---- THE FIVE QUESTIONS ---- by Larken Rose 1) Is there any means by which any number of individuals can delegate to someone else the moral right to do something which none of the individuals have the moral right to do themselves? 2) Do those who wield political power (presidents, legislators, etc.) have the moral right to do things which other people do not have the moral right to do? If so, from whom and how did they acquire such a right? 3) Is there any process (e.g., constitutions, elections, legislation) by which human beings can transform an immoral act into a moral act (without changing the act itself)? 4) When law-makers and law-enforcers use coercion and force in the name of law and government, do they bear the same responsibility for their actions that anyone else would who did the same thing on his own? 5) When there is a conflict between an individual's own moral conscience, and the commands of a political authority, is the individual morally obligated to do what he personally views as wrong in order to "obey the law"?
Fee, fye, fo fum, I smell a Libertarian. So, you are either saying that the use of RETALIATORY force is immoral or dropping the context of "The aggressor is solely responsible for the consequences of his actions". To find the answer to question 1 consider "due process", "division of labor" and "paper trail" and how they relate to a rational epistemology. Question 2 "the consent of the governed". Question 3 is invalid, since you assume that the immoral is being changed into the moral. it drops the context of "initiation of force" and "defensive or retaliatory force". Question 4 Probably more since the role of what they do is defined (defensive or retaliatory use of force) and they are trained for that and must show by a paper trail; warrant, that they have, from top to bottom, used due process. Question 5 Morality is not personal, it is OBJECTIVE. Now if the law knowably commits a easily known law, such as genocide, no. If it does not, then yes to quote Ayn Rand "You obey the law while you work to change it"
The answer to the first three are pretty clearly "no," but then we get to the remaining two and things become a bit more messy. (To clarify regarding number 1: the individuals do have the right to do the things in question, they've simply deferred its use to those whom they've delegated as representatives. No new rights/powers have been created.) Particularly number 4. There's a sense in which, yeah, the makers and enforcers of the law do indeed have the law applied equally to them. But the problem is in the phrasing of the question. It's about use of coercion and force. Like everyone else, law enforcement and legislators are morally obliged not to *initiate* force, but when we come to retaliatory force things get more interesting. Everyone has the absolute right to self defense, and in a civil society the citizenry agrees to limit themselves strictly to self defense. They defer their right to retaliation (e.g. hunting down that bastard who shot your wife and kids, a la The Punisher) and leave that in the hands of law enforcement. Why? To ensure the right to fair trial for all crimes, rather than have a situation with summary citizen to citizen executions in the streets. Law enforcement's job is to do that hunting down on your behalf, and where possible to bring in the crook to put them on trial can receive the legally prescribed punishment. You do in a sense have the right to do this, but when you are a citizen of a country you defer said right to the law enforcement so as to avoid the situation of warfare in the streets. When it comes to number 5, one would think the answer is yes if you don't think on it too much, but consider the following: a pedophile who feels morally righteous in what he does; an Islamist who thinks there is no law but Allah's law as conferred to us in the Qur'an; a fundamentalist Christian who thinks there is no law but God's law as conferred in the Holy Bible; a communist who believes there is no justification for private property. Imagine for a moment a world in which all these people blatantly disregard the law to behave in accordance with what they think is "moral." Not a world with people who believe in such false doctrines, but one in which they all think they should act on them regardless of what the law might say. That would be a terrible mess, to put it gently. The law, in a republic, is intended to exist solely to defend individual rights. To the extent that it does, violating it is clearly wrong. To the extent that it doesn't, violating it isn't clearly wrong, but it's still a threat to your well-being. Long range, it's better to get such laws repealed or struck down in the courts, rather than simply defy them without any thought beyond the moment. If ever a time comes when the law requires you to violate individual rights, that's the time to jump ship. Breaking the law will only put a target on the back of your head. Either make a break for the nearest free country you can find or, if for some reason it's contextually a better option, seriously consider revolution. So, there's not really a tidy answer to question five because you leave so many variables unaddressed. What moral code do you speak of? What do you mean by "morally obligated to do what you view as wrong"? The question paints a picture with broad brush strokes, through an unfocused lense.
