As a noobie libertarian, in the olden days of 2010, I was all about natural law, as a fairly objective way of looking at ethics.  Now I can say that I believe in liberty, which in my view should not need justification, although sadly it does.

Note: Morality and ethics – I never know if the words are interchangeable, not unlike freedom and liberty. So I use them interchangeably.

Thus spake the almighty Wikipedia: “Natural law is a philosophy that certain rights or values are inherent by virtue of human nature, and universally cognizable through human reason. Historically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze both social and personal human nature to deduce binding rules of moral behavior. The law of nature, being determined by nature, is universal.”

Remember cheetah, sharing is caring

When philosophers talk of natural law, they don’t mean how things happen in nature. If you drop a rock, it falls (hopefully not on someone’s head). The hyena eating a cheetah’s kill cares not that the cheetah worked hard for that, although it probably thinks it is getting its fair share. The gazelle tax, if you will. Natural law is about human nature and how humans ought to behave within the constraints of human nature – animals or planetary movement when we talk about natural law. Human nature is not the same as hummingbird nature – nice bird, lovely plumage. But the plumage don’t enter into it.

Natural law theory looks for universal concepts, or as dead, white, possibly slave owning American males – basically shitlords – said, self-evident truths. Without this, you have little more than might makes right – the actual law of the jungle, and you can’t really define morality as might makes right, because there is no need for debate or definitions if simply the strongest gets the stuff.

While I am cautious of moral absolutism, I can’t help but be more wary of excessive moral subjectivism or moral relativism. Some things must be clear cut, otherwise what’s the point of discussing ethics? Can one say that Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot were objectively evil? I believe so. Can there be a moral argument for child rape? Ehm… ! If we admit this, we can determine some general objective rules. Not everything is relative, and you need a paradigm of some sort. Unless we can create an objective standard, we cannot weigh one thing versus another. The scales must be calibrated. Preferably in metric. I fully understand that trying to explain your rights to Genghis Khan would have been tricky. But the Khan was not really moved by morality and I would assume getting slaughtered is objectively bad.

Up can be down

Although ethics differed widely through human history, there is also an abundance of common threads and principles, just inconsistently applied. And the whole point of a principle is consistency; otherwise you can change your views depending on how the wind blows. Principles but– especially the ones which sound good – can often be found in many a culture, and the but is where problems begin. Nobles lorded over indentured peasants but were sensitive about their liberties when the king came a-knocking. I would say that if someone admits a right exists for him, he cannot refuse to extend same to others. Otherwise it can’t be to universal.

But humans rationalize exceptions all the time, when it suits them.  An easy way was to consider some humans inferior to others, maybe even less than human. It was a way for the noble to justify oppressing the inferior peasant, while this not being inconsistent with his rights. Another way was basically my people versus the others, the in-group versus the out-group. Same was extended to gender, race, and whatever the hell else was convenient. But if you want to have a somewhat objective principle, it must be universally applied to all homo sapiens. Otherwise it is not really objective.

You can think of asking a question to a person about himself. How many people would have the same answer? I think if you ask someone, “Do you agree that someone can just come and kill you with no repercussion,” I think the vast majority would say no, so we can agree the murder is bad mkay is universal. So then it should be universally applied to all Homo sapiens. I would say that any moral philosophy needs to have axioms, let’s call them the fundamental principles, the paradigm. No exceptions can be made, lest everything becomes an exception. You can’t have math if 1+1 changes value, the formalism should be constant. And there should be a set of clear and logical steps between axioms and theorems that do not change; higher level should be derived from lower level. There should be some level of consistency, not it’s A when it suits me and B when it doesn’t.

Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon

In the previous part, I talked about the basics of human nature and the question of morality. I avoided giving any opinions and just set up things a bit. Now I am going to contribute my 2 satoshi to the debate.

First, I don’t do the religion thing when it comes to morality and do not really see the debate that interesting if one brings the big G into it. What is there to debate if Deus Vult? So I look at things outside the scope of the divine.

Second, I am a believer in objective ethics – as objective as possible would be a better way to phrase it – as it should apply to all humans, and such independent of each person’s subjective opinions.

Third – to clarify the second – I believe there are two spheres for ethics or morality. And these are quite different.

The inner sphere is the personal – what you think is right when it mostly affects you and no other. This is subjective, as the only judge is you. Eating meat or not on a Friday, drinking, drugs come in this sphere. Basically your personal liberty. This can also be fuzzy at parts. Is it OK for one to lie to one’s parents? Well yes, if the car just hit itself with the tree, tricky these cars are.

The second sphere, the outer one, the one where humans interact and where your actions affect others. As others are involved, I believe this is much less subjective. This is, or in my view should be, the main topic of debate.

Fourth, I am for deontological ethics and against utilitarian, because I believe in fundamental principles, a paradigm, a foundation if you will.

This is what libertarians want

Utilitarian ethics I find to be flawed in several respects. They can go down the road of the ends justify the means, and they cannot be anything but subjective, as desired ends differ between people. Of course, inside each human there is a bit of utilitarianism, as many deontologists believe that a good foundation leads to a solid building, good results. Few if any want to live in the world of Mad Max. I mean the cars are cool, but it seems very hot, especially given the leather clothes and lack of showers. That is a recipe for chafing.

On what do I base my so called objective belief in liberty? The fact that humans are unique, autonomous creatures, endowed with free will (I wrote a post on that). I believe only an individual can act, decide the actions, and bear their consequences. Your actions are the one thing that is in your control and the thing you should be judged on. Also, as I can not control others actions directly, I should not be too much affected by them as there is nothing I can do about it, nothing I can change or improve. Due to this I am an individualist.  Society is a general term describing groups of humans, it has no substance, one cannot say it exist in the way a rock (or The Rock, for that matter) exists. Societies cannot act, only individuals composing them can. Similarly societies can’t have rights or responsibilities, only individuals can. Human societies are not like ant colonies or other eusocial creatures – like the mighty naked mole rat, which is not, in fact, a mole or a rat-, where individuals are practically indistinguishable from one another and the colony works almost as a single organism. I find these things pretty objective.

I will leave you with some words of C S Lewis as food for though, which I may or may not fully agree.

 

“If a man will go into a library and spend a few days with the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics he will soon discover the massive unanimity of the practical reason in man. From the Babylonian Hymn to Samos, from the Laws of Manu, the Book of the Dead, the Analects, the Stoics, the Platonists, from Australian aborigines and Redskins, he will collect the same triumphantly monotonous denunciations of oppression, murder, treachery, and falsehood, the same injunctions of kindness to the aged, the young, and the weak, of almsgiving and impartiality and honesty. He may be a little surprised (I certainly was) to find that precepts of mercy are more frequent than precepts of justice; but he will no longer doubt that there is such a thing as the Law of Nature. There are, of course, differences. There is even blindness in particular cultures – just as there are savages who cannot count up to twenty. But the pretence that we are presented with a mere chaos – that no outline of universally accepted value shows through – is simply false and should be contradicted in season and out of season wherever it is met. Far from finding a chaos, we find exactly what we should expect if good is indeed something objective and reason the organ whereby it is apprehended – that is, a substantial agreement with considerable local differences of emphasis and, perhaps, no one code that includes everything.”