[NOTE: This is the third 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 Defining Natural Rights, I strongly suggest that you do so before reading this post, as this post is a continuation of the former.  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 established a definition of a Natural Right, we need to explore the limits of the concept by expanding it until we find the point where our definition breaks down.  But before we start, I would like to quote something Jefferson said about the nature of a right:

“The right to use a thing comprehends a right to the means necessary to its use, and without which it would be useless.”

It is from this principle that we derive a claim to our life, for without our life, we cannot sustain and exercise our free will.  And from our claim to our life, we derive our claim to our body, which is necessary to sustain and exercise our free will.  From our claim to our body, we derive a claim to our labor, which is necessary to sustain our body, to sustain our life, to sustain our free will.  Do you see how this works?  It is a simple extension of Jefferson’s principle, and it is from this principle that Jefferson summarizes everything we have discussed in our first three posts on Natural Law:

“Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author of nature, because necessary for his own sustenance.”

 –Thomas Jefferson  (Legal Argument, 1770. FE 1:376)

But there is one more important aspect of this principle, and that is the derivation of our claim to property.  If I have a Natural Right to my will, thus to my life, then to my body, and then to my labor, then I must have a Natural Right to that property which I obtain and/or make through the use of my labor as it is necessary to sustain my life.  I like to use growing pineapples as an example.  If I am stranded on a desert isle, and I use my labor to make a hoe so I can grow pineapples, both the hoe and the pineapples are my property: I have a just claim to them through the use of my labor to do that which is necessary to sustain my life.  However, just because I am the only person on the island, I cannot have a just claim to it as my labor had nothing to do with creating it.  Therefore, while I have a Natural Right to use its resources to sustain my life, I do not have and can never impart a Natural Right to the island as property.  This is the distinction Jefferson and Franklin were both explaining when they wrote these words:

“A right of property in moveable things is admitted before the establishment of government. A separate property in lands, not till after that establishment. The right to moveables is acknowledged by all the hordes of Indians surrounding us. Yet by no one of them has a separate property in lands been yielded to individuals. He who plants a field keeps possession till he has gathered the produce, after which one has as good a right as another to occupy it. Government must be established and laws provided, before lands can be separately appropriated, and their owner protected in his possession. Till then, the property is in the body of the nation, and they, or their chief as trustee, must grant them to individuals, and determine the conditions of the grant.”

–Thomas Jefferson: Batture at New Orleans, 1812. ME 18:45

“All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.”

–Benjamin Franklin, letter to Robert Morris, 25 December 1783, Ref: Franklin Collected Works, Lemay, ed., 1

There is a crucial distinction between Natural and Civil rights in these words.  As we have already determined, a Natural Right is that to which you can lay just claim and to which no one else can lay the same.  However, those rights that exist only because of and as an act of government are not Natural but Civil Rights (government having been formed from the Natural Right to freely enter into a contract with others, and hence, the concept of the Social Contract).  Thus, Civil Rights are subject to modification and/or change, whereas Natural Rights cannot be altered or abolished because there are inherent to our being.

So, now we have a principle by which we can test whether or not a right is Natural or Civil.  Next, we need to define morality.

[NOTE: This is the second 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 Free Will: the First Principle of Natural Law, I strongly suggest that you do so before reading this post, as this post is a continuation of the former.  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 established that the first principle of Natural Law is our free will, we need to develop our definition of a Natural Right.  As a matter of habit, where matters of definition are concerned, I start by citing the definition of a natural:

Definition of NATURAL

2a : being in accordance with or determined by nature

b : having or constituting a classification based on features existing in nature

5: implanted or being as if implanted by nature : seemingly inborn <a natural talent for art>

7: having a specified character by nature <a natural athlete>

b : formulated by human reason alone rather than revelation <natural religion> <natural rights>

 Next, the definition of right:

Definition of RIGHT

1: qualities (as adherence to duty or obedience to lawful authority) that together constitute the ideal of moral propriety or merit moral approval

2: something to which one has a just claim: as

a : the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled <voting rights> <his right to decide>

3: something that one may properly claim as due <knowing the truth is her right>

 Now, using these two definitions, let us define a Natural Right.  First, we exist in corporeal form, and as such, are subject to the laws of physics as they govern mater in this universe.  Thus, whatever form we take is a matter of what we call nature.  Second, as our free will is a part of our total make up, and is – at least in some way – connected to or dependent upon our corporeal form, it is a matter of nature that we have free will.  And as our free will is unique to each of us – indeed, it defines us as individuals.  We cannot be separated from our will for, without it, we cease to be.  It is inalienable to who we are.  Therefore, we can say that our free will is a natural part of our being.  So, in every sense, our free will meets the definition of “natural:” both because it is a natural part of this universe, and because it is inalienable to who we are as individuals.

