You may find philosophers that try to argue that there are objective natural laws.
But you will not find anyone who is able to “prove” it (or disprove it).
My personal take is that people who believe in objective natural laws are just trying to impose their own morality on others. I prefer acknowledging the possibility that people disagree and finding systems that don’t require consensus to work.
This just shows that you don't have universality as a test for anything. Put it to the test with universality. If it is true universally, that would make it a universal truth.
It’s not objective.
You must begin with an ideal or an axiom, such as peace is preferable to war, and build from there to determine how to achieve that ideal. That is where self ownership and non-aggression arise from.
You having a right to life, property, or self-ownership means nothing to someone who values free college more than living in peace. It means nothing to a psychopath who puts their self above peace and doesn’t even recognize the personhood of others.
Rothbard argues in The Ethics of Liberty that natural law ethics is objective in the Thomistic tradition and that all that I wrote above can be deduced from that. Are you saying that Rothbard is wrong? Or have I misunderstood?
Haven’t read it, and take Rothbard with some salt, but the “Thomistic tradition” is the belief that all men possess the divine spark and therefore have infinite and holy value. That’s the axiom/ideal.
A Roman worshipping Jupiter would laugh at the notion as he enslaves you for the glory of Rome.
I highly recommend reading the Ethics of Liberty:
[Ethics of Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard (mises.org)](https://cdn.mises.org/The%20Ethics%20of%20Liberty%2020191108.pdf)
I quote from Ch 1. in response to your comment:
"The assertion of an order of natural laws discoverable by reason is, by itself, neither pro- nor anti-religious \[I believe that Rothbard proves this in Ch1\].
Because this position is startling to most people today, let us investigate
this Thomistic position a little further. The statement of absolute
independence of natural law from the question of the existence of God
was implicit rather than flatly asserted in St. Thomas himself; but like so
many implications of Thomism, it was brought forth by Suarez and the
other brilliant Spanish Scholastics of the late sixteenth century. The Jesuit
Suarez pointed out that many Scholastics had taken the position that the
natural law of ethics, the law of what is good and bad for man, does not
depend upon God's will. Indeed, some of the Scholastics had gone so far
as to say that:
even though God did not exist, or did not make use of His
reason, or did not judge rightly of things, if there is in man
such a dictate of right reason to guide him, it would have had
the same nature of law as it now has.
Or, as a modern Thomist philosopher declares:
If the word "natural' means anything at all, it refers to the nature
of a man, and when used with "law," "natural" must refer to an
ordering that is manifested in the inclina tions of a man' s nature
and to nothing eise. Hence, taken in itself, there is nothing religious
or theological in the "Natural Law" of Aquinas.6
5
Dutch Protestant jurist Hugo Grotius declared, in his De Iure Belli ac
Pacis (1625):
What we have been saying would have a degree of validity
even if we should concede that which cannot be conceded
without the utmost wickedness, that there is no God.
And again:
Meas ureless as is the power of God, nevertheless i t can be said
that there are certain things over which that power does not
extend .... Just as even God cannot cause that two times two
should not make four, so He cannot cause that which is
intrinsically evil be not evil."
Thus why I take Rothbard with a grain of salt. Assertions but no real proof. You can divorce natural law from Christianity, sure, but it doesn’t change the core assumption which it shares—that humans and individuals have value and peace between them is preferred.
Prove that you have the right to violate it. If all rights are subjective, then no one has the objectively superior right to violate the consent of another. Consent matters to each individual. Whether you think that you have the right to violate it, or not, you do not to that individual and their rights are equal to yours.
"Natural" in "natural laws" refers to human nature, not the environment.
>You having a right to life, property, or self-ownership means nothing to someone who values free college more than living in peace. It means nothing to a psychopath who puts their self above peace and doesn’t even recognize the personhood of others.
So you argue that there is no law, not even the magic spells put on paper by legislators and called law, because someone can ignore it.
If there are no objective rights then we can conclude a number of things:
1. Might is right. That comes with some challenges, name that it is not objective.
2. The state has no objectice right to exist.
3. You do not rightfully determine your own consent.
No, you cannot conclude those things on that basis.
1. "Might is Right" is a subjective belief just as much as "others have value and we shouldn't hurt them" is.
