More Applications of Natural Law to Human Life
Well, that was a lot longer hiatus than I intended. I got really busy at work and could not find the time to work on this treatise about Natural Law and Basic Principles. But I can’t let it lapse any longer. So, here goes.
Having said in other posts that Natural Law would show that all human beings are equal in thay they given life and the ability to reason, it does not say that all human beings are alike in every way. Having been engaged in scientific research and engineering most of my life, I have become aware of the progress that has been made by Quantum Physicists in developing a Unified Field Theory. This theory leads us to believe that, at the most fundamental level of existence, we are ALL ONE. Listen as Dr. John Hegelin explains:
So we are all ONE, united through the fundamental nature of existence. (And not just HUMAN existence..all existence!) But as we manifest ourselfes as human beings, we are all individuals…unique individuals…with unique characteristics, unique desires, unique situations, etc.
Since I am unique, and have the natural characteristics of humanity, I can say that I OWN myself. I own my body, my mind, and, therefore at any given instant, the space which I occupy. Thus, we begin to see the beginning of Natural Rights. If I own my body and my mind, I have the natural right of that ownership. You, as a fellow human being, are also the owner of your body and mind, and have the Natural Right of that ownership. This, even though we are all ONE at the most fundamental level of existence.
Think about the implications of that concept. I’ll see you next post
Basic Application of Natural Law
First, let me apologize for the delay in writing this post. Last week I got deeper and deeper into the philosophy of Natural Law and realized that is not the purpose of this blog. So I put aside the composition and thought more about where I’m going with this project. Hopefully, I can stay on course now and keep the blog interesting and stimulating to your thinking process.
Having described Natural Law and its properties of being universal and unchangeable, let’s see what some of it’s applications are to human beings.
What, then, is the first and most basic element of Natural Law that applies to human beings? Well, I think it’s life, itself. All human beings are given life at the outset of their existance. There is no exception to this. It is universal and immutable. It matters not whether they came into this world in China, Algeria, Iceland, Hungary, Paraguay, Australia, or the United States…all were given life. It is the nature of human beings.
If it is true that all human beings are alive at the time they emerged into this world, then in that sense all are equal. Equal, of course, does not mean “the same“; there probably are no two people alike in all the Universe. But someone named John Smith in Orlando, Florida and someone named Michiko Ozawa in Osaka, Japan, while very different in many ways, are nevertheless equal in the sense that both are human beings and both have life.
This Natural Law of human nature is empirically verifiable, i.e. you cannot find even one human being alive today (or throughout history, for that matter) who was not alive at the moment of birth. So the statement of equality of the existance of human life is universal and unchangeable and tharefore a genuine law.
Think about the implications of that, and tomorrow I’ll have some suggestions for you. That will put us back on schedule…I hope.
More about Natural Law
OK, you’ve had a week to think about the quote from the Rev. Elisha Williams. Now let’s think more deeply about some of the basic points of that statement.
(By the way, that quote from the Rev. Williams is clearly based on similar writing by the English philosopher, John Locke, who is widely considered the father of classical Liberalism (now often called Libertarianism)
First, I want to make a distinction between Natural Law and laws imposed by governments. In my way of thinking, for something to be a “Law”, it must be “Universal” and “Immutable”. An obvious example would be the Law of Gravity. It is in effect everywhere in the Universe and even God cannot change it.
Laws imposed by governments are neither universal nor unchangeable; I prefer to refer to them as “legislation” and not law. For example, some states require motorcyclists to wear a helmet, others do not. It might be a good idea, but it’s not a universal requirement, and any government could change its mind. The media often call our elected representatives “lawmakers”. Better they should call them “legislators”…all the time.
All beings…inanimate, non-human animate, and human…have their nature. It is what they are and what they do. An oak tree is an oak tree by its very nature; an acorn planted in the soil grows to be another oak tree and not a giraffe. Some caterpillars become butterflies and not rose bushes. The fertilized human egg becomes a live human being, and not some other animal.
Each species has its own particular nature. Granite is different from sandstone. Dogs do what dogs do, and not what esgles do. Even though each individual being is uniquely different, all share certain characteristics that we can call the nature of the thing. Thus we commonly speak about “human nature” as being certain characteristics common to all human beings.
A vital difference between inanimate or even non-human living creatures, and man himself is that the former are compelled to proceed in accordance with the ends dictated by their natures, whereas man, “the rational animal,” possesses reason to discover such ends and the free will to choose (1). All humans possess this ability to reason. Some use this ability to a greater extent than others, but all have the ability.
For a scholarly and thorough discussion of Natural Law I refer you to “The Ethics of Liberty – Part I” by Murray N. Rothbard, available on-line at The Ludwig von Mises Institute. It’s worth your time to read this. In future posts I’ll be discussing how Natural Law leads to Natural Rights and ethical considerations.
Natural Law
As I said in my original post, I believe the place to start in understanding how best to get along in this world is to know the most basic principle of all. That principle, I believe is the “Natural Law”, that is, the fundamental nature of the species, Human Being. I am going to start the process in this post, and it may take several posts to complete my points. I will keep the posts as simple as possible, and if theoretical proofs are necessary, I will refer you to material published by others more sophisticated than I.
I’ll begin with a quotation from the Rev. Elixha Williams (1744):
“As reason tells us, all are born thus naturally equal, i.e. with an equal right to their person, also with an equal right to their perservation…and every man having a property in his own person, the labour of his body and the work of his hands are properly his own, to which no one has a right but himself; it will therefore follow that when he removes anything out of the state that nature has provided and left it in, he has mixed his labour with it, and joined something to it that is his own, and thereby makes it his property…Thus every man having a natural right to (or being proprietor of) his own person and his own actions and labour, which we call property, it certainly follows, that no man can have a right to the person or property of another: And if every man has a right to his person and peoperty, he also has a right to defend them…and so has a right of punishing all insults to his person and property.”
Notice that one of the first words in Rev. Williams’ statement is “reason”. He was a Congregational minister, but he didn’t write, “As God tells us…” or “As the Bible tells us…” He wrote, “As reason tells us…” All living things have a nature; it is why they are what they are. It is why the pine tree grows tall with spiney leaves and the tomato plant is short with red fruit. It is why fish spend their entire lives immersed in water, while human beings spend theirs immersed in air and drink water only occasionaly. All speciies have a specific nature. Only humans, however, have the ability to reason; all others behave according to the instincts of their nature.
I will be discussing some ot the points of Rev. Williams’ statement in subsequent posts. Your “homework” is to read that ststement and think: OK, if I have the ability to reason, is it true that I am equal to all other humans, in the sense of the basic rights stated by Rev. Williams. Let me know what you think.
About This Blog
Hello, and welcome to my blog.
I have some thoughts about life that I’ve gleaned and filtered from many sources and I want to pass them on to you. I believe in individual freedom and self-determination. The inspiration for this blog is my conclusion that most of us have been conducting our lives by following rules, restrictions, and permissions determined by others. Usually, those rules were applied without an explanation of the fundamental principles on which they were based.
As a professional engineer who has studied science well into quantum mechanics, I used to quote Einstein’s equation, E = mc2, and jokingly say, “If you know that, you can derive everything else.” I hope that by presenting a set of fundamental principles, we can then use those principles to derive the right course of action in most, or even all, circumstances.
It’s a big task, I know. I don’t for a moment think I have all the answers. But if I can start you thinking seriously about those principles, and discuss them with me, then I believe that together we can make some important improvements in the world.
My Basic Principles About Life 