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Going to the roots of lawfulness and justice (by way of King Alfred’s Book of Dooms)

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Sometimes the name of a book is just waaaaay cool, and King Alfred’s Book of Dooms takes the prize.

But that (while showing that I am not totally immune to the coolness factor  😉 ) is besides the main point.

The main issue is that for several weeks now, we have been dealing with radical secularism and its agenda for law, the state and justice. Especially, in light of the triple challenge of state power, lawfulness and sound leadership:

U/d b for clarity, nb Nil

What is justice, what is its foundation, and — where Alfred the Great and his Book of Dooms come in — how was this emplaced at the historical root of the Common Law tradition that the law and state framework of the English-speaking Peoples is built upon.

I think a good way to look at this is to headline an overnight comment [ed, let’s snip names as superfluous to main purpose, apologies extended]:

__________

>>The pivotal issue is justice vs power and does might make right.

magna-carta
King John at the sealing of Magna Carta, Runnymede on the Thames, June 15, 1215 (HT: Royal Mint)

Let’s go back to Runnymede, S Bank of the Thames, June 15, 1215.

The rebel barons are there, king John is there, full civil war is in the air, and Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has composed the charter.

[Yes, X the Chief of the Lords Spiritual, to give the name currently used in parallel with the Lords Temporal (i.e. of the House of Lords) . . . and one of the terms was a council of 25 Barons to oversee the Charter, which was the ancestor to parliaments and congresses.]

When boiled down, the heart of the charter that makes it relevant 800 years later, is this . . . and the numbers come from Blackstone:

+ (39) No free man

[–> recognition of freedom, the further question is, who shall be free]

shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions

[–> recognition of rights including property],

or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any way, nor will we proceed with force against him

[–> policing power & the sword of state subordinated to justice],

or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals

[ –> peers, i.e. trial by jury of peers]

or by the law of the land

[–> rule of law, not decree of tyrant or oligarch].

+ (40) To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.

[–> integrity, lawfulness and legitimacy of government rooted in the priority of right and justice]

And yes, X, these come from the pen of the Archbishop of Canterbury. They hark back to the Christian king, Alfred the Great and the Book of Dooms, which — as was cited in 57 above but ignored  — literally starts the British Common Law tradition by citing the decalogue and other framework law from the Pentateuch.

I wonder why we never hear that when we hear of some atheistical secularist zealots screaming theocracy and trying to rip those lessons out of any place where they may tell the other side of the story on how we got to modern liberty and democracy?

Let me remind X of the wisdom of Bernard Lewis, as he counselled us on the brink of the rising war of civilisations, in his epochal 1990 essay, The Roots of Muslim Rage:

. . . The accusations are familiar. We of the West are accused of sexism, racism, and imperialism, institutionalized in patriarchy and slavery, tyranny and exploitation. To these charges, and to others as heinous, we have no option but to plead guilty — not as Americans, nor yet as Westerners, but simply as human beings, as members of the human race. In none of these sins are we the only sinners, and in some of them we are very far from being the worst. The treatment of women in the Western world, and more generally in Christendom, has always been unequal and often oppressive, but even at its worst it was rather better than the rule of polygamy and concubinage that has otherwise been the almost universal lot of womankind on this planet . . . .

In having practiced sexism, racism, and imperialism, the West was merely following the common practice of mankind through the millennia of recorded history. Where it is distinct from all other civilizations is in having recognized, named, and tried, not entirely without success, to remedy these historic diseases. And that is surely a matter for congratulation, not condemnation. We do not hold Western medical science in general, or Dr. Parkinson and Dr. Alzheimer in particular, responsible for the diseases they diagnosed and to which they gave their names.

Yes, a more balanced view of Christendom and its heritage is both possible and advisable, even as we foolishly stand on the crumbling brink of an abyss.

Surely, those wonderful multibillion dollar media empires have research staffs and can investigate the history I have highlighted?

Look, it is as close as Google and even Wikipedia, much less the British Library and the like.

Or is it that they willfully suppress the truth that not only directly through the Bible but literally in the opening words of Alfred the Great’s Book of Dooms, the decalogue is the foundation of the common law tradition on which the freedom and just government of the English Speaking Peoples — I here allude to Churchill — rests?

Including, for the United States of America?

For shame!

Yes, those very same ten commandments that [radical secularists] would rip out of any place of honour or respect near any Court.

Lest we overlook, let me cite from Alfred’s Book of Dooms:

Dooms.

The Lord was speaking these words to Moyse [= Moses], and thus quoth;

I am the Lord thine God. I led thee out of the Egyptians’ lands, and of their

Oklahoma, US 10 Commandments Monument banned by the State Supreme Court in a 2015 decision
Oklahoma, US 10 Commandments Monument banned by the State Supreme Court in a 2015 decision

bondage [–> slavery].

1. Love thou not other strange gods ever me.
2. Call not thou mine name in idleness, for that thou art not guiltless with me, if thou in idleness callest mine name.
3. Mind that thou hallow the rest-day. Work you six days, and on the seventh rest you. For that in six days Christ wrought heavens and earth, seas, and all shapen things that in them are, and rested him on the seventh day: and for that the Lord hallowed it.
4. Honour thine father and thine mother that the Lord gave thee : that thou be the longer living on earth.
5. Slay thou not.
6?. Commit thou not adultery.
7. Steal thou not .
8. Say thou not leasing witness.
9. Wish not thou thy neighbour’s goods with untight.
10. Work thou not to thyself golden gods or silvern. [–> scan not guaranteed 100%]

11. These are the dooms that thou shalt set them . . . .

49. These are dooms that the Almighty God himself was speaking to Moses, and bade him to hold, and, since the Lord’s onebegotten son, our God, that is, healing Christ, on middle earth came [–> “In the year of our Lord . . .” and now you know where “middle earth” comes from], he quoth that he came not these biddings to break nor to forbid, but with all good to eke them, and mild-heartedness and lowly-mindedness to learn [ –> teach, Alfred here alludes to and enfolds in the foundations, the Sermon on the Mount of Matt 5 – 7]. Then after his throes [sufferings], ere that his apostles were gone through all the earth to learn [teach], and then yet that they were together, many heathen nations they turned to God. While they all together were, they send erranddoers to Antioch and to Syria, Christ’s law to learn [teach]. When they understood that it speeded them not, then sent they an errand-writing to them. This is then that errand-writing that the apostles sent to Antioch, and to Syria, and to Cilicia, that are now from heathen nations turned to Christ.

The apostles and the elder brethren wish you health. And we make known to you, that we have heard that some of our fellows with our words to you have come, and bade you a heavier wise [way or law] to hold, than we bade them, and have too much misled you with manifold biddings, and your souls more perverted than they have righted. Then we assembled us about that, and to us all it seemed good, that we should send Paul and Barnabas, men that will their souls sell [give] for the Lord’s name. With them we sent Judas and Silas, that they to you the ilk [same] may say. To the Holy Ghost it was thought and to us, that we none burden on you should not set, over that to you was needful to hold, that is then, that ye forbear that ye devil-gilds [idols] worship, and taste blood and things strangled, and from fornication, and that ye will that other men do not to you, do ye not that to other men. [–> Yes, the Golden Rule of Moshe, of Yeshva and of Paulo, Apostolo Mart, is right there too.]

