60 precepts, notes - Infer from the moral law’s proper end (community of our rational nature) the conditions as the necessary means to that end. : see notepad:2023-3-30d : join @ `^^conditions`i / So from that end, but with guidance from the law. - Then infer the precepts as the necessary means to those conditions. - Not only is this warranted (and neatly echoes the initial inference of the natural law), but it yields clean results, such as the positive duties being duties of will. + Consider summing up with a formula comparable to Kant’s formula of humanity. formula: (rough, cf. Kant) Never use reason (whether in yourself, in another or at large) merely as a means, but always at the same time as an end. ?+ Is this coherent? After all, how does one *use* reason outside of oneself? casuistry : see notepad:2023-3-27b,f : Its function and place (where it is called for). - No authority arises from the deontic element of the law, which is the mere *form* of law; nor from any objective value in the end (telic element), which likewise is merely formal. / The end is not some value-stuff that we are forced to mine like bitcoin. : see - Authority enters soley by one’s choice to take up the existential rule *as a normative law*, and to conform to that law. no sacrificing of innocents - That feature (abhorrent fault) of consequentialism is here absent. ∵ It cannot occur here. ∵ A positive duty is here a duty of will, not action. ∵ Though willing an end rationally requires one to will also the necessary means, never in practice (only in theory) can a finite agent see such necessity. - Here I would challenge those claimimg the ethic is open to sacrificing of innocents to give an example scenario wherein a finite agent would in practice see the necessity of such a sacrifice. - Such scenarios are usually couched in a theoretic context, and the necessity that holds there will evaporate on translation to a practical context, revealing it as nothing but a theoretic postulate. ∴ The means are always (for a finite agent) a matter of prudence, and prudence cannot override a perfect duty (of rights non-infringement). / This principle I may have asserted in past versions/attempts at the ethic: e.g. prudence weighs nothing in the balance against moral obligation. - But the sacrificial scenario hinges on the necessity of a means (rights infringement). ∴ The sacrificial scenario cannot occur here. ∴ The positive duties are (for a finite agent) effectively imperfect and of lower priority than the negative duties. - This despite there being no (strong) theoretic warrant for their being imperfect. : re `no.+strong.` e.g. `^*∵ .+conflicts would undermine the.+law`sp : weak ∵ If the positive duties were not effectively imperfect (and so non-conflicting with the negative duties), then conflicts would undermine the normative law to such an extent that it would collapse in indeterminancy. ∴ Reason demands that, in reinterpreting the natural law as a normative law, we take its positive demands to be imperfect. + Give reason for making *those* imperfect, as opposed to making the rights so. + Consult Kant, who gives warrant for both types of duty (perfect and imperfect). shore up+ the arguments above, for they are weak ? How warrant the strength of the rights and thus the negative duties that constrain action. / All now rests on that, as the weakness of the positive duties is well warranted. - From the law itself which requires each to obey it, and thereby grants rights inviolable by principle (the same as that of the default ethic). : see notepad:2023-4-3h : Yes, because they have positive duties under the law. - Being an objective law (its authority coming from a shared, objective ground) one recognizes that others thereby have the same rights. : pace notepad:2023-4-3l : (an old note, prior to objective grounding) Mutual recognition of these rights arises from the very form of law, which *by one’s authority in taking it up as such* requires allowing that others may do so, and so get the same rights as onself thereby. • Key perhaps is that no axiologic premise nor principle figures in the ethic’s foundation or in its inference of the precepts. / The end is not some value-stuff that we are forced to mine like bitcoin. : see ∴ One has no warrant to weigh outcomes in an axiologic balance. - One cannot infer that one person’s exercise of an right carries less weight than that of a thousand persons, or that of *any* outcome. • Key perhaps is the practical necessity of constraints on action. - Else the whole collapses in conflict. - This points to the importance of the negative duties, for they alone are action constraints. • Key perhaps is: the necessity of a means toward the end of rational community cannot be established except in regard to the total determination of that end, namely its ultimate attainment. - That attainment lies at infinity. - This underlines just how presumptive it would be for a finite agent to claim, in regard to such an end, knowledge of necessity. / Outside of theory and (I guess) analytic logic. / Perhaps what offends about consequentialism more than anything, more than the sacrificing of innocents and other fantastic beasts of casuistry (unlikely to appear in practice), is this presumption that one could clearly see the way through to infinity, to a total determination that alone could justify such horrors. / Here is one of the many reflections that bring Dickinson’s letter to mind. • Key for certain: - Rights hold against duty because always their necessity is more certain, not arising from the judgement of a finite agent. - One may try to convince another to sacrifice his own right in favour of his duty, but never may one force it. stoppage of rights violation - The principle or warrant here is I think: the stoppers do nothing that a rational violator would see as unreasonable or morally wrong. ?