[NOTE: This is the sixth in a series of posts intended to work out the principles of Natural Law. It builds off of the posts that have come before it.  If you have not already read The Pursuit of Happiness Under Natural Law, I strongly suggest that you do so before reading this post, as this post is a continuation of the former and everything that comes before it.  I also ask that you understand, while this is not technically a formal argument, neither is it a casual argument.  Thus, it is not necessarily the easiest thing to read, but then, this is because I am trying to explain some difficult concepts in a manner as easily understood as I know how.  I trust that you will bear with me.  In return, I will break the whole into smaller, more easily digested posts.]

Now, going back to the work we did in earlier posts, we can extend our Natural Right to our free will to include a Natural Right to contract with other individuals.  Essentially, this is an extension of our free will because it is an agreement we willingly chose to make with another or other individuals who willingly agree to the same agreement in return.  Thus, the mutual agreement is entirely based on a choice freely made; on an act or exercise of free will.  But there are conditions that restrict that to which we can and cannot agree.   A failure to understand these restrictions will inevitably lead to the creation of many avoidable problems, the same sort of problems from which our society now suffers.

First, we must remember that our Natural Rights are inalienable.  Because they are a gift from the Creator and are as much a part of who we are as individuals as anything else, we can never agree to surrender our Natural Rights.

“If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.”

–Samuel Adams

If your will is the essential element of who and what you are as a person, how can you agree to give up your will?  That is impossible.  Even if you were to sell yourself into slavery, your will would remain yours and yours alone.  Even if you kill yourself, your will would still remain (albeit, it would remain in whatever condition it may be subject to after we depart this world).  Therefore, it is a violation of Natural Law to agree to give up something that is not yours to give up, and which you couldn’t give up even if it were.  Conversely, you cannot require another individual to give up their Natural Rights for the same reason.  To do so is not only as impossible for them as it is you, but also a claim against their Natural Rights, which would be a twofold violation of Natural Law.

Now that we have established that we cannot willingly agree to give up our Natural rights, nor demand that another individual give up theirs as part of an agreement, there is something to which we can agree: to willingly limit the extent to which we will exercise those Natural Rights.  As long as we agree – before hand – then we can voluntarily agree to limit the extent or degree to which we will exercise our Natural Rights in relation to another group or individual in return for something we find to be of equal or greater value than the full limits of our Natural Rights.  This is the foundation of all human interaction and economic trade.

But notice the primary requirement for a contract to be in agreement with Natural Law: it must be a willing agreement freely entered into by all parties to which it applies.  If there is any coercion on the part of any party involved, it is a violation of Natural Law.  Any time an individual is forced to do something against limits of their will as defined by Natural Law, it is a clear violation of that same Natural Law.  In other words, if I am forced to agree to limit the extent that I can grow food to sustain my body and life, and thus my free will, then this is a violation of Natural Law.  However, since I cannot use my free will to force another person not to grow their own food, if I was forced to leave that person alone so they could grow the food they need, this application of force against my will would not be a violation of Natural Law because I do not have a Natural Right to trample on the Natural rights of others.  This is the foundation of universal morality, from which the understanding of all human justice is derived.

Finally, after when two or more individuals willingly entered into a contract, they create an obligation for themselves to fulfill the terms of that contract – even if the other party or parties do not.  Once you have agreed to do something that does not involve giving up or demanding the Natural Rights of another person, you have given the other parties of that agreement a just claim to whatever you agreed to do, and they have given a similar claim to you.  However, you may not exercise that right to claim whatever you agreed to unless or until you have met your part of the obligation.  It is only by meeting your part of the obligation that you cement your claim.  Once you do so, it then becomes a Natural Right because you have used your free will to direct your labor to the purpose for which it was agreed.  Once again, your labor – as an act of your free will – is the means by which you obtain a Natural Right to your part of the agreement.  This is a crucial point that we need to understand, but it is a difficult point for many of us to understand because we have not been taught to think in these terms.  So I will try to illustrate it for you.

Suppose you agree to grow pineapples for me if I will make hoes for you in return.  We both agree to the exchange and enter into the pact of our own free will.  At that point, I have a claim to the pineapples you agreed to grow, and you have a claim to the hoes I agreed to make.  However, until I actually make a hoe for you, I do not have a Natural Right to the pineapples I promised: all I have is a just claim to them.  But once I use my labor to make the first hoe, then I have a Natural Right to the pineapples you promised in return because I used my labor to do something intended to sustain my life.  Furthermore, because I willingly entered into an agreement – as an act of my free will – I imposed an obligation of myself to make the hoe.  Even if you break your end of the deal and do not grow any pineapples for me, or you refuse to trade them in return for the hoes I make, when I willingly agreed to our contract, and I did so with the understanding that you were making the agreement to help sustaining your life.  So, because our Natural Rights are ultimately the property of our Creator, whether you keep my part of the contract or not, once I agree to do something to help you sustain your life, I am obligated to do so by my duty to our Creator and because I agreed to help you in a way you intended to sustain your life.  Not to do so would be a threat to your life and, therefore, a threat to your free will.  This would constitute a violation of your Natural Rights and Natural Law.  This is why we should be careful to make sure we understand what we agree to do for one another and why, if we do agree — no matter what the other party does or doesn’t do — we must do what we promised: because we gave them a Natural Right to our part of the agreement by exercising our free will and agreeing to do so.