From this one doom a man may think that he should doom [judge] every one rightly: he need keep no other doom-book. Let him thmk [take care] that he doom to no man that he would not that he doom to him, if he sought doom over him. [–> This is essentially the point that Locke cited from “the judicious [Anglican Canon, Richard] Hooker [in his Ecclesiastical Polity 1594+]” when in his 2nd treatise on civil gov’t, he grounded the rights – lawfulness principle at the heart of modern liberty and democracy, cf. OP and here]

Since that, it happened that many nations took to Christ’s faith; there were many synods through all the middle earth gathered, and eke throughout the English race, they took to Christ’s faith, of holy bishops’, and eke of other exalted witan [wise men]. They then set forth, for their mild-heartedness, that Christ learned [taught], at almost every misdeed, that the worldly lords might, with their leave, without sin, at the first guilt, take their fee-boot that they then appointed; except in treason against a lord, to which they durst not declare no mild-hearted ness, for that the God Almighty doomed none to them that slighted him, nor Christ God’s son doomed none to him that sold him to death, and he bade to love a lord as himself. They then in many synods set a boot for many misdeeds of men ; and in many synod books they wrote, here, one doom, there, another.

I then, Alfred king, gathered these together, and bade to write many of those that our foregoers held,—those that to me seemed good: and many of those that seemed not good, I set aside with mine witan’s counsel, and in other wise bade to hold them: for that I durst not venture much of mine own to set in writing, for that it was unknown to me what of this would be liking to those that were after us. But those that I met with either in Ine’s days mine kinsman, or in Offa’s, king of Mercia, or in Ethelbryte’s that first took baptism in the English race,—they that seemed to me the lightest, I gathered them herein and let alone the others.

I then, Alfred, king of the West Saxons, shewed these to all mine witan, and they then said that that all seemed good to them to hold . . .

That, is where it begins, this is the actual foundation on which Common Law, modern liberty and Democracy were built.

Moyse, Yeshva, James and the gathered Apostles and Elders in the Jerusalem Council of Ac 15, AD 48/9, the teachings of Missionary Bishops and Witan made mild-hearted by the power of the gospel.

And yet, this is not in our history books, it is not in the mouths and hearts of our talking head pundits, it is not in our media, I daresay it is likely not in our Law-Schools (I hope, it is in some few).

For shame!

Let us show respect for those who laid the foundations that many would now so ignorantly undermine and toss on the rubbish heap in rage against “religion,” fed by one sided litanies against the sins of Christendom and smug confidence in the superiority of radical secularism . . . all, duly dressed up in a lab coat? (For in the madness of scientism, so many have been deluded to imagine, that “science is the only begetter of truth”; a claim that refutes itself for it is a philosophical claim and cannot stand its own test. But, we must not look behind the curtains to see who is pulling the strings . . . )

Have the decency to listen to the wisdom of the past and to respect lessons bought hard, with blood and tears!

And the ghosts of — what, coming on 200 million victims of radical secularist and neopagan-influenced tyrannies of the century just past — join in the chorus warning you against a stubbornly mad march of folly.

Anyway, back to justice.

What is it, why is it so important, where does it come from, why should we pay it any heed?

Justice lawfully and duly balances rights, freedoms and responsibilities in the community, the blessed nation with limited and legitimate government, under God.

The root and foundation and chief champion of Justice.

Yes, the one who so many despise today, who inspired Micah:

Micah 6:8 He hath shewed thee,
O man,
what is good;
and what doth the Lord require of thee,
but to do justly,
and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God? [KJV]

But, we run ahead.

Justice duly balances rights, freedoms and responsibilities, requiring the active support of citizen and state alike.

Where, a responsibility is plainly a duty, an OUGHT.

Where again, a right is a binding morally grounded expectation for respect in one’s life, liberty, innocent reputation and more.

Again, it points to OUGHT, to our being under moral government.

And where freedom or liberty is well summed up in Webster’s 1828 dictionary (written before the revisionists could get their hands on the dictionaries):

LIB’ERTY, noun [Latin libertas, from liber, free.]

1. Freedom from restraint, in a general sense, and applicable to the body, or to the will or mind. The body is at liberty when not confined; the will or mind is at liberty when not checked or controlled. A man enjoys liberty when no physical force operates to restrain his actions or volitions.

2. Natural liberty consists in the power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or control, except from the laws of nature. It is a state of exemption from the control of others, and from positive laws and the institutions of social life. This liberty is abridged by the establishment of government.

3. Civil liberty is the liberty of men in a state of society, or natural liberty so far only abridged and restrained, as is necessary and expedient for the safety and interest of the society, state or nation. A restraint of natural liberty not necessary or expedient for the public, is tyranny or oppression. civil liberty is an exemption from the arbitrary will of others, which exemption is secured by established laws, which restrain every man from injuring or controlling another. Hence the restraints of law are essential to civil liberty

The liberty of one depends not so much on the removal of all restraint from him, as on the due restraint upon the liberty of others.

In this sentence, the latter word liberty denotes natural liberty

4. Political liberty is sometimes used as synonymous with civil liberty But it more properly designates the liberty of a nation, the freedom of a nation or state from all unjust abridgment of its rights and independence by another nation. Hence we often speak of the political liberties of Europe, or the nations of Europe.

5. Religious liberty is the free right of adopting and enjoying opinions on religious subjects, and of worshiping the Supreme Being according to the dictates of conscience, without external control.

6. liberty in metaphysics, as opposed to necessity, is the power of an agent to do or forbear any particular action, according to the determination or thought of the mind, by which either is preferred to the other.

Freedom of the will; exemption from compulsion or restraint in willing or volition.

7. Privilege; exemption; immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant; with a plural. Thus we speak of the liberties of the commercial cities of Europe.

8. Leave; permission granted. The witness obtained liberty to leave the court.

9. A space in which one is permitted to pass without restraint, and beyond which he may not lawfully pass; with a plural; as the liberties of a prison.

10. Freedom of action or speech beyond the ordinary bounds of civility or decorum. Females should repel all improper liberties.

To take the liberty to do or say any thing, to use freedom not specially granted.

To set at liberty to deliver from confinement; to release from restraint.

To be at liberty to be free from restraint.

Liberty of the press, is freedom from any restriction on the power to publish books; the free power of publishing what one pleases, subject only to punishment for abusing the privilege, or publishing what is mischievous to the public or injurious to individuals.

First occurrence in the Bible(KJV): Leviticus 25:10

In short liberty is also deeply rooted in the moral government of OUGHT, and the insight that we are responsibly free rational creatures.

So, the pivotal issue is what grounds OUGHT, how comes we are under its government, under moral law?

