From natural to normative law: self-determination by autonomy - Call it *the natural law of rational community*. : ad `natural law` : Rational community is a fact of nature (given), and the law true by analysis of that fact, therefore I call it a law of nature. !! I doubt that an analytic truth can be a ‘natural law’ or ‘law of nature’. - Moreover the philosophic meanings of these two terms differ, at least in ethics. law: The members of a rational community get, give and allow to each the conditions of combined community and rational agency. untrue!! - Over a period of time, the members *could* deny the conditions to some. - Analysis yields no diachronic law, it now seems, only a synchronic one such as: law: The members of a rational community share in common the conditions of combined community and rational agency. ∴ It no longer supports rights (‘allow to each’), or certainly not their inviolability. - But I found a better way to underpin the rights *and* their inviolability, which moreover stands on its own as a normative law. ∴ This ‘natural law’ is no longer required. : ad `give` : I formulate the law as it applies to humans. Humans cannot obtain all conditions of rational community each for himself. Many we must obtain through reproductive gift and receipt. My discussion later of motivation will depend on such human particulars, but they will not be a factor in my inference of rights and duties. : re `discussion later of motivation` see ~/work/ethic/._/05/80.brec : re `inference of rights and duties` see ~/work/ethic/._/05/60.brec - The conditions of combined community and rational agency obtain throughout a community of rational agents. - Each condition obtains either through personal production, reproductive gift and receipt, or some combination of the two. - Further all conditions obtain through forbearance (or failure) to prevent them obtaining. - The stipulated conditions being (by analytic definition) exhaustive for a rational community as such, not only are they necessary, but also sufficient. - This makes them uniquely decisive for the community, and makes the law, which comprises their securement, the sole determinant of the community. - We come to have these conditions, whether self made or received from those who came before, and we pass them on. - To a helpless child we give personal security, on coming of age the means of freedom. - These and other conditions we produce, reproduce and maintain. : re `other conditions` see ~/work/ethic/._/05/60.brec - Failing this, we are not a rational community, but *pro tanto* something less. - [The] hypothesis raises two questions. 1. Did that actually happen, and to what extent? 2. What theoretic sense can be made from such a conception of morality? - This is not the place to tackle the first question, but two remarks are in order. - First, there is no question that we have, to some degree, absorbed the fact of the rule’s determinancy. - We know of at least *some* of the conditions that underpin our existence as a rational community. - We know that some of them require our attention, and we have some understanding of why they do. - Only the extent and depth of our awareness and understanding are at issue in this regard. - Second, we did not invent the rule. - It is axiomatic and has determined us from the outset. - Yet on any normative interpretation faithful to the rule, the resulting norm turns out to fit definitions of moral terms that we did invent. - The norm would have to be: ⁃ absolute and universal, and therefore a law ⁃ a law of behaviour, which (being normative) makes it a law of right behaviour; ⁃ pertinent to rational agents as such; and ⁃ comprehensive in regard to the criteria of right behaviour. - Being a basic law of right behaviour for rational agents, it would fit our present definitions of ‘moral’ and (being comprehensive) of ‘moral law’ in particular. ‘moral law’ (in some systems of ethics) an absolute principle defining the criteria of right action (whether conceived as a divine ordinance or a truth of reason). : see `^*Pearsall.+2003.+Oxford dictionary of English`s @ sources_boneyard.brec - This coincidence calls for an explanation. - A simple one is that our definitions of morality are a good fit for the rule because they arose from our experience of being governed by that rule. - The definitions track the outward form of our moral concept, whose substance in turn tracks the natural working of the rule. - Such tracking is the hypothesis, and the coincidence lends plausibility to it. - Again, we cannot here investigate the historical truth of it. - What we can do — and this brings us to the second question — is backtrack and consider how we might go about replaying such a conception in the present, on a purely theoretic track, developing its concept from the ground by inference and reflection. - We gain entry to the theoretic track, then, by taking the steps of the hypothesis. - We acknowledge the rule, reinterpret it as a norm and think to apply it. - Its two formal elements aside, the norm (like the rule) is empty. - Call it therefore *the normative law of rational community*, for the name says it all. normative law: (a, b) - Each element that results is necessary to the translation, and the whole mirrors the original rule in its spare, empty form. - The fidelity of the translation seems assured in this approach, which leaves little room to doubt it. - It [the normative law] happens also to reproduce the moral of the story I told for this conception of morality: caring for the community (a) is right (b). : re `caring for (the community)` see `^*- We had seen ourselves acting as stewards of ${same}` @ 40_law.brec : re `is (right)` see `^*- We came to think it ${same}` @ 40_law.brec - This is not to say the conception is deontic, however. - The deontic element (b) and the telic element (a) appear simultaneously in the translation, and nothing in the original existential rule nor the hypothesis indicates that one or the other should be taken as more basic. - The story I told was illustrative only. - Other stories might be told, even a factual one should the hypothesis somehow be proved, yet none in itself could disturb the present conception, which runs on a theoretic track from the bare hypothesis alone. : re `the (present) (conception).+runs on.+(theoretic track)`sp see `replaying such a ${2} in the ${1}.+on a.+${3}` @ 40_law_boneyard.brec - However one regards the conception, whether as deontic or telic or both, the resulting law remains determinative, a law of rational community; one could not properly understand and follow it except as a means to that end. - What we have in mind, therefore, is to do just that: to adopt the law and follow it as a means of determining the community.