Law

    - One rule determines the existence of a community of rational agents as such.
    - Call it *the existential rule of rational community*.

        existential rule: A community of rational agents as such exists in time, space and degree
          only insofar as sufficient conditions for combined community and rational agency obtain.

    - The existential rule holds by simple analysis of its object, a rational community.
        / By rational community, I mean a community of rational agents.
        - It is therefore axiomatic.
    - The formula of the rule tells what in fact enables a rational community to exist and endure.

        hypothesis: Absorbing this fact and reinterpreting it as a norm led to our concept of morality.

    - We had seen ourselves acting as stewards of the community,
      producing and maintaining its conditions.
        - We came to think this role fitting and proper to us.
        - We came to think it right.
        - Thus we absorbed the fact of the rule’s determinancy in regard to the community,
          turned it to a norm and called it moral.
    - This hypothesis raises several questions.

        • Did that actually happen, and to what extent?
        • What theoretic sense can be made from such a conception of morality?  What normative ethic?
        • What practical sense?  How might it fit in society?

    - I do not tackle the first question here.
        + Repair this anticlimax.
            | raise the first question in isolation, then set it aside in favour of the other two
    - Rather I simply use the hypothesis in order to gain entry to the other questions,
      beginning with the theoretic, which I do by following the *steps* of the hypothesis.
    - I acknowledge the rule, reinterpret it as a norm and think to apply it.

    I
        - The rule being formed by causal analysis of its object, it has one formal element:

            existential rule: (κ)

            κ) A causal relation to a rational community

        - Its one formal element aside, the rule is empty.
            / The expanded formula that I gave previously for the rule merely made explicit what is,
              in any case, already present in its object.
                : re `expanded formula.+previously` see `^*existential rule:.+community`
        - Translating it into a normative context yields *two* formal elements.

            κ) One’s rational community as an end
            ν) The form of law

        - Element (ν) emerges because: what the rule holds conditionally, namely its object,
          must hold unconditionally in the normative translation.
            - Right behaviour is not a matter of indifference.
            - Thus the object, the end that holds the object (κ) and the norm that holds the end
              must all be expressed as necessary.
            - The norm must be absolute and universal, and this requires the form of law (ν).
        - These two formal elements aside, the norm (like the rule) is empty.
        - Call it *the normative law of rational community*.

            normative law: (κ, ν)

        - The determinative function of the original rule translates through to the law.
            - The normative law (like the existential rule) is seen to be a determinant of its object
              (though here of a practical kind), bringing to bear on it will (κ) and the form of law (ν).
            - Therefore this is the function I have in mind when I think to apply the law.
            - And with that, the normative interpretation is complete.
        - Here then, in its essential form and function, is the normative law of rational community,
          the principle behind the concept of morality which the hypothesis holds to be ours.

    II
            ⋮
        - What I have in mind … to apply the law as a means of determining the community.
            : see @ `^^moment of autonomy$`i @ 40_law.notes.brec
            ⋮



                                                                       \ Copyright © 2023  Michael Allan.