Surely, not the cynically nihilistic and amoral credo, that might and manipulation make ‘right.’

Such, is patently absurdly self-refuting; as, the very point at stake is that might and manipulation generally make wrong, not right.

Indeed they obviously lead us straight down the vortex of tyranny.

This brings us right up against the IS-OUGHT gap and to the challenge that we must find an answer. And, post Hume, it is clear that this can come at only one level: World- Roots, World- Foundations.

If we deny that we are under moral government, it is not only that might and manipulation usually make for wrong, but that the irresistible sense that we are under government of ought would imply that we are under a grand delusion. That is, we undermine rationality and responsible freedom, that is, this view self-refutes and self-falsifies by undermining rationality itself.

We know ourselves to be rational above all else and have no good reason to reject the testimony of hearts, minds and consciences that we are under moral government, under moral law. Moral law that can only have its source in a world-foundational is.

Pace, Dawkins and his self-falsifying declamations:

In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference . . . . DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music. [ “God’s Utility Function,” Sci. Am. Aug 1995, pp. 80 – 85.]

Pace, Crick and his self-falsifying Astonishing Hypothesis:

. . . that “You”, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll’s Alice might have phrased: “You’re nothing but a pack of neurons.” This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.

Pace, Provine and his undermining of morality and responsible freedom:

Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent . . . .

The first 4 implications are so obvious to modern naturalistic evolutionists that I will spend little time defending them. Human free will, however, is another matter. Even evolutionists have trouble swallowing that implication. I will argue that humans are locally determined systems that make choices. They have, however, no free will . . .

All these and many more of like ilk only succeed in showing that evolutionary materialism and its fellow travelers are self-falsifying on pain of the fallacy of grand delusion.

No, after centuries of debates there is but one serious candidate to be the IS that grounds OUGHT, thus justice:

the inherently good Creator God, a necessary and maximally great being, worthy of ultimate trust and loyalty, worthy of the reasonable — not irrational or superstitious or blind — service of doing the good in accord with our evident, manifest nature. (And this implies that per Lincoln, insistently calling the tail of a sheep a leg has no power to magically increase the number of its legs to five, not even when the magical incantation is solemnly pronounced by black robed judges operating under colour of law and abusing or usurping the power to interpret constitutional instruments.)

That is the real challenge, morality, ontology and cosmology join with one voice to point to the roots of moral government and they point where ever so many in our day refuse to go.

Even, if they have to stop their ears, shut their eyes, silence conscience and heart then cling to absurdities to do so.

Our civilisation is on a determined march of folly over a cliff, and it will take a miracle to turn it back before it is too late.

Those who refuse to learn the lessons of history bought over centuries with much blood and tears, doom themselves to learn the same over and over again, at much the same apalling price.>>
___________

So, where are we? Why?

Where are we headed?

What should we now do, how?

Have we done wisely?

Perhaps, the last word should belong to Jesus: wisdom is justified by her children.