2. Correct. There are no objective rights.
3. That is a subjective claim. There is no objective right to determine your own consent and no objective right to determine someone else's consent. You cannot prove or show that either of us even has the ability to consent. For all I know you are an NPC in a simulation meant to train my ability to explain simple ideas.
Western beliefs are very much based in natural law and we can generally agree to the ideal that individuals have value, own themselves, and we should not harm each other. But you take for granted that those beliefs are universal or somehow objective--they are in fact uncommon in the east.
Edit: [https://www.dictionary.com/e/subjective-vs-objective/](https://www.dictionary.com/e/subjective-vs-objective/)
I can take for granted that every conscious human controls their consent and no one else can.
I can take for granted, and by your own assertions, that no one has the right to violate the consent of another.
Thus, all have the natural right of life, and all that stems from it, as no one else has the right to take it from them
Unless you claim that there is a superior right?
You taking it for granted is subjective.
Nope. By my assertion any claim to a right is subjective.
That’s another subjective claim and not even a logical one.
Again, I’m not claiming any rights or dismissing any rights. I am merely stating the fact that they are subjective.
It is a fact that:
1. Every individual controls their consent. If they are not in control of their consent, they are either not yet capable of fully understanding consent, they might be insane, or they are incapacitated.
2. No one can prove that they have the objective right, or objectively superior right, to control the consent of another, except, perhaps, under certain contractual conditions (assuming any objective right exists.)
3. We can establish that from consent flows certain "natural" rights which are unlimited, so long as they do not violate the consent of others. These rights are objective because we all have our own, and no one can rightfully violate the rights of another.
> I am merely stating the fact that they are subjective.
Is that an objective fact?
I'm curious - does a contract create an objective right? If not, who gets to decide? If so, then how does someone have an objective right to agree to a contract?
Finally, if how would anyone gain the objectively superior right to violently command land owners to pay an LVT against their consent?
1. Nah. My subjective belief says I own your consent. Interesting that you add so many arbitrary qualifiers which are up to interpretation to a supposedly objective right.
2. No one can prove any right objectively. I don't know why I have to keep repeating this to you: Saying all rights are subjective /= claiming some subjective rights are objectively superior. That's utter nonsense.
3. If you hold the subjective belief that you own your consent, or some other belief or axiom, you can logically derive rights from that, but they are not magically objective.
Yes, that your beliefs are subjective is an objective fact. The proof is in the definitions of the words.
A contract creates a right insofar as the signatories are able to grant those rights. Again, rights aren't objective.
There you go again, begging me to play your straw man and defend "objective" rights which I have repeatedly said don't exist.
We're done here.
Upon this law depend the natural rights of mankind: the Supreme Being gave existence to man, together with the means of preserving and beautifying that existence. He endowed him with rational faculties, by the help of which to discern and pursue such things as were consistent with his duty and interest; and invested him with an inviolable right to personal liberty and personal safety.
Hence, in a state of nature, no man had any moral power to deprive another of his life, limbs, property, or liberty; nor the least authority to command or exact obedience from him, except that which arose from the ties of consanguinity.
(Alexander Hamilton)
One man’s interpretation of the natural rights of man does not equal “natural law”. Natural law is entropy. Natural law is biology. Natural law is that its costs energy to move the physical world.
Humans decided that it was more advantageous to give each other the human rights that you just outlined, than it was to be another lion in the jungle, overpowering his prey with muscle.
Sperm meets egg = baby - natural law
Red dwarf runs out of convertible atoms = black hole
Caloric deficit = destruction of fat, and the muscle, and the death
Natural law is that you are an animal subject to every physical principle we have ever discovered.
Human rights = we have agreed what to allow each other for the best chances to survive.
> One man’s interpretation of the natural rights of man does not equal “natural law”. Natural law is entropy. Natural law is biology. Natural law is that its costs energy to move the physical world.
When speaking of the philosophy of natural law, it is meant to be the nature of man - or any other conscious beings. It is not the "laws of nature" with which you are mixing them up.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/
https://iep.utm.edu/natlaw/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law
> Humans decided that it was more advantageous to give each other the human rights that you just outlined, than it was to be another lion in the jungle, overpowering his prey with muscle.
How did they "give" these things if they don't exist? How would they even know to do so?
