[ExI] Natural law/was Re: Libertarianism wins again...

Stefano Vaj stefano.vaj at gmail.com
Wed Jul 27 11:24:44 UTC 2011


2011/7/26 Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>

> Don't you agree? He seemed to me to be using it in a different sense --
> specifically, in an extra-legal sense, such as one where one might even
> judge actual laws to be criminal.
>

I think there are two aspects here.

The first is a linguistic and rhetorical abuse, which is btw rather recent,
extending the normal meaning of "crime" from "a breach of criminal law" to
any behaviour which may be distasteful or repugnant to the speaker.

The second may have to do with the specific legal tradition of Anglo-Saxon
countries, where much of criminal law is of a common-law, not statutory,
origin, so that one can argue that a behaviour is or should be a "crime" on
the basis of the "old and honoured customs of the country", which statutes
themselves should not breach unless for exceptional reasons. But, hey,
witchcraft has been for a long time a common-law crime.

 My guess is most legal theorists who appeal to something other than just,
> "Hey, this is just what the rulers define as 'criminal,' so we must
> completely assent to their decrees, never questioning this ever,"
>

No. Positive law theorists would simply say that the law is... what it is,
and you ignore it at your risk. More precisely, that as long as it is in
force (factually, not "in the book") it defines what is a lease, what is a
subcontractor, what is a taxable income and what is a crime. But they have
nothing to say about the opportunity to change it through reform or
revolution. On the contrary, if you do not like a law making a criminal of
yourself, this makes it even more urgent to change it, does it not?


> But, then, by that usage, there's no reason to share Will's outrage at
> corporations being the "biggest organized criminals of all." They might be,
> but this might only mean they've violate arbitrarily set up rules and no
> more. (There would also be no difference between me waking up today and
> deciding, arbitrarily, "Will and Stefano are the biggest criminals of all"
> and similarly expressing my outrage -- save that I'm unlikely to persuade
> too many others about this... Thankfully so!:)
>

Outrage at corporations may well be justified because i) they breach laws
that in fact they would be legally obliged to comply with, and you think
compliance with existing law to be everybody's duty, or because ii) they
behave in ways that you would like to see forbidden by criminal law, even if
they currently are not, or that you merely find distasteful or immoral.

It's the tenet, rather, that there are objective laws that human made laws
> should conform to and these are based on the nature of humans.
>

Yes. Aristotles' argument that there are "slaves by convention" and "slaves
by nature"... :-)


>  Also, natural law in the libertarian sense and even before basically
> supported "self-determination, diversity and change" because it restrains
> human-made law from trampling personal autonomy.
>

Basically, it restrains human groups from giving themselves the laws of
their choice, implicitely denying, inter alia, any kind of truly democratic
legislative process and international-law principle of non-interference.

But, in more practical and on-topic terms, it paves the way to international
conventions aimed at a global repression of any temptation for a posthuman
change. Because, hey, if "everybody" agrees that it is "unnatural" to mess
your your "natural right to genetic imperfection", we certainly cannot allow
Estonia or Thailand to do any differently, can we?

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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