Let us ponder. END

Comments
kairosfocus @97
Have you considered that rocks and other mechanical entities are governed by mechanical laws and that embodied agents will be governed by in addition moral and rational law in accord with their distinct nature?
I asked in a prior comment whether rocks owe moral duties to other things. Your answer was unspecific and ambiguous. If you mean now to say “yes, they owe moral duties” then this comment is consistent. But you also wrote in answer to my question that “a rock is a mechanical entity not an agent ... It would also reduce our conscious awareness and responsible, rational freedom to delusion.” So if rocks are governed by moral laws, they must owe moral duties in spite of their lack of agency. Which is it? Do rocks (and the like) owe moral duties? Are “our conscious awareness and responsible, rational freedom” delusion? (I say “no” to both questions.)
That, both sets of laws could trace to the same mind?
Could be, sure. Could be they don’t. Could be there is no mind creating either. What is obviously missing is any NEED to believe in such a mind.
This view is not novel or idiosyncratic, it is for instance pretty directly laid out in Newton’s General Scholium to Principia, the greatest single modern scientific work.
Novelty would not make the idea less likely. Being an old idea does not make it more likely. Newton’s Principia is not the “greatest single modern scientific work”; it is not even “modern” and its status of “greatest” is much in dispute. It certainly is not infallible; some of what Newton thought is known to be wrong.
On the next point it is almost amusing but in the end sadly revealing that a point that answers to Hume’s attempt to put up an unbridgeable is-ought gap should first be characterised as though it were the idiosyncratic notions of a few oddball bloggists.
Given your religious background, you may feel required to believe in “Proof from Authority”. But that is not a rational rule. Therefore Hume’s (FAILED) attempt “to put up an unbridgeable is-ought gap” is not discredited by bloggers who advance it. It is discredited because AT THE TIME HUME ATTEMPTED TO “PUT IT UP”, the bridge over this “gap” was already known: reciprocity as referred to by Locke, Aristotle, the ancient Golden Rule, and others no doubt.
This of course reflects want of addressing issues at their weight and the attitude that moral issues are matters of perceptions and might/manipulation makes right.
I don’t know what that means. Moral issues are matters of obligation and harms: duties creating obligations to avoid causing harms as the other side of the equation for those of us wanting to avoid harms to ourselves.
No, our consciences, hearts and minds inform us we are under moral law. If that is delusion, grand delusion results and fatally undermines rationality. Next, where can we ground ought in a way that bridges the gap posed by Hume’s guillotine?
We are under moral law; that is not in dispute between us. Moral law gains nothing by imaginary foundations encompassing morally exempt things. Moral law applies only to those things having volition, knowledge, foresight, and reason. Hume’s guillotine is broken. We CAN ground “ought” in reason and the facts of the human condition. Searching for a deeper ground is futile and purposeless: it adds nothing.
If ever we set a basis above world roots, we go straight to is is ought ought, the gap.
Hume’s guillotine is broken, his “gap” has been bridged without recourse to deities.
The only possible basis is world roots, and in an inherently good root of reality.
You know this is false. I’ve presented a possible basis, and you have found no fault or deficiency in it other than it is not your preference. You have found nothing that your alternative adds.
That is why we face the single serious candidate challenge.
Challenge met and done. sean s.sean samis
August 24, 2015
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SS: Have you considered that rocks and other mechanical entities are governed by mechanical laws and that embodied agents will be governed by in addition moral and rational law in accord with their distinct nature? That, both sets of laws could trace to the same mind? This view is not novel or idiosyncratic, it is for instance pretty directly laid out in Newton's General Scholium to Principia, the greatest single modern scientific work. Just scooping up a first key point. On the next point it is almost amusing but in the end sadly revealing that a point that answers to Hume's attempt to put up an unbridgeable is-ought gap should first be characterised as though it were the idiosyncratic notions of a few oddball bloggists. This of course reflects want of addressing issues at their weight and the attitude that moral issues are matters of perceptions and might/manipulation makes right. No, our consciences, hearts and minds inform us we are under moral law. If that is delusion, grand delusion results and fatally undermines rationality. Next, where can we ground ought in a way that bridges the gap posed by Hume's guillotine? If ever we set a basis above world roots, we go straight to is is ought ought, the gap. The only possible basis is world roots, and in an inherently good root of reality. That is why we face the single serious candidate challenge. KFkairosfocus
August 23, 2015
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The principle objection kairosfocus, Barry Arrington, and others have to my rational moral system (described @ 54) is that it is not grounded in “ultimate being” or “to the world-root level”. This complaint is also lodged against any alternative to a theistic “objective moral truth”. I will stipulate that my alternative is not grounded like that. And I assert that it need not be. My assertion is correct because this “requirement” is an unnecessary extravagance. No moral system (not even the Christian one, not even the “OMT”) can establish that it is so grounded, and no one has established that such grounding is necessary because it is not. Claims that theistic morality is grounded in “ultimate being” are just that: claims. Claims that morality needs grounding in “ultimate being” are, likewise, just claims. Ironically, these claims are themselves ungrounded. When we look at the idea of grounding morality in “ultimate being”, it becomes pointless. If a moral system is grounded in “ultimate being” then everything that exists is subject to the moral system. If moral systems create obligations for those subject to them, a moral system grounded in “ultimate being” imposes a moral obligation on everything that exists. Question: are inanimate objects (rocks, atoms, subatomic particles, etc.) under moral obligation? The consensus seems to be that this very idea is foolish. Some go so far as to declare this an Actual Stupid Question. Inanimate objects exercise no “agency”, they make no choices so they cannot respond to any “obligation”. These things just react to the forces of nature acting on them. Like Doh! But, if the base matter/energy and forces of our universe are not acting under any moral obligation, what is the purpose to claiming that morality must be grounded EVEN MORE DEEPLY THAN THESE? What is the purpose of requiring morality to be grounded in “ultimate being” so as to encompass all that exists, and then excusing all but a trace-part of the universe from any moral obligation? There is no practical or rational purpose to this; the purpose is purely RHETORICAL. This faux requirement creates the appearance of a need for a deity who is, by definition, the ultimate being, the world-root. Otherwise, this faux requirement serves no moral or rational purpose; it provides no moral or rational value; it makes no difference. If we jettison the idea, we lose nothing. If morality imposes no obligation except on those creatures capable of appreciating and responding to obligations, then morality needs no grounding deeper than the truth of those creatures’ nature and existence. Anything more is rationally and morally pointless. A rational, non-theistic morality can be grounded on the truth of human nature and existence. We are fallible, fragile, social creatures. Those facts, along with our possession of volition, knowledge, foresight, and reason make us able to appreciate and respond to moral obligations toward each other and toward other things in our universe. Whatever defects there may be in my proposed rational moral system, it is not any lack of sufficient grounding. The facts of our nature ground our moral obligations; that is all the grounding we need. It is sufficient to make a non-theistic “inter-subjective morality” as real and as effective as any moral system can be or has ever been. sean s.sean samis
August 20, 2015
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kairosfocus @83
a rock is a mechanical entity not an agent...
I congratulate you on having the courage to answer this question. Others are not so brave. I take your answer as fairly summarized as “No, rocks owe no moral duty to anything because they lack ‘agency’”. If I am mistaken, please do correct me. Otherwise you and I agree completely on this specific question. But your raises another question: if morality must be foundational to the very roots of existence, to the world-roots level; and if morality is the imposition of an ‘ought’; then how can rocks be under the “government of ought” if they lack moral duties? If morality is fundamental to existence itself, and if rocks and other inanimate objects have no moral duties, what then creates a moral duty? As far as I can see, your insistence that morality be justified at a “world-roots level” serves no purpose, puts morality on no firmer footing, and inserts an inconsistency in your idea. sean s.sean samis
August 18, 2015