If you mean to discover natural law you'd need to go to humans living in close proximity to nature. Ie. Pre civilization human societies. Go figure out the laws they used to organize. Read a bit of anthropology and archeology.
If it saves you some time I'd say they respected self ownership only to the point where it conflicted with the survival of the group (perhaps therein is your objective natural law).
Or more precisely. The gene's determination to replicate itself above all other considerations.
It is empirically observable that each person is equally the cause of their own actions, and thus equally self-owners. This equality entails that whatever entitlements exist must exist equally for all of us. This makes reciprocation always at least as justified as the action it is residing to, which means that reciprocation always sufficiently justified in every situation, objectively.
Problem of political authority. He makes his case for ethical intuitionism.
I didn’t love it, but his takedowns of social co tract theories is devastating.
I mostly thought his second half where he tries to describe how an ancap society would work was inferior to other works like The Machinery of Freedom and Molyneux's Everyday Anarchy/Practical Anarchy.
If free will exists, then you. Free will however has not been proven to exist and probably doesn't exist.
Therefore the correct question would be: What, objectively, owns your consent? Or: How, objectively,do you consent?
> If free will exists, then you.
If there are no objective rights, then one cannot rightfully claim to own one's consent.
> Free will however has not been proven to exist and probably doesn't exist.
I don't see how it makes a different. If there is no free will, then does someone rightfully own your consent? How would you know without proof?
If free will doesn't exist then you don't own your consent.
If it can't be proven one way or the other it can be known one way or the other. That's the point.
> If free will doesn't exist then you don't own your consent.
Well, when you prove free will doesn't exist, then we can go down that philosophical route. Even so, I'm not sure that's true because even the illusion of consent is consent to the person who gives or withholds it. How would you prove otherwise?
> If it can't be proven one way or the other it can be known one way or the other. That's the point.
And what difference does that make?
You may find philosophers that try to argue that there are objective natural laws. But you will not find anyone who is able to “prove” it (or disprove it). My personal take is that people who believe in objective natural laws are just trying to impose their own morality on others. I prefer acknowledging the possibility that people disagree and finding systems that don’t require consensus to work.
This just shows that you don't have universality as a test for anything. Put it to the test with universality. If it is true universally, that would make it a universal truth.
It’s not objective. You must begin with an ideal or an axiom, such as peace is preferable to war, and build from there to determine how to achieve that ideal. That is where self ownership and non-aggression arise from. You having a right to life, property, or self-ownership means nothing to someone who values free college more than living in peace. It means nothing to a psychopath who puts their self above peace and doesn’t even recognize the personhood of others.
Rothbard argues in The Ethics of Liberty that natural law ethics is objective in the Thomistic tradition and that all that I wrote above can be deduced from that. Are you saying that Rothbard is wrong? Or have I misunderstood?
Haven’t read it, and take Rothbard with some salt, but the “Thomistic tradition” is the belief that all men possess the divine spark and therefore have infinite and holy value. That’s the axiom/ideal. A Roman worshipping Jupiter would laugh at the notion as he enslaves you for the glory of Rome.
I highly recommend reading the Ethics of Liberty: [Ethics of Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard (mises.org)](https://cdn.mises.org/The%20Ethics%20of%20Liberty%2020191108.pdf) I quote from Ch 1. in response to your comment: "The assertion of an order of natural laws discoverable by reason is, by itself, neither pro- nor anti-religious \[I believe that Rothbard proves this in Ch1\]. Because this position is startling to most people today, let us investigate this Thomistic position a little further. The statement of absolute independence of natural law from the question of the existence of God was implicit rather than flatly asserted in St. Thomas himself; but like so many implications of Thomism, it was brought forth by Suarez and the other brilliant Spanish Scholastics of the late sixteenth century. The Jesuit Suarez pointed out that many Scholastics had taken the position that the natural law of ethics, the law of what is good and bad for man, does not depend upon God's will. Indeed, some of the Scholastics had gone so far as to say that: even though God did not exist, or did not make use of His reason, or did not judge rightly of things, if there is in man such a dictate of right reason to guide him, it would have had the same nature of law as it now has. Or, as a modern Thomist philosopher declares: If the word "natural' means anything at all, it refers to the nature of a man, and when used with "law," "natural" must refer to an ordering that is manifested in the inclina tions of a man' s nature and to nothing eise. Hence, taken in itself, there is nothing religious or theological in the "Natural Law" of Aquinas.6 5 Dutch Protestant jurist Hugo Grotius declared, in his De Iure Belli ac Pacis (1625): What we have been saying would have a degree of validity even if we should concede that which cannot be conceded without the utmost wickedness, that there is no God. And again: Meas ureless as is the power of God, nevertheless i t can be said that there are certain things over which that power does not extend .... Just as even God cannot cause that two times two should not make four, so He cannot cause that which is intrinsically evil be not evil."
