparent Freud has had great influence, but I'm not much of a fan. He seems to me to have been overly concerned with those instances where a ciga...

Well, I think "never existed in the first place" isn't immortality.

So I can't die, nor do I live. It seems unsatisfactory, somehow.

Well, it would be shaped like the universe, however that's shaped, and would experience what the universe experiences, whatever that may be, and would...

That's a criminal law issue, and I've been fortunate enough to avoid that in my practice. I doubt it, though, as grand juries in my limited understand...

A Dutch Uncle, perhaps.

Well, God didn't choose us, true, but he thinks we're cool.

We here in God's favorite country have proven ourselves to be Yahoos, with no Houyhnhnms to guide us. Ora pro nobis.

Well, these guys, I think: John Dewey Wallace Stevens Marcus Tullius Cicero (of course) O.W. Holmes, Jr.

For me, it makes no sense to bemoan the fact I had no say when I necessarily couldn't have any say in any case. Similarly, it makes no sense to me to ...

Obviously, the mere fact I might understand the words you use doesn't mean you're using them as they're commonly used. I know what someone is saying w...

I think it's possible to condemn it sincerely, but also think it likely the U.S. itself has intimidated and bullied perceived dissidents at home and a...