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F/N: For clarity, image u/d b, with "Nil -- Anarchic/SoN" to emphasise absence of state, or f/w of laws or leadership and its effect: anarchic or state of nature. I suggest the analogy of HIV infection and fill blown AIDS. The first is of like character, is a factor for but is not the same as the second. And, tends to it. KFkairosfocus
August 17, 2015
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Relating to -- in this case, promoting or tending to, is quite good enough. So would be of the same character. KFkairosfocus
August 16, 2015
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kairosfocus: You have at length acknowledged the change to anarchic. The usual definition of anarchic is "of, relating to, or advocating anarchy". You really need to be more careful in your use of terminology. You already provided a definition of anarchy above, and it doesn't salvage your analysis. Nor have you responded to the objections raised.Zachriel
August 15, 2015
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Zachriel, red herring and strawman. You have at length acknowledged the change to anarchic. I have no expectation on your track record that you will acknowledge that the framework has any utility. It was interesting to (knowing how it speaks to Jamaica's case and the local one as well as many others) spend time yesterday discussing how it speaks to Haiti and Guyana. KFkairosfocus
August 15, 2015
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kairosfocus: a simple scroll up will show ... ... that you have failed to address the problems with your cubic analysis.Zachriel
August 15, 2015
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Zachriel, a simple scroll up will show the opposite to what you just said. I suppose it is something for you to admit the change at length. As for anarchists, I do not expect a coherent view though talk of some sort of communalism and voluntary carrying out of social services is probably typical. The reality of actual anarchy is very different. KFkairosfocus
August 15, 2015
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kairosfocus: For anarchy, I suggest to you i/l/o dictionaries and root as cited, the primary reference is lack of rule[r], with implication of breakdown or absence of effective governance rooted in traditional power centres [typically, state, church, capital and even family], in hopes of emergence of a future, utopian communalism. Not all anarchists are communalists, as already pointed out many times. kairosfocus: I wonder why you seem unable to acknowledge a change made over a week ago and repeatedly brought to your attention, complete with dictionary definitions of -ic and anarchic. We have acknowledged the change, but it didn't address the problems with your cubic analysis. Ignoring those objections doesn't make them go away. From your responses, you probably can't even restate those objections, much less answer them.Zachriel
August 15, 2015
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Zachriel, Kindly note, I have cited the anarchists (and that is also informed by memory of an infamous longstanding anarchist/socialist cartoon I first noticed decades ago, cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Capitalist_System ). For anarchy, I suggest to you i/l/o dictionaries and root as cited, the primary reference is lack of rule[r], with implication of breakdown or absence of effective governance rooted in traditional power centres [typically, state, church, capital and even family], in hopes of emergence of a future, utopian communalism. Thus, a view of actual anarchy based on factors that reflect such a breakdown and cumulatively contribute to it, is reasonable. State power, law and leadership are such factors, and it would be reasonable to hold that full anarchy obtains where state, law and leadership have disintegrated or were not present. Loss or absence of each factor contributes [i.e. is anarchic], but each one is distinct. And the result of the three breakdowns or absences coming together is predictably chaotic and so repellent that even its threat is often enough to panic a public into accepting strongmanism to restore order. KF PS: “Governance” can be viewed as a broad term for the work and challenge of formal and informal leadership, co-ordination, influence or oversight, decision-making and direction of strategic actions in given situations. It applies to the state, to organisations, corporations, projects, movements or even to a community or region at large. It thus involves power balances, agendas of issues for focus and debate, resulting decision and action on proposed policies, carrying decisions forward to implementation (or blocking them) as factions contend in the face of circumstances, maintenance of order, degree of responsiveness to stakeholders and circumstances, fairness or justice issues, fraud/waste/abuse, accountability for results (or its lack) etc.kairosfocus
August 15, 2015
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Zachriel, I wonder why you seem unable to acknowledge a change made over a week ago and repeatedly brought to your attention, complete with dictionary definitions of -ic and anarchic. Something is very wrong, as I explained why I made the change to a rarer word in order to be more clear. Your unresponsiveness does not speak well, and it makes me wonder how you would respond to things that are necessarily less directly evident than this. KFkairosfocus
August 14, 2015
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kairosfocus: anarchism sees itself as opposed to power centres, especially in state, church and commerce. Then there would be no such thing as anarcho-capitalists. If we accept your heterodox definition that anarchy means lack of power centres, that is, an even distribution of political power, your scales are still incoherent. Leadership just becomes a proxy for the distribution of power, while the other two scales still show the extreme as "anarchy", which is not consistent with your definition. For instance, if Leadership is high on the scale, say, autocratic, we can still have low on the Lawfulness scale if every decision is ad hoc, but your cube shows it as "anarchy". And we can have Leadership very low, which you define as "anarchy", but have a working society based on pure democracy, with or without a legal code. There's simply no way to make your cubic analysis work without revamping your system. But you don't have your listening ears on. kairosfocus: Absence of state at some level is destabilising, as would be absence of law or leadership. With all three knocked out or absent, chaos strongly tends to occur. Your cube shows that if any of them are low, then it results in "anarchy".Zachriel
August 14, 2015
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Zachriel, I already showed from the anarchists themselves and the roots of the term, that it is not just about absence of the state but absence of rule and that anarchism sees itself as opposed to power centres, especially in state, church and commerce. Repeating an error as though it were not corrected is unresponsive. Absence of state at some level is destabilising, as would be absence of law or leadership. With all three knocked out or absent, chaos strongly tends to occur. If you can identify an actual golden age of primitive communalism that was orderly, peaceful and secure from brigandage etc without institutionalising Clan leadership/warlords, a body of oral law to govern community and muster defenders etc, and without actual leaders turned to especially in emergency, do give the evidence. KFkairosfocus
August 14, 2015
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SS, a rock is a mechanical entity not an agent -- though materialism would reduce us to glorified rocks, expressing its amorality. It would also reduce our conscious awareness and responsible, rational freedom to delusion. Thus reducing itself to self-referential incoherence. As to the "convoluted" objection, it is unresponsive to what was shown, that your attempted basis fails. The only base that can adequately ground OUGHT is at world-root level. Your arguments do not go there and imply or outright show how they rely on further oughts. That was adequately shown. KFkairosfocus
August 14, 2015
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s.s. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/materialists-are-rarely-this-candit-about-their-evil/#comment-575867bornagain77
August 14, 2015
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kairosfocus @73 Your writing in this is too convoluted for me to be sure even what your point is, but I think your objections to the moral system I suggest come down to your desire to see it “grounded in root reality”. Is that correct? sean s.sean samis
August 14, 2015
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A question for Barry Arrington, StephenB, kairosfocus, or any of their supporters: Do rocks owe moral duties to anything else? Since the claim is that “the TML [transcendent moral law] is grounded in God’s being” (BA); that “...OUGHT is grounded in root reality” (KF) this should mean that morality is foundational even to the mere matter of our universe. So rocks should owe moral duties because they are as bound by the TML, by the OUGHT as anything else. So: do rocks owe moral duties to anything/anybody else? If not, why not? sean s.sean samis
August 14, 2015
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kairofocus: anarchy will be chaotic, on all history Given the standard definition of anarchy, absence of government: Humans lived without government for thousands of years, and for much of that time, at last in some places, people went about their business in relative order. Furthermore, many people hold the view that order can spontaneously occur without the necessity of government, such as anarcho-capitalism. Whether you agree or not is immaterial when discussing political philosophy. kairofocus: As a condition of an unfortunate region with no law, no state power and no effective leadership, anarchy gives rise to the proverbial “dark and bloody ground.” But your diagram shows anarchy on all three axis, and you've been provided counterexamples of non-anarchic systems without law, and non-anarchic systems without leadership, contrary to your diagram.Zachriel