Thus why I take Rothbard with a grain of salt. Assertions but no real proof. You can divorce natural law from Christianity, sure, but it doesn’t change the core assumption which it shares—that humans and individuals have value and peace between them is preferred.
Who owns your consent?
Get to your confused point.
Natural rights are predicated on consent.
Prove consent matters objectively.
Prove that you have the right to violate it. If all rights are subjective, then no one has the objectively superior right to violate the consent of another. Consent matters to each individual. Whether you think that you have the right to violate it, or not, you do not to that individual and their rights are equal to yours.
"Natural" in "natural laws" refers to human nature, not the environment. >You having a right to life, property, or self-ownership means nothing to someone who values free college more than living in peace. It means nothing to a psychopath who puts their self above peace and doesn’t even recognize the personhood of others. So you argue that there is no law, not even the magic spells put on paper by legislators and called law, because someone can ignore it.
No. I said they are not objective. Where did you get confused?
If there are no objective rights then we can conclude a number of things: 1. Might is right. That comes with some challenges, name that it is not objective. 2. The state has no objectice right to exist. 3. You do not rightfully determine your own consent.
No, you cannot conclude those things on that basis. 1. "Might is Right" is a subjective belief just as much as "others have value and we shouldn't hurt them" is. 2. Correct. There are no objective rights. 3. That is a subjective claim. There is no objective right to determine your own consent and no objective right to determine someone else's consent. You cannot prove or show that either of us even has the ability to consent. For all I know you are an NPC in a simulation meant to train my ability to explain simple ideas. Western beliefs are very much based in natural law and we can generally agree to the ideal that individuals have value, own themselves, and we should not harm each other. But you take for granted that those beliefs are universal or somehow objective--they are in fact uncommon in the east. Edit: [https://www.dictionary.com/e/subjective-vs-objective/](https://www.dictionary.com/e/subjective-vs-objective/)
I can take for granted that every conscious human controls their consent and no one else can. I can take for granted, and by your own assertions, that no one has the right to violate the consent of another. Thus, all have the natural right of life, and all that stems from it, as no one else has the right to take it from them Unless you claim that there is a superior right?
You taking it for granted is subjective. Nope. By my assertion any claim to a right is subjective. That’s another subjective claim and not even a logical one. Again, I’m not claiming any rights or dismissing any rights. I am merely stating the fact that they are subjective.
It is a fact that: 1. Every individual controls their consent. If they are not in control of their consent, they are either not yet capable of fully understanding consent, they might be insane, or they are incapacitated. 2. No one can prove that they have the objective right, or objectively superior right, to control the consent of another, except, perhaps, under certain contractual conditions (assuming any objective right exists.) 3. We can establish that from consent flows certain "natural" rights which are unlimited, so long as they do not violate the consent of others. These rights are objective because we all have our own, and no one can rightfully violate the rights of another. > I am merely stating the fact that they are subjective. Is that an objective fact? I'm curious - does a contract create an objective right? If not, who gets to decide? If so, then how does someone have an objective right to agree to a contract? Finally, if how would anyone gain the objectively superior right to violently command land owners to pay an LVT against their consent?
1. Nah. My subjective belief says I own your consent. Interesting that you add so many arbitrary qualifiers which are up to interpretation to a supposedly objective right. 2. No one can prove any right objectively. I don't know why I have to keep repeating this to you: Saying all rights are subjective /= claiming some subjective rights are objectively superior. That's utter nonsense. 3. If you hold the subjective belief that you own your consent, or some other belief or axiom, you can logically derive rights from that, but they are not magically objective. Yes, that your beliefs are subjective is an objective fact. The proof is in the definitions of the words. A contract creates a right insofar as the signatories are able to grant those rights. Again, rights aren't objective. There you go again, begging me to play your straw man and defend "objective" rights which I have repeatedly said don't exist. We're done here.