+ Does that work. ?+ How does Kant treat of this? I think he gives a similar argument. / I was put on track of this solution by references to Kant in Cummiskey’s *Kantian consequentialism* in *Ethics*, - Others are permitted to enforce compliance with *any of the rights* (in default of the corresponding negative duty) by constraint of freedom inasfar as prudence demands. ∵ If one *acknowledges* the right of freedom, then the forced compliance effects what (by acknowledgement) what one is obligated to effect, what one has reason to effect. ∵ If it is compliance with the right of security that is enforced, then it effects an *entailment* of compliance with the right of freedom, for freedom rests on security. ∵ If it is compliance with the right of ends justification that is enforced, then it effects compliance with the right of freedom in regard to ends justification. ∵ If one acknowledges *no* right of freedom, then one has no reason to object to the constraint on one’s freedom. - Others are permitted to enforce compliance with the *right of security* (in default of the corresponding negative duty) by constraint of security inasfar as prudence demands. ∵ If one *acknowledges* the right of security, then the forced compliance effects what (by acknowledgement) what one is obligated to effect, what one has reason to effect. ∵ If one acknowledges *no* right of security, then one has no reason to object to the constraint on one’s security. ∴ The positive duties become operative here, freeing others to enforce compliance with each of the rights, and thereby requiring them to do so (prudence permitting) in obedience to its correponding positive duty. conditions, precarious, of rational agency - Infer from the moral law’s proper end (community of our rational nature) the conditions as the necessary means to that end. : join ends justification : see notepad:2023-3-27h : Its institutional anchor: ‘a facility that enables one to weigh ends that are thought to be justified in themselves (a better term… )’. positive duties - The positive duties are duties of will. ∵ The positive duties hold by inference from willing the end (community of our rational nature), which inference makes them duties of will. : see notepad:2023-3-30d ∵ Willing an end entails willing the necessary means. : note : Kant invoked this principle (so Cummiskey reminds me) if nobody before him. - This makes sense on reflection. ∵ An obligation of success *in action* would be unreasonable for a positive duty, or at least for duties such as these. ∵ It would be too demanding in practice. ∵ We are finite beings. + Tie in with argument elsewhere concerning a total determination of the end. - Seeing that is impossible for us, which seeing is a condition of seeing the necessity of a means (∴ impossible for us), but also of seeing success in the attainment of a positive duty (∴ also impossible for us). ends justification - Call for system designs. / Deferred in favour of first publishing the theory, which might help to encourage a better response. - Based on the socio-architectural view of front-end system dedicated to the function of resource entry. : see `front-end system.+dedicated to.+function of entry`sp @ ~/code/WP3/way/wayic/working_notes.brec - Factoring out (of the core) all that is non-essential to societal fit and lock *as* a front-end system dedicated to that function. / So divide (to factors) and conquer (the whole) bit by bit. / Storing the relation type `Person.wills_as_furthermost( End )`, for example, would suffice for a peripheral tool to (naively) show an ordered list of furthermost ends. / Adding the relation type `Person.works_with( Person )` would *begin* to enable tools for backtracking from furthermost ends (by way of persons) to teams (resolved from this relation type) as potential points of entry. - Thereby reaching directly (without delay) for the (human) resources necessary to viability and maintenance (my life’s goal). rights - principle-based inference of rights from the basic, positive duty of the moral law : privately see `^*principle: What is enjoined by duty is entitled by right.$` @ ~/work/ethics/normative/._/02_partly_default/20_default_moral_norms.brec : re `principle: What is enjoined by duty is entitled by right.` cf. @ ~/work/ethics/normative/._/00_default_restart/20_default_moral_norms.brec : re `principle: What is enjoined by duty is entitled by right.` cf. @ ~/project/way/ethic/rights.brec : note : cf. Kant 6:383.1, a similar treatment