August 14, 2015
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Zachriel, anarchy will be chaotic, on all history. Indeed, even the threat of anarchy and accompanying chaos is enough to motivate people to panic and call for order at almost any price. Where, of course other circumstances can also be chaotic, there is not an equation. Next, I spoke to the planes of no leadership and autocracy, which gives the focal issue, leadership and the effect of the states with no effective leadership and with autocratic leadership. Measure the latter by the Reichstag fire and the panicked vote of an enabling act. A state with no leadership takes in the top four corners -- the plane I highlight is not shaded in BTW. The bottom plane (darker shade) has autocratic leadership, with the other four corners. The specific dynamics at points in the two planes will vary depending on situation with state power and law, but the trend is already patent from either no leadership or autocratic leadership. Rule by decree is lawmaking [and this includes the case where a ruler serves as supreme judge and renders verdicts that have force of law . . . BTW what is happening with the increasingly oligarchic US Supreme Court], bearing in mind that law can be oral not just written, cf Justinian's Institutes as already cited. And so forth. KF PS: Please note the way the anarchists are using hierarchy. That is what I am highlighting. I suspect there are different varieties, after all, anarchism will be intellectually anarchic and chaotic, I do not expect coherence on its part as an ideology. As a condition of an unfortunate region with no law, no state power and no effective leadership, anarchy gives rise to the proverbial "dark and bloody ground." PPS: I just had quite a little discussion on Haitian history with the aid of the same diagram you would dismiss.kairosfocus
August 14, 2015
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kairosfocus: I have demonstrated that the framework as given in the OP is not contradictory ... Your explanations have been muddled, at best, such as equating anarchy with chaos. kairosfocus: As for the eight corners point, I spoke long since to the two PLANES, indicating the implications of absence of ruler and autocratic rulers There are three planes. kairosfocus: Surely that by definition takes in the eight corners and your collective is again shown to be unresponsive. Um, nope. If the dimensions are independent, as expected of a three diimensional spectrum, then there should be examples that fit into any of the eight corners. For example, a standard two-dimensional spectrum includes the egalitarian-hierarchical (left-right) axis, and the amount of government intrusion authoritarian-libertarian spectrum. Hence, we would expect to see points along the two dimensions, with libertarian left, authoritarian left, libertarian right, authoritarian right, and points in between. kairosfocus: I would suggest that rule by decree is in fact making law A decree can either be law or ad hoc. A law is a rule. If each question is decided on a case-by-case basis, then it doesn't constitute a legal code. It's possible to have orderly government that rules on all questions on a case-by-case basis.Zachriel
August 14, 2015
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Zachriel, you are simply repeating, again. I have demonstrated that the framework as given in the OP is not contradictory and that it applies to real world cases. Including, the international case of law [and even courts] with neither global ruler nor global state, which in former centuries Locke pointed to as a state of nature situation for kings. As for the eight corners point, I spoke long since to the two PLANES, indicating the implications of absence of ruler and autocratic rulers -- the former is anarchic and tends towards a rebound towards order, the latter sets up a slide to tyranny. Surely that by definition takes in the eight corners and your collective is again shown to be unresponsive. I would suggest that rule by decree is in fact making law, admittedly by a system inferior to modern democracy. However, in circumstabces before C17 - 19, modern democracy was arguably not feasible for want of a literate informed public and vigorous free press etc. (All, as discussed long since, the unresponsiveness continues.) Next, in the teeth of my repeatedly pointing out that to clarify meaning I turned to the rarer word anarchic, and then pointed to cumulative impact of such conditions (which are demostrably separable) I find you still saying that the scales end in the word "anarchy". A simple scroll up will show, not so. I had thought originally that with points on a distinct scale the differences should have been clear but they were not for you. Hence my change. A lack of state power is anarchic, so is absence of law [and that is different from lawmaking by decree . . . one whose suitably given word is law cf. Justinian's Institutes as excerpted], so is absence of leader/ruler in a zone of relevance. They may separately obtain or not obtain, so they are substantially distinct enough to be distinct dimensions. Any one is chaotic in impact, two, worse, all three cumulatively untenable to the point of being a repeller pole that tends to push panicked people to demand order at any price. All of this has been repeatedly pointed out, only to meet with non-responsiveness to the point now of beginning to look like closed minded intransigence. And, the discussion by anarchists I cited shows that anarchy is not to properly be equated to no government, your previous point. As for left vs right, again my fundamental objection remains that the whole scheme is undermined and discredited by its tendency for decades to classify a movement with a main examplar being the National Socialist German Workers Partuy, as right wing. On evidence given in previous threads -- again brushed aside -- the Nazis understood themselves to be and were understood as socialists, which will be of the left. The scheme collapses and is only relevant because people often talk in its terms, typically putting up rhetoric about equality as though that can prevail over the evidence that revolutions of left wing character typically put in a new ideological elite, they do not actually create or recognise fundamental equality. Animal Farm is a classic, in its conclusion when the ruling pigs host av dinner with relatives of the former owner: as the animals looked from man to pig and from pig to man, they realised that already there was no difference. Orwell had a serious point, as the recent exposure of Castro's lifestyle by a former security officer reveals also. KFkairosfocus
August 14, 2015
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kairosfocus: For this reason, rather than being purely anti-government or anti-state, anarchism is primarily a movement against hierarchy. 1. Then it is indistinguishable from the egalitarian-hierarchical left-right spectrum, which you claimed you were replacing. 2. More particularly, if anarchy is equated to hierarchy, then there could be no such thing as anarcho-capitalism. But there is, so your understanding is inconsistent with how the term is generally used. 3. You have anarchy on all three of your dimensions, so you still have a problem with your diagram.Zachriel
August 14, 2015
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kairosfocus: at this point you are repeating dismissive talking points claiming an incoherence that is demonstrably not there. Yes, your diagram is incoherent for reasons already provided. kairosfocus: As in what I have spoken to is on the table with live examples. We asked for examples from the eight corners. You provided two, sufficient to define a line, not a cube. kairosfocus: Rule by decree is a way of making law that is substandard under current circumstances and tends to be tyrannical Perhaps, but doesn't address the point. It represents a non-anarchical non-lawful system, something your cube both allows but rules out. That's why your analysis is incoherent. You are showing a three separate scales, which, because they are drawn in three-dimensions, should be independent. However, they all have an extreme in anarchy, showing they are not independent. Furthermore, you say that anarchy only occurs when all three scales are towards one side, which contradicts the diagram. That's what makes it incoherent. If you wanted to make it more rational, you might try to organize it like this: State power: weak to strong, anarchy to absolute Lawfulness: weak to strong, arbitrary to rigid Leadership: weak to strong, diffuse to autocratic Notice each dimension is a gradation from weak to strong, each shows an independent aspect of social organization, each dimension is independent, and consequently, we can find examples on any corner of the cube. For example, a king who rules on every case ad hoc would be low on lawfulness, high on leadership, and could be either weak or strong in terms of government power. Or, we might have a pure democracy so leadership is diffuse, and it might work by law, or it might work by deciding each issue ad hoc as it arose, community meetings every night. And so on. Again, this doesn't replace the standard political spectrums, but isn't necessary inconsistent with them either.Zachriel
August 14, 2015