Over the past 30 years I have noticed a nasty and dangerous trend in the abortion debate. When the so-called "Pro-life"er asks the "Pro-Choice"er "don't you think that the [embryo, fetus] is a living human being". the latter responds with this or something like it "I don't want to get involved in philosophy". Given that those are the two poles in which the discussion is cast. I think we would have to support the "Pro Life" side, until we could become a major, or even significant, player in that debate, The "Pro-Choice" position is worse since it specifically rejects philosophy per se, which puts the "Pro-Life"ers closer to us than their opposition. This represents a retreat from the line of argument that won Roe v Wade in '73. Granted this was settled back than and should not keep coning up but still, it would be an easy win for the "Pro-Choice" side if they would defend the position. They are forfeiting the argument
The government of the state to tolerate all religious views, instead of a separation is in example similar to Indonesia's plurality. Which enables the government to still support the most popular religion. So there is not freedom from religion.
There is something I hear that is not exactly true. Faith (in the religious sense) is blind acceptance of the unproven, or the like. I am speaking hear of the trained clergyman here, not of the Hicksville Baptist Church in Boonies county By the 15the century two things were accepted as proved by Reason. 1. The existence of God: From Aquinas "it is better that a man not believe in God at all than to believe on Faith". This led, ultimately to Rationalism and Solipsism because you are trying to generate a fact by way of Reason. Now, it provided an "answer" to questions of science the workings of which nobody had a clue so it "sorta" worked. 2 The goodness of God. Again both of these were accepted as proved by Reason. here is where "faith" came in. Remember this was in a time before we had a tiny fraction of a percent of the knowledge that we have now and a thing, to get any worthwhile evaluation of it, must be interpreted in its time or you commit what David Brudnoy calls the "presentist fallacy". This was at a time when one person could learn all that was considered knowledge. The philosophers had some idea, no doubt based in mathematics of finite vs infinite. So, having proved the existence of God by Reason and since this God acted as the repository of all physical laws (this is 1440) God had to be infinite. Since Man does not know everything, the mind of manis "finite" and therefore unable to grasp that which is infinite. Now since the goodness of God had been proved a priori, then the faith that was required to move forward was justified, as reasonable. As you see, it is semi-rational rather than totally irrational and it was the best they had to work with. Beyond that, the Church, by providing local places to meet was the social and media center. How many times have I said that we Objectivists need to organize from the local to the national/global; and I don't mean just "study groups". I mean the full panoply of human socializing Now, here is a quiestion. Would it be proper for the State to forbid childhood indoctrination into ANY philosophical system. I posit for discussion this. Not now, but at some time in the next 100 years since it requires a child to give adherence to things he not only does not understand, but hasn't, by nature as a child, the wherewithal to process, nor the experience to understand, until at least 14 years of age and all you do is damage. From the Christian perspective it deprives the young adult of the "New birth" that is apparently how the completion of the adult brain is experienced. How many of you, when you adopted Objectivism felt like a "new person"? I can remember the year and month; mid October 1968
I came to a slightly different concept of the "socas" (separation of church and state) by studying law. The socas is a separation of powers, which permits checks and balances on each. The civil authority is separated from the moral authority. This plays out in law and courts in a very simple way. The state may make an act illegal, but has no moral authority to make any act guilty. The church can declare any act to be guilty, but has no civil authority to make any act illegal. In theory, both church and state must agree in order that any man be punished. This dynamic was developed over centuries of battles between church and state for supremacy. Prior to the disintegration of the Roman Empire, civil and moral authority resided in one body; religion and the state were one. The middle ages were a time when the Roman Catholic Church tried to revive the Empire under the church, and local civil authorities pushed back in order to maintain their independence from papal authority.
@@frederickfarias9515- I did not claim the church to be moral, rational, or just. The state bears the same liabilities in that It is men who occupy positions of authority; and men are known to be irrational and immoral. It is the structure of separating power that is important.
You have it a bit backwards 1. The Constitution sets the ground rules for laws. You do not use laws to interpret the Constitution. it is th other way around: How do the laws jibe with the Constitution ans judged by the words therein and the principles that they are meant to implement as set forth in things like the FEDERALIST PAPERS and speeches by those involved? 2. You do not do philosophy by studiying laws. Laws are a consequence of the philosophy behind them so philosophy PRECEDES and OUTWEIGHS laws. You come to a stody of philosophical matters by the study of philosophy
---- THE FIVE QUESTIONS ----
by Larken Rose
1) Is there any means by which any number of individuals can delegate to someone else the moral right to do something which none of the individuals have the moral right to do themselves?