This is a complicated point, and I will write a supporting post to help clarify it more because it is essential we understand the Natural Right to contract.  It is the foundation of any free society because it is the foundation for the Social Contract, which will be the subject of my next post.

With my recent post on the RNL, I thought it might be appropriate to post a quick welcome to those of you just finding my blog.  This blog page is dedicated to teaching the fundamental principles of individual rights and liberty: Natural Rights, Natural Law and the Social Contract.

Unless it is cited otherwise, everything you find on this page is my original work.  It builds on and off of the work done by far greater thinkers than I, but it contains is based primarily on my own reasoning and understanding of the concepts I discuss.  I plan to keep building on this page.  The hope is that, eventually, this will not only become a useful place to learn about the principles of liberty, but also a trust resource for doing further research into our nation’s history and heritage.

I hope you will find some value in my efforts.  If you do, then I ask that you please help me spread the word by sharing this page with your friends and family.  Please, feel free to comment and, if you like, re-post anything you find here.  All I ask is that you cite the source and, if you wouldn’t mind, link back to this page.  Thanks 🙂

[NOTE: This is the fifth in a series of posts intended to work out the principles of Natural Law. It builds off of the posts that have come before it.  If you have not already read Rights Bubbles: the Origin of Universal Morality, I strongly suggest that you do so before reading this post, as this post is a continuation of the former and everything that comes before it.  I also ask that you understand, while this is not technically a formal argument, neither is it a casual argument.  Thus, it is not necessarily the easiest thing to read, but then, this is because I am trying to explain some difficult concepts in a manner as easily understood as I know how.  I trust that you will bear with me.  In return, I will break the whole into smaller, more easily digested posts.]

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—

To this point in our construction of Natural Right and natural Law, we have been able to deduce that we have a Natural Right to our Life and our Liberty, as Jefferson so eloquently stated in the Declaration of Independence.  But what did he mean by “the pursuit of happiness?”  If he intended this phrase to mean we have a Natural Right to pursue emotional pleasure, then, according to the principles we have developed thus far, this would contradict with the Natural Rights of others to their Lives and Liberty.  So we shouldn’t be too quick to assume this is what Jefferson and our founders meant.  Rather, we should go back in history and look closer at what these men understood this phrase to mean.  But first, let’s look at a couple definitions, because they will be key to understanding Jefferson true intention.

Let’s start with:

Definition of MORALITY

2a : a doctrine or system of moral conduct

b plural : particular moral principles or rules of conduct

3: conformity to ideals of right human conduct

4: moral conduct : virtue

That last definition for morality holds the key to understanding what Jefferson was saying:

Definition of VIRTUE

1a : conformity to a standard of right : morality

b : a particular moral excellence

3: a beneficial quality or power of a thing

4: manly strength or courage : valor

5: a commendable quality or trait : merit

Therefore, a virtuous life is a life spent in the pursuit of building a moral character; of pursuing what is right; doing the right thing – especially when it is difficult or comes at a personal price.  This was considered to be the highest aspiration one could hope to achieve in life by the Greeks, and by many of the men who so heavily influenced the thinking of our founding fathers.

To better understand this, we need to understand that “the pursuit of happiness” – in this sense, the sense of pursuing a moral and virtuous life – was actually a legal concept in our founders’ time.  I wrote about it in more detail here, but the foundation of this legal principle can still be found in the writings of the most respected and most influential legal mind of our founders’ time, Sir William Blackstone.

From Blackstone’s Commentaries:

When the Supreme Being formed the universe, and created matter out of nothing, he impressed certain principles upon that matter…  When he put that matter into motion, he established certain laws of motion…  If we farther advance to vegetable and animal life, we shall find them still governed by laws;…  [The operations of inanimate and organic processes] are not left to chance, or the will of the creature itself, but are performed in a wondrous involuntary manner, and guide by unerring rules laid down by the Creator…  Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his creator, for he is an entirely dependent being…  And consequently as man depends absolutely upon his maker for every thing, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his maker’s will.  This will of his maker is called the law of nature.

Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765)

 The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the holy scriptures…  These precepts…are found upon comparison to be really a part of the original law of nature,…  As then the moral precepts of this law are indeed of the same original with those of the law of nature…the revealed law…is the law of nature expressly declared to be so by God himself;…  Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws…the law of nature and the law of God…

Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765)

In this context, the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of the moral and virtuous life; a life lived in agreement with Natural Law.  As only the moral and virtuous life leads to a deep and lasting happiness that can pierce through even the temporary pains of emotional trouble or distress.  It is the life of putting duty to others and to society before one’s personal desires; of seeking truth and wisdom; and of reaching above, of transcending our base animalistic nature to become the best than humans can be.  This is in perfect agreement with the understanding of Natural Rights and Natural Law that we’ve developed so far, and I contend that this is what Jefferson and our founding fathers actually intended when they wrote those words (I write a bit more about the value of the virtuous life here).

[NOTE: for an excellent exposition of the historic development of this and other related concepts, please see Chapter 2 of Gary T. Amos’s book, “Defending the Declaration.”]

[NOTE: This is an extension of my post on the origins of morality.  If you have not already read Rights Bubbles: the Origin of Universal Morality, I strongly suggest that you do so before reading this post, as this post is meant to help explain the former in greater detail. ]

When it comes to matters of right and wrong, if you are seeing gray, it is a sure indication that you’re on the wrong side of right.

This is what I like to tell people who accuse me of having a black and white understanding of right and wrong, and I stand by it.  Where an issue of right and wrong is concerned, there is never any gray.  There is always a right and everything else is a wrong.  It’s just that our Creator’s law is impossibly difficult for humans to accept.  But this doesn’t change the fact that there is always a right in every moral question, and that gray is the justification of wrong.  I wrote this post to help explain why I say this.

As I have already stated, our individual Natural Rights are derived from our Natural Right to our free will as granted to us by our Creator.  Because the Creator is the source of our free will, we have a duty to protect and preserve the Natural Rights of other individuals.  Natural Law, the universal moral law that governs this universe, is derived from the intersection of our Natural Rights and the needs of others.  How we act toward one and other in relation to this conflict determines whether or not we are in accord with Natural Law.

So let’s apply this to a real world example relevant to our modern society.  Let’s discuss how this applies to the issue of abortion.  Yes, this is an emotionally charged issue, but I chose it for that reason.  I would ask that you read through this to see how I use my argument to resolve the moral questions connected to it.

Our society has decided that it will allow a mother to decide whether her unborn child is human.  If she does, then, in some States, the same law that would allow her to kill her child will also put another person in jail should they kill that same child – intentional or accidentally.  At the same time, should the mother choose to abort the child but it is born alive, then, in some States, that same law suddenly defines the killing of that same child as murder.  These are all contradictions created by violating the universal morality of Natural Law to justify our desires rather than honoring our duty to our Creator.  A mother does have a right to her free will, so she has a right to her body – up to the point that she creates another life as a result of exercising her free will.  Once a mother has conceived, she no longer has the right to abort because she will be placing a claim against the free will of her unborn child.*

Now, there are some exceptions that can be easily handled by the parameters of my argument for universal morality.  In the case of a real medical threat to the mother, she has the right to preserve her will, so this would justify an abortion.  In this case, there would be little difference – in principle – than the case of my not having to share my pineapple with another castaway.  Both are examples of justified self-preservation.  We can also justify an abortion in the case of rape.  If a woman becomes pregnant as the result of a rape, which is a violation of her free will, then the pregnancy is a continued violation of her free will.  This would be justification for an abortion.  However, should a mother risk death or sacrifice her free will to preserve the child within her, this would be an act from which we define the notion of virtue and nobility because she willingly places her duty to our Creator and thus, to others, above herself.  In this case, the mother would be worthy of higher regard than one who chose to save herself or rid herself of the burden of a child that was not the result of her free will.  Both choices would be justified, but only one would command reverence from other people.

Other than this, there is no justification for abortion as it ends the free will of another human.  This same principle can be applied to other issues in our society today:

Employment

You do not have a Natural Right to a job; you have a Natural Right to seek employment, or to start your own business.  Demanding that someone give you a job is demanding you be allowed to control their free will for your purposes.

Welfare

You do not have a Natural Right to food, clothing and shelter; you have a Natural Right to use your labor to seek them.  Demanding that others provide for your care is placing an unjust demand on their free will which – in principle — is little different from slavery.

Health Care

Same thing: you do not have a Natural Right to health care; you have a Natural Right to seek it and to freely contract with someone who is willing to provide their labor in return for whatever you agree to give them.  Demanding that others provide your care is placing a demand on their free will.

Most moral issues where people claim to see gray can be handled in a similar fashion.  All you have to do is start tracing the claims placed against people back to their free will.  When you find the point where one person is trying to control the free will of another, then you have found wrong, not gray.  The real issue here is accepting and living with what is right.  As humans, we are self-centered and seldom want to place others before ourselves – even when we are dealing with their right to their own free will.  But then, I never said doing the right thing would be easy, only that you can always determine what it is by following the principles of Natural Law.

