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Topic: Natural-law argument

Ads by Google      The Natural Law Argument If someone defines three feet to a yard as a natural law, then the definition is incorrect and therefore does not fall within the domain of our argument concerning natural laws. Next, from the argument that God enacted certain natural laws through fiat, he concludes that this is impossible since it represents a break in the natural law argument. Empirical evidence would indicate, contrary to his assumption, that the separation of human and natural laws follows from insufficient knowledge. http://www.mit.edu/afs/athena.mit.edu/activity/m/mitmsa/www/NewSite/libstuff/russell/node3.html      The Natural Law Tradition in Ethics Nor can one be an agnostic while affirming the paradigmatic natural law view: for agnosticism is the refusal to commit either to God's existence or nonexistence, whereas the paradigmatic natural law view involves a commitment to God's existence. It is also clear that the paradigmatic natural law view rules out a deism on which there is a divine being but that divine being has no interest in human matters. On the side of metaphysics, it is clear that the natural law view is incompatible with atheism: one cannot have a theory of divine providence without a divine being. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-ethics/      NATURAL LAW: It is not difficult to see that Thomas Aquinas and the Fathers do not agree on any conception of the “natural law.” They do not have the same understanding of God, the world and the flesh. Stanley Harakas mentions (“The Natural Law Teaching of the Eastern Orthodox Church,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review IX, 2 [1963-1964], 215-224) that the theory of natural law was brought to the attention of some Orthodox when Pope Paul IV published the encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968). Both it and the idea of original justice are doctrines deduced from everything else he believes about the creation of man. Moreover, we need not dispute with Aquinas the existence of the natural or moral law within man, although we cannot share the theology or anthropology that it presupposes. http://orthodoxcanada.org/042004/theology.html      Natural law can be popularly defined as “that moral law which is written in the minds and hearts of human beings One can certainly sympathize with Catholic Natural Law scholars who have the added burden of reconciling the dictates of reason with Scripture and the Church’s dogmatic teachings. Another major question was how does this natural law relate to Christian ethics, especially the moral norms enumerated in the Bible, most specifically the Ten Commandments. Natural law can be popularly defined as the moral law written in the minds and hearts of human beings. http://www.mcconnellcenter.com/naturallaw.html      C. S. Lewis And The Natural Law Argument Timothy Melbinger (Reply) (8-99) I am trying to pick apart the "logic" in Lewis' dumbed-down Natural Law argument, but I'm having trouble finding the right place to start to be the most effective. Instead, it focuses on two arguments that are effective against some but not all god-claims (and fortunetel rather, posits the existence of evil and the existence of atheists as the two strongest arguments against the existence of God. Don't simply tell me that you know pornography when you see it; that is not a standard that the rest of us can find useful, not something we can place into a text book or a law book for future progeny to learn from. http://www.positiveatheism.org/mail/eml9852.htm      Natural Law and Natural Rights Today many people imagine that natural law is a code of words, like the code of Hammurabi, or the twelve tables, written down somewhere, on the wall of an ancient Greek temple, or some medieval vellum manuscript, perhaps revealed by God or some divinely illuminated prophet. It is true that during the dark ages, spontaneous order often failed, with bloody consequences, but even a few examples of spontaneous order suffice to demonstrate the existence and force of natural law, just as any number of non tigers cannot disprove the existence of tigers, but two tigers are sufficient to prove existence. God could not create men as they are, and at the same time make natural law other than what it is. A God that claimed to do that would be a mere tyrant, unworthy of worship. http://jim.com/rights.html      Encyclopedia4U - Anarchism and natural law theory - Encyclopedia Article But it requires separate argument, another argument, to show that natural law requires that we establish a government; or to show that natural law can be enforced only if there is a government. Because all it says is that there is some set of natural laws, which specify rules of conduct that prescribe our natural duties and natural rights. Now (as our text says), just by itself, the natural law theory does not offer any justification of the state. http://www.encyclopedia4u.com/a/anarchism-and-natural-law-theory.html      The Natural Law Is What We Naturally Know Finally, they suspect that the God of natural law is not the God of the Bible, but the God of Deism—a distant Creator who designed the universe, wound it up, set it running, then went away. However, some say that the only place to find moral truth is in the word of God, and that natural-law tradition denies this. However, a Christian natural-law thinker will make use of special revelation to illuminate general revelation—and will use God-given reasoning powers to understand them both. http://www.acton.org/publicat/randl/print_interview.php?id=460      Natural Law For some of us, it can be difficult even to imagine what it must have been like to have churches crammed with small children, and, at the academic level, to have seminaries whose Natural Law theology led easily to the conclusion that contraception was wrong. As it turns out, the secular argument has a lot in common with the arguments of Catholic dissenters, although less nuanced, and Janet Smith’s book is helpful in dealing with both. Janet Smith ’s explanations are cogent and lucid, but they are not always easy to follow; Catherine Collins provides a way into the issues and arguments they bring up. http://www.catholicinsight.com/original/church/humanae/naturalw_.html      Natural Law [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy] One cannot discover divine law by natural reason alone; the precepts of divine law are disclosed only through divine revelation. Thus, conceptual theories of law have traditionally been divided into two main categories: those like natural law legal theory that affirm there is a