2) Do those who wield political power (presidents, legislators, etc.) have the moral right to do things which other people do not have the moral right to do? If so, from whom and how did they acquire such a right?
3) Is there any process (e.g., constitutions, elections, legislation) by which human beings can transform an immoral act into a moral act (without changing the act itself)?
4) When law-makers and law-enforcers use coercion and force in the name of law and government, do they bear the same responsibility for their actions that anyone else would who did the same thing on his own?
5) When there is a conflict between an individual's own moral conscience, and the commands of a political authority, is the individual morally obligated to do what he personally views as wrong in order to "obey the law"?
Fee, fye, fo fum, I smell a Libertarian.
So, you are either saying that the use of RETALIATORY force is immoral or dropping the context of "The aggressor is solely responsible for the consequences of his actions". To find the answer to question 1 consider "due process", "division of labor" and "paper trail" and how they relate to a rational epistemology. Question 2 "the consent of the governed". Question 3 is invalid, since you assume that the immoral is being changed into the moral. it drops the context of "initiation of force" and "defensive or retaliatory force". Question 4 Probably more since the role of what they do is defined (defensive or retaliatory use of force) and they are trained for that and must show by a paper trail; warrant, that they have, from top to bottom, used due process. Question 5 Morality is not personal, it is OBJECTIVE. Now if the law knowably commits a easily known law, such as genocide, no. If it does not, then yes to quote Ayn Rand "You obey the law while you work to change it"
The answer to the first three are pretty clearly "no," but then we get to the remaining two and things become a bit more messy. (To clarify regarding number 1: the individuals do have the right to do the things in question, they've simply deferred its use to those whom they've delegated as representatives. No new rights/powers have been created.) Particularly number 4.
There's a sense in which, yeah, the makers and enforcers of the law do indeed have the law applied equally to them. But the problem is in the phrasing of the question. It's about use of coercion and force. Like everyone else, law enforcement and legislators are morally obliged not to *initiate* force, but when we come to retaliatory force things get more interesting. Everyone has the absolute right to self defense, and in a civil society the citizenry agrees to limit themselves strictly to self defense. They defer their right to retaliation (e.g. hunting down that bastard who shot your wife and kids, a la The Punisher) and leave that in the hands of law enforcement. Why? To ensure the right to fair trial for all crimes, rather than have a situation with summary citizen to citizen executions in the streets. Law enforcement's job is to do that hunting down on your behalf, and where possible to bring in the crook to put them on trial can receive the legally prescribed punishment. You do in a sense have the right to do this, but when you are a citizen of a country you defer said right to the law enforcement so as to avoid the situation of warfare in the streets.
When it comes to number 5, one would think the answer is yes if you don't think on it too much, but consider the following: a pedophile who feels morally righteous in what he does; an Islamist who thinks there is no law but Allah's law as conferred to us in the Qur'an; a fundamentalist Christian who thinks there is no law but God's law as conferred in the Holy Bible; a communist who believes there is no justification for private property. Imagine for a moment a world in which all these people blatantly disregard the law to behave in accordance with what they think is "moral." Not a world with people who believe in such false doctrines, but one in which they all think they should act on them regardless of what the law might say. That would be a terrible mess, to put it gently. The law, in a republic, is intended to exist solely to defend individual rights. To the extent that it does, violating it is clearly wrong. To the extent that it doesn't, violating it isn't clearly wrong, but it's still a threat to your well-being. Long range, it's better to get such laws repealed or struck down in the courts, rather than simply defy them without any thought beyond the moment. If ever a time comes when the law requires you to violate individual rights, that's the time to jump ship. Breaking the law will only put a target on the back of your head. Either make a break for the nearest free country you can find or, if for some reason it's contextually a better option, seriously consider revolution. So, there's not really a tidy answer to question five because you leave so many variables unaddressed. What moral code do you speak of? What do you mean by "morally obligated to do what you view as wrong"? The question paints a picture with broad brush strokes, through an unfocused lense.