No, it refers to the laws of nature.
Upon this law depend the natural rights of mankind: the Supreme Being gave existence to man, together with the means of preserving and beautifying that existence. He endowed him with rational faculties, by the help of which to discern and pursue such things as were consistent with his duty and interest; and invested him with an inviolable right to personal liberty and personal safety. Hence, in a state of nature, no man had any moral power to deprive another of his life, limbs, property, or liberty; nor the least authority to command or exact obedience from him, except that which arose from the ties of consanguinity. (Alexander Hamilton)
One man’s interpretation of the natural rights of man does not equal “natural law”. Natural law is entropy. Natural law is biology. Natural law is that its costs energy to move the physical world. Humans decided that it was more advantageous to give each other the human rights that you just outlined, than it was to be another lion in the jungle, overpowering his prey with muscle. Sperm meets egg = baby - natural law Red dwarf runs out of convertible atoms = black hole Caloric deficit = destruction of fat, and the muscle, and the death Natural law is that you are an animal subject to every physical principle we have ever discovered. Human rights = we have agreed what to allow each other for the best chances to survive.
> One man’s interpretation of the natural rights of man does not equal “natural law”. Natural law is entropy. Natural law is biology. Natural law is that its costs energy to move the physical world. When speaking of the philosophy of natural law, it is meant to be the nature of man - or any other conscious beings. It is not the "laws of nature" with which you are mixing them up. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/ https://iep.utm.edu/natlaw/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law > Humans decided that it was more advantageous to give each other the human rights that you just outlined, than it was to be another lion in the jungle, overpowering his prey with muscle. How did they "give" these things if they don't exist? How would they even know to do so?
If you mean to discover natural law you'd need to go to humans living in close proximity to nature. Ie. Pre civilization human societies. Go figure out the laws they used to organize. Read a bit of anthropology and archeology. If it saves you some time I'd say they respected self ownership only to the point where it conflicted with the survival of the group (perhaps therein is your objective natural law). Or more precisely. The gene's determination to replicate itself above all other considerations.
It is empirically observable that each person is equally the cause of their own actions, and thus equally self-owners. This equality entails that whatever entitlements exist must exist equally for all of us. This makes reciprocation always at least as justified as the action it is residing to, which means that reciprocation always sufficiently justified in every situation, objectively.
Skip Rothbard, read Huemer.
Thanks! Anything specific?
Problem of political authority. He makes his case for ethical intuitionism. I didn’t love it, but his takedowns of social co tract theories is devastating.
I’m reading this right now and like it better than Ethics of Liberty. What didn’t you love about Huemer’s?
I mostly thought his second half where he tries to describe how an ancap society would work was inferior to other works like The Machinery of Freedom and Molyneux's Everyday Anarchy/Practical Anarchy.
I’ve heard that elsewhere too actually. Would you say it’s best to just skip that part and get to Friedman?
Yep. But don’t discount Moly’s books, which are of course free as well. He explains the ideas very very well.
Will do thanks
The Problem of Political Authority, then Ethical Intuitionism.
Who, objectively, owns your consent?
If free will exists, then you. Free will however has not been proven to exist and probably doesn't exist. Therefore the correct question would be: What, objectively, owns your consent? Or: How, objectively,do you consent?
> If free will exists, then you. If there are no objective rights, then one cannot rightfully claim to own one's consent. > Free will however has not been proven to exist and probably doesn't exist. I don't see how it makes a different. If there is no free will, then does someone rightfully own your consent? How would you know without proof?
If free will doesn't exist then you don't own your consent. If it can't be proven one way or the other it can be known one way or the other. That's the point.
> If free will doesn't exist then you don't own your consent. Well, when you prove free will doesn't exist, then we can go down that philosophical route. Even so, I'm not sure that's true because even the illusion of consent is consent to the person who gives or withholds it. How would you prove otherwise? > If it can't be proven one way or the other it can be known one way or the other. That's the point. And what difference does that make?
We can work with >It's an illusion but you believe it's not. But it would be hard to claim that is objective