conceptual relation between law and morality and those like legal positivism that deny such a relation. Indeed, it appears that Finnis's natural law theory is compatible with naturalism's historical adversary, legal positivism, inasmuch as Finnis's view is compatible with a source-based theory of legal validity; laws that are technically valid in virtue of source but unjust do not, according to Finnis, fully obligate the citizen. http://www.iep.utm.edu/n/natlaw.htm      Home You don't need three years of law school, thousands of dollars in student loans, or a three-day bar exam to make a persuasive argument. Get Think Like a Lawyer: The Art of Argument for Law Students, newly published and available now! Then they show you how to lay out your grievance in the form of a simple and direct argument. http://www.thinklikealawyer.com      James's Liberty file collection index Spooner makes the natural law argument in favor of anarchy. Most of the old literature on natural law and natural rights, notably the writings of John Locke, has become incomprehensible because we no longer have the background knowledge of natural law that those writers assumed. Had this declaration been observed, France would have had a constitution like Americas early constitution, based on popular sovereignty limited by natural law and natural rights. http://www.jim.com/jamesd      SUMMA THEOLOGICA: Is there a natural law? This argument would hold, if the natural law were something different from the eternal law: whereas it is nothing but a participation thereof, as stated above. It would seem that there is no natural law in us. Wherefore it has a share of the Eternal Reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end: and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called the natural law. http://www.newadvent.org/summa/209102.htm      Natural-law argument We're working hard to make this page ( Natural-law argument) live. With hundreds of writers, it should not be very long at all. http://www.bambooweb.com/articles/n/a/Natural-law_argument.html      http://www.qando.net/ - "Natural" Law Natural law would argue that this begins at the very moment of "personhood" as it were. And if "natural law" is a moral code—as well as a legal one—then that would mean all parents everywhere are immorally violating the rights of their children. Natural Law exists because the hypothesis that it exists, to the degree it has been put into effect—within the limits of the human condition—mankind has been the more prosperous and numerous. http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=2911   (5498 words)      Left2Right: How Not to Complain Against Taxes (II): Against Natural Property Rights The main argument I see for natural property rights is not that there is any evidence for them, but that acknowledging their non-existence would lead to unrestrained kleptocracy and crumbling social structure. Without the natural right preceding positive law we cannot make this statement because the law is just whatever people want and in some poor countries people may want the extra income gained from selling their children into slavery. I’m sure there are many libertarians (and I know there are many conservatives) who cling to natural rights theories with the same tenacity that many of Ms Anderson’s progressive colleagues harbor lingering hopes of a resuscitated Marxism, her apparent unawareness of such folks notwithstanding. http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2005/01/why_i_reject_na.html   (13962 words)      The Flagellum Unspun Their views demand not a universe in which the beauty and harmony of natural law has brought a world of vibrant and fruitful life into existence, but rather a universe in which the emergence and evolution of life is made expressly impossible by the very same rules. For the intelligent design argument to stand, this must be the case, since it provides the basis for their claim that only the complete flagellum can be favored by natural selection, not any its component parts. Building upon William Paley's well-known "argument from design," Behe sought to bring the argument two centuries forward into the realm of biochemistry. http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/design2/article.html   (6610 words)      An Atheological Argument from Evil Natural Laws (1991) The argument that the law of predation is ultimately evil is based on a different sufficient condition of ultimate evil, a condition that has not been discussed in the literature on the problem of evil but that is nonetheless crucial to the problem. In each possible world in which L' is instantiated, the intrinsic evil of the aggregate of the immediate and remote causes and effects of the instances of L' outweighs the intrinsic good of the aggregate of the instances of the law in that world. 20.Premise (13) of the atheological argument is false and consequently E is not ultimately evil. http://www.qsmithwmu.com/an_atheological_argument_from_evil_natural_laws_(1991).htm   (6610 words)      Problem of evil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Free will theodicies attempt to address the problem of moral evil, whereas law-consistency theodicies attempt to address the problem of natural evil. Another problem with the argument from human ignorance is that it is non-empirical, (aka unfalsifiable). They point out that many people who live or have lived are good and have caused no suffering, and argue that they are naturally good people, and must also have free will if God made them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_problem_of_evil   (2451 words)      Free Will Many accounts of free will are constructed against the backdrop possibility (whether accepted as actual or not) that each stage of the world is determined by what preceded it by impersonal natural law. (See the entries on compatibilism; causal determinism; fatalism; arguments for incompatibilism; and divine foreknowedge and free will.) There are also a few who say the truth of any variety of determinism is irrelevant because free will is simply impossible. On a minimalist account, free will is the ability to select a course of action as a means of fulfilling some desire. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill   (6416 words)      vested He stood forth in the eighteenth-century argument on the Natural Order of things as the wise and workmanlike designer and guide of his workmen's handiwork, and he was then still presumed to be living in workday contact and communion with them and to deal with them on an equitable footing of personal interest. Evidently these principles, which so are made to serve as standards of validity in law and custom, knowledge and belief, are of the nature of canons, established rules, and have the authority of precedent, prescription. At the same time it may be to the purpose to call to mind that this secular profession of faith enters creatively into that established order of things which has now fallen into a state of havoc because it does not meet the requirements of the new order. http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/veblen/vested   (14867 words)      Making Hay Out of Straw Men (washingtonpost.com) On May 4, Bush was discussing the war on terrorism, when he said: "Some say, 'Well, this is just a matter of law enforcement and intelligence.' No, that's not what it is." On May 10, he posited: "The natural tendency for people is to say, oh, let's lay down our arms. It is not clear who makes such arguments, however. It is an ancient debating technique: Caricature your opponent's argument, then knock down the straw man you created. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4757-2004May31.html   (14867 words)      Strange Science: Timeline c.1370-Theology master Nicole Oresme publishes De Causis Mirabilium describing natural causes of natural phenomena and discouraging invocations of God or demons to explain them. Known as Eozoön or "dawn animal," this find is used as an argument against evolution because it shows a relatively "modern" animal early in the fossil record. The conviction will be overturned on a technicality, and the anti-evolution law will remain on the books for decades. http://www.strangescience.net/timeline.htm   (14867 words)      Making Hay Out of Straw Men (washingtonpost.com) On May 4, Bush was discussing the war on terrorism, when he said: "Some say, 'Well, this is just a matter of law enforcement and intelligence.' No, that's not what it is." On May 10, he posited: "The natural tendency for people is to say, oh, let's lay down our arms. It is not clear who makes such arguments, however. It is an ancient debating technique: Caricature your opponent's argument, then knock down the straw man you created. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4757-2004May31.html   (14867 words)      Everything is Dangerous: Some Post-structural Tools for Rethinking the Universal Knowledge Claims of Human Rights Law In another vein, Kennedy D suggests that in combination and counter-argument, positivist and natural law arguments preserve the normative authority of international law by ensuring that it is not firmly committed to either the individualism of sovereign autonomy or the potential tyranny of substantive legal regulation. [118] For example Finnis J, a contemporary natural law theorist, argues that natural law provides criteria for identifying legitimate positive law; see Finnis J Natural Law and Natural Rights Claredon Press, Oxford (1980) 290. [123] Boyle's perspective is consistent with the post-structural view that the question of the legitimacy of law is a diversion from the question of the relationship between law and power. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/ahric/ajhr/V5N1/ajhr511.html   (14867 words)      Miracles [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy] The supernaturalistic conception of natural law appears to offer a response to Hume's Balance of Probabilities argument; the evidence for natural laws, gathered when supernatural causes are absent, does not weigh against the possibility that a miracle should occur, since a miracle is the result of a supernatural intervention into the natural order. Thus there is a failure of analogy between those cases that form the basis for our statements of natural law, and the circumstances of a miracle. While objections are frequently made against Hume's conception of natural law, in fact no particularly sophisticated account of natural law seems to be necessary here, and Hume's examples are quite commonsensical: All human beings must die, lead cannot remain suspended in the air, fire consumes wood and is extinguished by water ( Enquiries p. http://www.iep.utm.edu/m/miracles.htm   (14867 words)      Ethics Without God: Lisska This paper, however, articulates the "logic" of his argument suggesting that the role of God in natural law theory is a final ontological question. Natural Law theory, once thought to be part of the dustbin of antiquated theories on the nature of law, is now providing vibrant excitement in the writings found in contemporary moral theory and jurisprudence. This is the first question he must answer in his ontology if he is to develop a theory of natural law. http://www.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/ti03/eLisska.htm   (8774 words)      Emperor's New Designer Clothes Reality Check (Skeptical Briefs December 2000) More important is Dembski's law of conservation of information, which states that the number of bits of information cannot change in any natural process such as chance or the operation of some physical law. When Dembski says that information cannot be generated naturally, he seems to be voicing yet another muddled version of the common creationist assertion that the second law forbids the generation of order by natural processes. Thus Dembski's law of conservation of information is nothing more than "conservation of entropy," a special case of the second law that applies when no dissipative processes such as friction are present. http://www.csicop.org/sb/2000-12/reality-check.html   (8774 words)      Suicide The first of these is the aforementioned Thomistic natural law tradition, critiqued by Hume (see section 2.3) According to this tradition, suicide violates the natural law God has created to govern the natural world and human existence. At most, the argument that suicide is a harm to family and to loved ones establishes that it is sometimes wrong. According to the Thomistic argument, suicide violates the order God established for the world and usurps God's prerogative in determining when we shall die. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suicide   (8796 words)      Amazon.com: Books: In Defense of Natural Law The book is rigorous and examines natural-law theory from variegated angles and various detractors, making close reading of dense argument necessary. The core of the book is Chapter III, where the Grisez, Finnis, and Boyle version of natural law that George intends to defend is given. But George's defense of natural law theory avoids the fallacy (norms derived from facts) by using the Grisez, Finnis, and Boyle model, and succeeds in staying clear of metaphysical foundations. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0199242992?v=glance   (8796 words)

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