Over the past 30 years I have noticed a nasty and dangerous trend in the abortion debate. When the so-called "Pro-life"er asks the "Pro-Choice"er "don't you think that the [embryo, fetus] is a living human being". the latter responds with this or something like it "I don't want to get involved in philosophy". Given that those are the two poles in which the discussion is cast. I think we would have to support the "Pro Life" side, until we could become a major, or even significant, player in that debate, The "Pro-Choice" position is worse since it specifically rejects philosophy per se, which puts the "Pro-Life"ers closer to us than their opposition. This represents a retreat from the line of argument that won Roe v Wade in '73. Granted this was settled back than and should not keep coning up but still, it would be an easy win for the "Pro-Choice" side if they would defend the position. They are forfeiting the argument
No theocracy around here. Objective leadership alone.
The government of the state to tolerate all religious views, instead of a separation is in example similar to Indonesia's plurality. Which enables the government to still support the most popular religion. So there is not freedom from religion.
There is something I hear that is not exactly true. Faith (in the religious sense) is blind acceptance of the unproven, or the like. I am speaking hear of the trained clergyman here, not of the Hicksville Baptist Church in Boonies county
By the 15the century two things were accepted as proved by Reason. 1. The existence of God: From Aquinas "it is better that a man not believe in God at all than to believe on Faith". This led, ultimately to Rationalism and Solipsism because you are trying to generate a fact by way of Reason. Now, it provided an "answer" to questions of science the workings of which nobody had a clue so it "sorta" worked. 2 The goodness of God. Again both of these were accepted as proved by Reason. here is where "faith" came in. Remember this was in a time before we had a tiny fraction of a percent of the knowledge that we have now and a thing, to get any worthwhile evaluation of it, must be interpreted in its time or you commit what David Brudnoy calls the "presentist fallacy". This was at a time when one person could learn all that was considered knowledge. The philosophers had some idea, no doubt based in mathematics of finite vs infinite. So, having proved the existence of God by Reason and since this God acted as the repository of all physical laws (this is 1440) God had to be infinite. Since Man does not know everything, the mind of manis "finite" and therefore unable to grasp that which is infinite. Now since the goodness of God had been proved a priori, then the faith that was required to move forward was justified, as reasonable. As you see, it is semi-rational rather than totally irrational and it was the best they had to work with.
Beyond that, the Church, by providing local places to meet was the social and media center. How many times have I said that we Objectivists need to organize from the local to the national/global; and I don't mean just "study groups". I mean the full panoply of human socializing
Now, here is a quiestion. Would it be proper for the State to forbid childhood indoctrination into ANY philosophical system. I posit for discussion this. Not now, but at some time in the next 100 years since it requires a child to give adherence to things he not only does not understand, but hasn't, by nature as a child, the wherewithal to process, nor the experience to understand, until at least 14 years of age and all you do is damage. From the Christian perspective it deprives the young adult of the "New birth" that is apparently how the completion of the adult brain is experienced. How many of you, when you adopted Objectivism felt like a "new person"? I can remember the year and month; mid October 1968
I came to a slightly different concept of the "socas" (separation of church and state) by studying law. The socas is a separation of powers, which permits checks and balances on each. The civil authority is separated from the moral authority.
This plays out in law and courts in a very simple way. The state may make an act illegal, but has no moral authority to make any act guilty. The church can declare any act to be guilty, but has no civil authority to make any act illegal. In theory, both church and state must agree in order that any man be punished.
This dynamic was developed over centuries of battles between church and state for supremacy. Prior to the disintegration of the Roman Empire, civil and moral authority resided in one body; religion and the state were one. The middle ages were a time when the Roman Catholic Church tried to revive the Empire under the church, and local civil authorities pushed back in order to maintain their independence from papal authority.
If it- the church does not hold reason as an absolute then it cannot be a just moral authority.
@@frederickfarias9515- I did not claim the church to be moral, rational, or just. The state bears the same liabilities in that It is men who occupy positions of authority; and men are known to be irrational and immoral. It is the structure of separating power that is important.
You have it a bit backwards 1. The Constitution sets the ground rules for laws. You do not use laws to interpret the Constitution. it is th other way around: How do the laws jibe with the Constitution ans judged by the words therein and the principles that they are meant to implement as set forth in things like the FEDERALIST PAPERS and speeches by those involved? 2. You do not do philosophy by studiying laws. Laws are a consequence of the philosophy behind them so philosophy PRECEDES and OUTWEIGHS laws. You come to a stody of philosophical matters by the study of philosophy