[extropy-chat] Natural law

[Damien Broderick]

At 07:54 AM 10/25/2004 -0700, Mike Lorrey wrote:

>Natural Law starts off recognising that all power, rights, and
>responsibility originates in the individual as a sovereign entity in a
>state of nature. There are no societal rights, no group rights of any
>kind.

And this is where the analysis fails even before it kicks into first gear. 
The proposition is ahistorical and absurd. The worth of the individual is a 
perception or choice that emerged very slowly indeed against an absolutely 
apodictic sense that individuals were role-bearers in a small tightly-knit 
community of people entirely dependent upon each other for survival, 
knitted together by bonds of annual liturgy.

If one wanted a slightly more plausible Natural Law doctrine today, still 
run on the same Rousseauesque lines as Mike's claim, probably it would have 
to take the (no less bizarre and misleading) form:

`Natural Law starts off recognising that all power, rights, and 
responsibility originates in the gene as a [etc] >

Damien Broderick