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SS: I will note on points: >>Rational is not a synonym for materialistic; agreed. Materialism is not incoherent in any particular way. If you think it is, you’ll need to explain that.>> 1 --> Done, over and over, cf. here on for instance. >> [KF:] What is harm, what is evil, why i/l/o what they are, are they unacceptable, ought-nots? [SS:] I’ve defined harm and evil in my comment #54. Did you not read it?>> 2 --> My emphasis just now should show that I am pointing to the foundational issues, which were in my mind, not adequately addressed at 54 . . . which I highlight differently and annotate, to bring this out:
I believe there are just two basic rules to any valid, rational moral system: 1. Do No Evil. (Evil is defined below). 2. Do unto others that which you would have them do unto you. This is the Golden Rule, of course Evil is any act with respect to another person which 1. causes or threatens to cause Harm, 2. is Intentional and 3. is Unnecessary. [3 --> note the acts of judgement and axiologically loaded evaluations, ought here is being displaced not rooted. Besides, ever so many radicals and oppressors deem what would otherwise be unacceptable on the premise of ends justifying means . . . a nihilistic credo. Solzhenitsyn quoted the Gulag's operatives as speaking in terms of needing to crack eggs to make an omelette] Harm: any physical injury, financial loss, or impairment of liberty; or a substantial risk of any of these against the express consent of the one harmed or placed at risk. [4 --> but, why are such objectionable or unacceptable? Why would consent make a difference, other than by way of opening the door to the sort of manipulated demand where in a notorious story, the hitmen sent to target a fellow Communist, first worked him over to demand that he consent that his own death was required for the good of the party. In a case I knew of, a man tried to hire a hitman, and on agreeing the gunman asked, who? Me. The gunman retorted that the man was sick and sent him to see a well known psychologist. All of the factors listed are pregnant with deeper oughts, again pointing to foundational issues.] Intentional: includes premeditation, recklessness, or unreasonable negligence. [--> Again, implicitly loaded and pointing onward.] Unnecessary: not justified by mitigation or prevention of other, greater harms or injustice;>> [5 --> Notice the iteration to the next, deeper level of oughtness? Note the issue of injustice with all that brings in? In short, circular or infinite regress or finitely remote root in an IS at world-root level that grounds OUGHT.] nor justified by the uncoerced and knowing consent of the one harmed.>> [--> again, and again]
>>[KF:] Why should X acknowledge SS’ scheme of ought-nots, and obey them? To earn brownie points from SS and those like him? To hopefully avoid retaliation? To seek to spark reciprocity? [SS:] This question applies to any moral system. X should acknowledge my scheme because it is reasonable, understandable, and leads to desireable behaviors and outcomes.>> 6 --> My question is again pointing to roots, your answer in effect concedes that all schemes need roots. But that is my point. 7 --> Your scheme either terminates in an ungrounded circle or else trails off with an ellipsis implying infinite regress. 8 --> The challenge remains, the world-root IS that grounds OUGHT. >>[SS:] Why should X acknowledge your scheme? If X can deny both schemes, that cannot make one worse than the other.>> 9 --> I would think the chain of warrant question is well known to be there for any core issue, and the choices are [a] circularity that begs the question [including by arbitrary trailing off], [b] infinite regress [not traversible by the finite and fallible, so you don't get to warrant anything in particular], or [c] finitely remote first plausibles that stand up to comparative difficulties (which answers to question-begging] 10 --> Of the three only C, worldviews with roots in finitely remote first plausibles that stand up to comparative difficulties across coherence, factual adequacy and balanced explanatory power [neither an ad hoc incremental patchwork forever fixing further leaks nor a simplistic scheme that locks out what dos not fit] is tenable. And that tenability is dynamic and held in the context of dialogue. 11 --> Here, the issue is that we find ourselves under binding moral government i/l/o justice, good vs evil and rights etc (and under pain of the fallacy of grand delusion radically undermining rationality if we rule such delusional). 12 --> On its face, such demands grounding, rootedness, foundations. 13 --> Where also, as Hume highlights, OUGHT cannot just be pushed in arbitrarily IS, IS IS . . . presto, OUGHT, OUGHT; it must come in at a natural point or not at all. 14 --> This points again to c, and as ontological issues of being are always primary, to the need for a world-root IS that adequately grounds OUGHT. 15 --> The candidate to beat -- note, comparative difficulties -- is precisely as repeatedly described: the inherently good Creator-God, a necessary and maximally great being worthy of ultimate loyalty and the reasonable service of doing the good in accord with our evident nature. 16 --> In Boethius' terms: if evil is how then can God be, but if not God how then can good be. Where, a better understanding of evil is: the twisting, privation, frustration of the good out of fulfillment of purpose. 17 --> So, for instance, murder robs one of life and frustrates achieving purpose in life; robbing of liberty turns one into an instrument for another's agenda frustrating fulfillment of one's own end; slander does much the same by arbitrarily destroying credibility in a context where as social, rational, conversing beings we need to work together to mutually fulfill purpose; rape is a violation of the proper purpose of a woman's sexuality and involves robbing her of responsible freedom in that matter; genocide carries murder up to the level of a people or the like, etc. 18 --> Necessary being is at the root of reality, as first if ever there were an utter nothing -- non-being -- as such can have no causal capacity such would forever obtain, so there always was something which is unconditioned at the root of reality that is adequate for a world to be-come. 19 --> The issue is of what nature. 20 --> And, in a world that shows fine tuning and FSCO/I in many ways, design sits at the table as of right, pointing to purpose and agency. 21 --> Where, moral government points to being an adequate root of good. This points to a maximally great and inherently good being as root of reality. Such has all great-making an no lesser making properties. 22 --> A necessary, maximally great being would be inextricably involved in the root of any actualised world, such as our own, where also a serious candidate necessary being [composite, contingent beings etc need not apply] will be either impossible or possible and if possible in some possible world. Thus as necessary in every actual or possible world. (To see this, try to conceive of a world without twoness.) 23 --> In short, such a serious candidate will be either impossible or actual. (Such is also the force of the famed S5 axiom.) 24 --> Note, we here must differentiate epistemic and ontological priority. 25 --> We can know ourselves to be under moral government prior to coming to conclusions regarding the root of such moral government, but the actual existence of a world in which such government of OUGHT exists, requires an ontologically prior adequate root. 26 --> A serious candidate now sits at the table. Let us see if another at world-root level can be produced. (Don't hold your breath.) >> [KF:] Especially, where X has enough power that SS’ views can be brushed aside, what claim do they have on X? [SS:] This question applies to any moral system. If X has enough power, X can brush aside anyone’s views. If X can disobey both schemes, that cannot make one worse than the other.>> 27 --> On the contrary, I have pointed to the vast difference between might and manipulation makes 'right' and adequate grounding of OUGHT in a world-root IS. Thus: >> [KF:] To adequately ground it, you need a world-foundational IS . . . something that is necessarily there if a world IS, and which is simultaneously a source of good and ought. [SS:} I have done that: in the facts of the human condition.>> 28 --> As shown, not. >> [KF:] Onlookers, observe how the historic significance of Alfred’s Book of Dooms has been noticeably side-stepped in the comments. [SS:] Onlookers, observe how the significance of knowledge and reason are supposedly trumped by the out-date views of a more-than-thousand year old book. Have we learned nothing new since? Are our lives still enslaved to the ideas of people who lived 50 generations ago?>> 29 --> First, truth by the clock, on the myth of progress and too often the conceit of our contemporary superiority. 30 --> If in fact we have a morally governed core common nature that expresses equality of worth, dignity, rights and right to claim justice . . . implicit in much of what you SS have said above -- then there will be enduring moral premises and principles that govern us, which may well be anciently discerned. 31 --> For illustration, and as an exercise in reasoning with neighbour and not stumbling the blind, let me clip Moshe on the Neighbour-Love principle, c 1440 BC:
Lev 19:9 “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. 10 And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God. 11 “You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. 12 You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. 13 “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning. 14 You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the Lord. 15 “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. 16 You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life[a] of your neighbor: I am the Lord. 17 “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. [ESV]