*NOTE: our founders followed a religious doctrine that held the unborn did not have free will until the quickening.  This is connected to the belief that free will is connected to the soul, and that the quickening is the point when the soul enters the body.  Our founders sometimes allowed abortion before the quickening, but seldom after it.  This position is totally in keeping with the argument I am presenting.

[NOTE: This is the fourth in a series of posts intended to work out the principles of Natural Law. It builds off of the posts that have come before it.  If you have not already read Extrapolating Our Natural Rights, I strongly suggest that you do so before reading this post, as this post is a continuation of the former and everything that comes before it.  I also ask that you understand, while this is not technically a formal argument, neither is it a casual argument.  Thus, it is not necessarily the easiest thing to read, but then, this is because I am trying to explain some difficult concepts in a manner as easily understood as I know how.  I trust that you will bear with me.  In return, I will break the whole into smaller, more easily digested posts.]

Now that we have defined our most fundamental Natural Right and we have extrapolated out to cover additional rights in connection to this most fundamental right, we need to determine the boundaries of these extrapolated rights.  Using what we have already deduced, we need to determine how far they extend and where they must end.

I start with something I call a “rights bubble.”  Think of this as a bubble that extends around your Natural Rights: your free will, your life, your body, your labor and all the property necessary to sustain your life that you have used your labor to gather or create.  Because it defines you as an individual, you are the only person who can lay just a claim to your free will.  For the same reason, you are the only one who can make a just claim on your life, your body and your labor.  This includes all of the property you necessary to sustain your life and exercise your will which you acquire or create through your labor.  Your rights bubble is an imaginary bubble that extends out and encompasses all of these extensions of your Natural Right to your free will.  You are the sole owner and authority over all of those things that lie within your rights bubble.  They are yours simply because you exist, and you are the only person who can make a just claim to them or decide how they should be used.

Now, this illustration works well as long as we imagine we are the only person on a deserted island, but what happens when we introduce another person?  If you will remember my earlier example that explains how, by using my labor to make a hoe, then using the hoe to grow a pineapple, I have created a Natural Right to the pineapple.  I used my labor to create a tool and my labor to grow the pineapple which I need to sustain my life, so I am the only person who has a just claim on that pineapple.  But what happens if another person is marooned on the island with me?  Do they have a Natural Right to eat that pineapple so they can sustain their life?  The answer is no!

This is the point where most people start to see “gray,” but there is no gray in Natural Law.  Under Natural Law, the pineapple belongs to me because I used my labor to acquire it so I can sustain my life.  Now, while I may choose to share it, or, if I have enough, I may give it to you, I have no obligation to do so.  In order for you to claim a right to my pineapple, you have to also claim a right to my labor, my body, my life and – ultimately – my free will.  And that is where our Natural Rights end: at the point that we can trace a claim to something back to another person’s free will.

This is why slavery is wrong: not just because you are claiming to own another person, but because you are claiming to own their free will.  It is impossible for you to own that which you cannot possess or control.  At best, all a slave master does is force his slave to use his body and labor as the master wishes, but, so long as the slave does not surrender his free will, the slave master does not actually possess or control that slave’s free will.  We can extend this to other aspects of our society.  When a person is forced to provide for the welfare of another, it is a violation of that person’s Natural Rights because – ultimately – it is a claim against their free will.  Murder is the ultimate form of claiming a person’s free will as it ends their ability to sustain and exercise their will in this universe, but it is still a claim against the victim’s will and, thus, a violation of Natural Law.

But there is one last point necessary to understanding the origin of morality.  If we left things here, we still wouldn’t have a moral code because we would be leaving our claim of right and wrong at the feet of human reason and, as we already discovered, logic has inherent limitations that will prevent us from declaring our notion superior to any others.  However, we have not relied solely on human reason to deduce that we have an inalienable right to our free will; we have relied on the assumption that our free will is a gift from our Creator.  And as a gift from our Creator, we owe it to the Creator that we not only show respect by using our free will wisely, but we must also show reverence to our Creator by showing respect for the Natural Rights of other individuals.  It is this duty to preserve and protect the Natural Rights that our Creator gives to every individual that gives birth to the universal moral code governing this universe.  How we treat each other in relation to our individual Natural Rights is the essence of Natural Law.  To sum it up tighter than this:

Our individual Natural Rights are derived from our Natural Right to our free will as granted to us by our Creator.  Because the Creator is the source of our free will, we have a duty to protect and preserve the Natural Rights of other individuals.  Natural Law, the universal moral law that governs this universe, is derived from the intersection of our Natural Rights and the needs of others.  How we act toward one and other in relation to this conflict determines whether or not we are in accord with Natural Law.

It might also help to think of it this way: