One of the most common objections to the notion of Natural Law I have encountered is the complaint that, if one cannot see the enforcement or consequences of Natural Law then it must not exist.  To put it another way: people see the consequences of breaking a human law, such as theft.  You get caught, you go to jail.  However, if I violate a supposed Natural Law governing the Social Contract, for example, I do not see any consequence.  Therefore, these people argue, since there is no observable consequence for violating the Natural Law governing the Social Contract, there must not be such a thing as the Social Contract.  On the surface, this may seem a rational objection, but it is deeply flawed, and here’s why.

Natural Law includes the laws of physics.  Jump off a cliff without any means of breaking your fall and you will see a consequence for challenging the Natural Laws governing gravity and motion (most notably, the laws concerning differential speed).  Most Natural Laws connected to the material world (i.e. physics) have an immediate consequence.  This makes them deductive laws: you learn them by observing a direct cause-and-effect relationship.  Therefore, very few people challenge them.  But there are other Natural Laws where the consequences are not immediately appreciated.  These laws are usually found in the area of Morality.  This is the area where we usually find people rejecting the existence of Natural Law.  But morality is different.  It deals with human interaction, not physics. So we should not expect it to have immediate consequences.

We are moral agents.  This means we are more than just a collection of matter.  While our bodies may be subject to the Natural Laws governing matter, that part of us which makes us a moral agent is not.  It is subject to the Natural Laws governing morality — universal right and wrong.  These laws are meant to teach us how we should behave toward and treat each other.  Consequently, they are designed to allow us time to learn from our mistakes before the consequences of our actions finally bring about correction.  That is why we do not always see the consequences of violating the Natural Laws governing morality: because they are often delayed for our benefit.  This makes them inductive laws: you learn them by observing an indirect cause-and-effect relationship.

The area of morality includes many things that we may not immediately connect to the notion of universal right and wrong.  For example: economics.  There is a moral aspect to the Natural Laws governing economics.  If a society allows for un-just economic practices, such as socialism, then that society violates the Natural Law governing the moral aspect of economics.  Socialism is built on theft.  It takes from those who have earned and gives to those who have not.  If allowed to grow large enough, or exist long enough, Natural law eventually kicks in and corrects the injustice.  Look to any Socialist economy in history.  It eventually fails — period!  There are no exceptions!  This is indirect evidence of the moral connection between economics and morality, as well as the Natural Laws governing the two.

Now, let’s go back to the Social Contract.  If a society agrees to live by a certain set of laws and moral norms, it is functioning under a Social Contract.  Now, if a minority within that society starts to subvert it by violating those moral norms and by perverting the laws, it has violated the Social Contract.  At this point, that society has the right to defend itself from this minority.  However, if the society does not do so and the minority is allowed to continue its subversive actions, eventually, there will come a point when a majority within that society no longer wishes to live according to the Social Contract which created that society.  At that point, society breaks down into civil war.  It is at that point that we see the consequences of violating the Social Contract: at the point where the Natural Right to self-defense over-rides any commitment to the Social Contract.  We saw this in the American Civil War and we are seeing it repeat today in America where a large ‘Progressive’ minority is pushing a ‘politically correct’ agenda on a small majority.  If this situation continues, we will see the consequences of violating the Social Contract we call the U.S. Constitution.

So, the take-away from this post is that, just because we do not see an immediate consequence for violating the Natural Laws governing morality, we should not take that as ‘proof’ that they do not exist.  What we should do instead is broaden our view of history to look for patterns.  Once we do that, we will notice that history tends to repeat?  Why?  Because there is a Natural Law governing morality.  Those repeating patterns are the consequences for violating this moral law.  They are the ‘proof’ which so many who reject the notion of Natural Law demand, yet do not see (mostly because they refuse not to see).

[NOTE: I no longer think of my voice as anything special.  There was a time when I believed I had something important to say, but not so much these days.  I write now because I feel driven to do so.  Something inside me will not let me rest until I post the pages you just read.  I’d just as soon not bother anymore.  It all seems like no one is listening and I do more harm than good.  So I have come to trust that whatever it is driving me has all this under control.  Personally, I believe it is God, but others may not.  All I ask is that, if anything I write helps you, or you think it might help others in any way, please, share this page.  Re-blog it, share it on FB or send the link to your friends.  So long as you feel it will do more good than harm, then please, use this page however you wish.  Thank you.]

Logic is part of Natural Law.  It is the universal set of laws governing ‘right reason.’  When we make mistakes in the application of these laws, it is called a fallacy.  Some fallacies are committed so often that they have their own names.  One of these fallacies with a special name is known as ‘begging the question.’  ‘Begging the question’ is an especially seductive fallacy because it often plays to our own bias or arrogance.  If we succumb to it, ‘begging the question’ will not only prevent us from seeing an issue clearly, it can lead us to believe in a falsehood — which makes it even more difficult to see that issue clearly.  Harry Reid made a comment on illegal immigration which provides us with a perfect illustration of how begging the question can prevent us from seeing an issue clearly.

Before we look at Harry Reid’s comment, we should first look at the formal definition of ‘begging the question:’

Begging the Question

A form of circular reasoning in which a conclusion is derived from premises that presuppose the conclusion. Normally, the point of good reasoning is to start out at one place and end up somewhere new, namely having reached the goal of increasing the degree of reasonable belief in the conclusion. The point is to make progress, but in cases of begging the question there is no progress.

Example:

“Women have rights,” said the Bullfighters Association president. “But women shouldn’t fight bulls because a bullfighter is and should be a man.”

The president is saying basically that women shouldn’t fight bulls because women shouldn’t fight bulls. This reasoning isn’t making any progress.

Insofar as the conclusion of a deductively valid argument is “contained” in the premises from which it is deduced, this containing might seem to be a case of presupposing, and thus any deductively valid argument might seem to be begging the question. It is still an open question among logicians as to why some deductively valid arguments are considered to be begging the question and others are not. Some logicians suggest that, in informal reasoning with a deductively valid argument, if the conclusion is psychologically new insofar as the premises are concerned, then the argument isn’t an example of the fallacy. Other logicians suggest that we need to look instead to surrounding circumstances, not to the psychology of the reasoner, in order to assess the quality of the argument. For example, we need to look to the reasons that the reasoner used to accept the premises. Was the premise justified on the basis of accepting the conclusion? A third group of logicians say that, in deciding whether the fallacy is present, more evidence is needed. We must determine whether any premise that is key to deducing the conclusion is adopted rather blindly or instead is a reasonable assumption made by someone accepting their burden of proof. The premise would here be termed reasonable if the arguer could defend it independently of accepting the conclusion that is at issue.

OK, now, ‘begging the question’ can be a little tricky to see in a person’s comments.  The trick is to look for an ‘either-or’ comment where one of the conditions is rejected and a false conclusion drawn as a result.  Remember that.  Now, let’s consider something Harry Reid said about illegal immigration:

Now, it is true” no ‘sane’ nation rewards illegal immigration.  That is the equivalent of inviting and assisting an invasion, and no sane nation invites and assists in an invasion of itself.  But Reid then goes on as though we all assume this is a ‘sane’ nation.  In other words, Reid says

“No sane nation rewards illegal immigration.  America is not insane.  Therefore…”

That is ‘begging the question,’ and it is a mistake in logic.  That means we cannot and should not trust any conclusion drawn from this line of reasoning — period!  It would be like trusting the result of a work of engineering that relied on faulty math.  Would you get on a plane that was built using bad math?  So why do so many of us follow political agendas/policies based on bad thinking?

But this does not mean Harry Reid is entirely wrong.  The truth is, he was correct about something, he just refused to accept the truth.  No sane nation does reward illegal immigration, yet, America is rewarding illegal immigration.  That means the proper conclusion is that America is no longer a sane nation…

[NOTE: I no longer think of my voice as anything special.  There was a time when I believed I had something important to say, but not so much these days.  I write now because I feel driven to do so.  Something inside me will not let me rest until I post the pages you just read.  I’d just as soon not bother anymore.  It all seems like no one is listening and I do more harm than good.  So I have come to trust that whatever it is driving me has all this under control.  Personally, I believe it is God, but others may not.  All I ask is that, if anything I write helps you, or you think it might help others in any way, please, share this page.  Re-blog it, share it on FB or send the link to your friends.  So long as you feel it will do more good than harm, then please, use this page however you wish.  Thank you.]

This is why ‘Conservatism’ and even ‘Libertarianism’ do not and cannot work: because they are all founded upon a foundation that leaves out and/or ignores the essential ingredient for Liberty.

Rule #1 — Human nature does not change.

Rule #2 — If you think we have ‘progressed’ or ‘evolved,’ see rule #1

So, once again, we are going to hear people telling us that, “unless you vote for my candidate, you are voting for the other candidate.”  But this is a fallacy; a mistake in logic; a flaw in thinking.  In fact, it even has its own name.  It is called false dilemma.

False Dilemma

A reasoner who unfairly presents too few choices and then implies that a choice must be made among this short menu of choices is using the False Dilemma Fallacy, as does the person who accepts this faulty reasoning.

Example:

A pollster asks you this question about your job: “Would you say your employer is drunk on the job about (a) once a week, (b) twice a week, or (c) more times per week?

The pollster is committing the fallacy by limiting you to only those choices. What about the choice of “no times per week”? Think of the unpleasant choices as being the horns of a bull that is charging toward you. By demanding other choices beyond those on the unfairly limited menu, you thereby “go between the horns” of the dilemma, and are not gored. The fallacy is called the “False Dichotomy Fallacy” or the “Black-or-White” Fallacy when the unfair menu contains only two choices, and thus two horns.

In truth, even if I do not vote for person A, I have not voted for person B unless I actually vote for person B.  This is the truth — plain and simple.

Now, I understand that the immediate objection will be that, ‘in the real world,’ voting not voting for A may have the same effect as voting for B because it splits the vote, but this line of arguing is still fallacious.  Now, a person might believe they are justified to make such an argument, but, if they do, they cannot claim to be principled.  And if a person is not principled, then they do not have a set ideal guiding their lives — at least, not a set ideal outside themselves.

So we have to decide: will we hold to Natural Law by holding to an ideal and set principle existing outside ourselves  (such as the Declaration of Independence and Constitution)?  Or will we abandon Natural Law by accepting a fallacy to justify the pursuit of whatever desire we have at any given moment?

[NOTE: I no longer think of my voice as anything special.  There was a time when I believed I had something important to say, but not so much these days.  I write now because I feel driven to do so.  Something inside me will not let me rest until I post the pages you just read.  I’d just as soon not bother anymore.  It all seems like no one is listening and I do more harm than good.  So I have come to trust that whatever it is driving me has all this under control.  Personally, I believe it is God, but others may not.  All I ask is that, if anything I write helps you, or you think it might help others in any way, please, share this page.  Re-blog it, share it on FB or send the link to your friends.  So long as you feel it will do more good than harm, then please, use this page however you wish.  Thank you.]