32 --> Of course, in dismissing an old book that happens to lie at the root of the Common Law tradition on which modern democracy was built by the English-speaking peoples, there is an implicit dismissal of history. 33 --> In reply, I say that the sound lessons of history were bought with blood and tears so that those who disregard, ignore or dismiss them doom themselves to pay the same price again to learn what could have been had for the simple price of being willing to heed the lessons of the past. 34 --> Further to this, we can take it as proved that indeed the Book of Dooms shows how the root of the Common Law tradition literally begins from the Judaeo-Christian heritage as peoples who came to the Christian faith sought to ground fair government under a sound corpus of law [and in so doing, incorporated the Golden rule from Jesus, Paul and Moshe]. 35 --> Then, later on in 1215 (yes, 800 years ago) it would be Samuel Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury who would pen in the Magna Carta, that to no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay, right or justice. Where, indeed many specifics have been superseded, but in this there is the root of parliamentary government, recognition of rights of the free and more. 36 --> I have also already shown how Justinian's Institutes mark a significantly (but not completely) Christianised synthesis of 1,000 years of Roman Law in 535 AD nigh on 1500 years past, a body that underlies law in a great part of the world. Indeed when Japan sought to modernise, it adopted the corpus. 37 --> So, no, in fact it is not enslavement to look to long established insight on lawfulness, it may be instead -- by virtue of expressing enduring insights rooted epistemically in costly history -- our hope for soundly grounding liberty and justice. KFkairosfocus
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F/N: On roots and understanding of anarchy. The Greek prefix AN- is one of denial, NOT +. The Greek word ARCHOS means: leader, ruler, master. That is, anarchy speaks to absence of rulership primarily, with other linked absences being concomitant. Wikibooks has an anarchist FAQ:
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Anarchist_FAQ/What_is_Anarchism%3F/1.1 The word "anarchy" is from the Greek, prefix an (or a), meaning "not," "the want of," "the absence of," or "the lack of", plus archos, meaning "a ruler," "director", "chief," "person in charge," or "authority." Or, as Peter Kropotkin put it, Anarchy comes from the Greek words meaning "contrary to authority." [1] While the Greek words anarchos and anarchia are often taken to mean "having no government" or "being without a government," as can be seen, the strict, original meaning of anarchism was not simply "no government." "An-archy" means "without a ruler," or more generally, "without authority," and it is in this sense that anarchists have continually used the word. For example, we find Kropotkin arguing that anarchism "attacks not only capital, but also the main sources of the power of capitalism: law, authority, and the State." [2] For anarchists, anarchy means "not necessarily absence of order, as is generally supposed, but an absence of rule."[3] Hence David Weick's excellent summary:
"Anarchism can be understood as the generic social and political idea that expresses negation of all power, sovereignty, domination, and hierarchical division, and a will to their dissolution. . . Anarchism is therefore more than anti-statism . . . [even if] government (the state) . . . is, appropriately, the central focus of anarchist critique."[4]
For this reason, rather than being purely anti-government or anti-state, anarchism is primarily a movement against hierarchy. Why? Because hierarchy is the organisational structure that embodies authority. Since the state is the "highest" form of hierarchy, anarchists are, by definition, anti-state; but this is not a sufficient definition of anarchism. This means that real anarchists are opposed to all forms of hierarchical organisation, not only the state. In the words of Brian Morris:
"The term anarchy comes from the Greek, and essentially means 'no ruler.' Anarchists are people who reject all forms of government or coercive authority, all forms of hierarchy and domination. They are therefore opposed to what the Mexican anarchist Flores Magon called the 'sombre trinity' -- state, capital and the church. Anarchists are thus opposed to both capitalism and to the state, as well as to all forms of religious authority. But anarchists also seek to establish or bring about by varying means, a condition of anarchy, that is, a decentralised society without coercive institutions, a society organised through a federation of voluntary associations." [5]
Reference to "hierarchy" in this context is a fairly recent development -- the "classical" anarchists such as Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin did use the word, but rarely (they usually preferred "authority," which was used as short-hand for "authoritarian") . . .
In short, the self-understanding here from its roots as a movement defining its identity on, is primarily against rulers, whether in a state or in another major power centre, church or capital being explicitly identified. Thus, implying too, absence of leadership, state and law as characteristic of full bore actualised anarchy. (All of this being consistent with the classic, notorious cartoon.) Of course, this is all deeply ill-advised and would lead to chaos not harmony, rapidly rebounding into the vortex of tyranny. It also points to how radicals self-identifying as leftist and against hierarchy or for radical equality, often seek to trigger crisis, breakdown of credibility and power of existing centres of governance and leadership. But the very necessary hierarchy of revolutionary organisations and rebel armies with their manifest pattern of major leadership, direction and control foreshadows the historically warranted predictable outcome if the revolution overthrows existing rulers: seizure of power by a new, typically ruthlessly nihilistic emerging power class. With reigns of terror typically waiting in the wings. And with ruthless in-fighting leading to the revolution eating its children and a tendency of power to end up in the hands of the most cunningly ruthless and well organised. In short, this case confirms the 3-D mapping exercise and further shows the irrelevance of categorising politics on seating arrangements of long ago European legislatures. KF PS: The test is misbehaving, here refusing to accept that 7 x 3 = 21.kairosfocus
August 14, 2015
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SS, Though not a main focus of this thread, I will for the moment simply point out that the built-in incoherence of evolutionary materialism is well known, cf here in context for one facet. Reppert brings out more on the ways a materialist account of mind becomes self-referentially incoherent by undermining logical inference itself:
. . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [[But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [[so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions.
Later, on other points. KF PS: I'll add that the Book of Dooms lies at the historic roots of the Common Law system, the foundation of modern liberty and democracy as developed in both the US and the British realms, and as a crucial facet embeds the principle of neighbour love. Just for starters.kairosfocus
August 13, 2015
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Zachriel, at this point you are repeating dismissive talking points claiming an incoherence that is demonstrably not there. As in what I have spoken to is on the table with live examples. (And BTW, in former centuries Locke cited kings as being in state of nature wrt the international arena.) KF PS: Rule by decree is a way of making law that is substandard under current circumstances and tends to be tyrannical, but it is one way to begin to build up a corpus of law; historically it is not merely ad hoc. As Justinian's Institutes as already cited show.kairosfocus
August 13, 2015
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kairosfocus @56
First, rational is not a synonym for materialistic, indeed it can be shown that materialism is self-referentally incoherent.
Rational is not a synonym for materialistic; agreed. Materialism is not incoherent in any particular way. If you think it is, you’ll need to explain that.
What is harm, what is evil, why i/l/o what they are, are they unacceptable, ought-nots?
I’ve defined harm and evil in my comment #54. Did you not read it?
Why should X acknowledge SS’ scheme of ought-nots, and obey them? To earn brownie points from SS and those like him? To hopefully avoid retaliation? To seek to spark reciprocity?
This question applies to any moral system. X should acknowledge my scheme because it is reasonable, understandable, and leads to desireable behaviors and outcomes. Why should X acknowledge your scheme? If X can deny both schemes, that cannot make one worse than the other.
Especially, where X has enough power that SS’ views can be brushed aside, what claim do they have on X?
This question applies to any moral system. If X has enough power, X can brush aside anyone’s views. If X can disobey both schemes, that cannot make one worse than the other.
To adequately ground it, you need a world-foundational IS . . . something that is necessarily there if a world IS, and which is simultaneously a source of good and ought.
I have done that: in the facts of the human condition. kairosfocus @67
Onlookers, observe how the historic significance of Alfred’s Book of Dooms has been noticeably side-stepped in the comments.
Onlookers, observe how the significance of knowledge and reason are supposedly trumped by the out-date views of a more-than-thousand year old book. Have we learned nothing new since? Are our lives still enslaved to the ideas of people who lived 50 generations ago? sean s.sean samis
August 13, 2015
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