Next, as our free will is unique to ourselves, it is not subject to control by any outside influence — unless we allow it (in which case, it would still be an act of free will: the act of  surrendering to that outside control).  Our will is the very essence of who we are, and as we are given free will by our Creator, this imparts a just claim to control over our will.  We are sovereign over our will.  Thus, we have a right in our free will.  And since that will is a natural part of this world and who we are, we can say we have a Natural Right to our will.  What’s more, again, because our will is a gift from our Creator, our claim to our will cannot be said to be greater or less than the claim anyone else has to their own will.  Nor can they make a just claim to ours.  We are all equal in our claim to our will.  Jefferson explained it this way:

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.

And thus, we have our definition of a Natural Right:

A Natural Right is that to which one has a natural and just claim as a function of their being – both in physical existence, and in will.

[NOTE: This will be the first of a series of posts intended to work out the principles of Natural Law.  It will draw from the body of works and understandings of those who have come before me, but it is largely the result of my own effort to work out the principles that govern human behavior.  Unless I cite another source, I am asserting that all parts of the extended argument which will follow are my own.  If I happen to argue something that parallels or agrees with something from another source, I can assure you, it is only because that source and I were on the same path and, should there be such convergences (and I already know there are), it only serves to validate our common conclusion(s): that there does exist a Natural Law to human interaction in this universe; that it can be discovered through human reason; and that is establishes a universal moral code by which we ought to live.]

Many people have started from the assumption that we own our life, but while I agree with this assumption, I disagree that it is the first principle of Natural Law.  As I look to history, study human nature and even the holy books of all the world’s major religions, I find there is a central theme running through every one of them: that man has free will.  There are those who would argue we cannot know this, but they are wrong.  We can know this because we each think.  This is part of the brilliance of Descartes’ simple phrase:

“I think, therefore I am.”

Not only does that phrase prove we exist, it proves we exist as individuals, and that we have free will.

No one forced Descartes to think those words; he did that of his own free will.  Nor did the random happenstance of this universe cause him to think those words.  While it may be fashionable in some intellectual circles to believe that everything that has or will ever happen was pre-ordained by the circumstances of the universe at the first moment it was born, logic dictates that this cannot possibly be the case of our reality.  If it were, then how could we ever imagine something that has no basis in any reality?  This is a difficult concept to understand, but it is one we must examine because it is the most common avenue of attack for those who seek to deny the existence of free will.

The logical point here is easy to state, but not so easy to comprehend.  If you are nothing but a collection of matter and you are hopelessly bound to do whatever the forces acting upon you from the first instant of time dictate you must do, then how can you imagine something that does not, has never and can never exist in this universe?  A perfect example would be the world of Harry Potter.  Magic does not exist in this world, yet, a human imagined something that does not and cannot exist.  Logically, this is impossible – unless you have free will.  It is a logical extension of another philosophical principle: that which is finite cannot imagine or understand the concept of infinite.  If you think about it, this is the primary difference between us and the animals: we know there is a past, present and future.  We can even understand that which is infinite.  The fact that you are reading and understanding these words is proof of this as the logic governing the English language is infinite.  It existed before this universe began and will exist even after this universe ends.  So, what all of this means is that we do – in fact – have free will and it can be demonstrated through reason.

There is another aspect of free will that will help bolster my argument.  The ability to create is a function of free will.  If we look at our example of harry Potter again, that story is not only a creation, but an example of free will.  If we were just matter doing what physics dictates, then there would be no way for us to imagine anything outside the actual existence of this universe.  The best we could do would be to re-arrange the things we see in our universe, but little more.  And though we might call this “creation,” a re-arranging is all it would actually be: putting that which already is together in different ways.  It would not actually be a “creation.”  But Harry Potter goes totally outside everything we know of this universe and the laws that govern it and truly creates a new world, a world that lives only in our imaginations.  That is an act of free will.  This then means that the idea we are just matter going through the motions dictated by the universe is a creation, which affirms the existence of free will.

There is one more aspect of human existence that speaks to the existence of free will.  Humans can not only discover and learn to understand the laws that govern this universe; we can harness them to serve our desires.  That not only demonstrates that we have the ability to understand the infinite, but that we have free will.  Desire, itself, is a manifestation of our will, as are the actions we take to satisfy that desire.  So, when you turn on your computer to read this post, you benefit from man’s ability to understand, harness and manipulate the principles governing electromagnetism (among other things).  At once, this demonstrates the ability to understand the infinite, to manipulate natural laws, to create and – ultimately – free will.  Everything about our existence speaks to the fact that we have free will.

Now for the most important aspect of free will.  It is free will.  That means you control what you think and believe.  While outside forces may influence you, ultimately, you are the only one who can control your thoughts and your beliefs – your heart.  You make or break yourself depending upon how strong you are.  If you would rather go along to get along, you can be easily controlled – but that was still your choice.  However, if you are strongly rooted in what you believe, you may resist attempts to control you unto death, and many have done just that.  And that – again – speaks to the existence of free will, for how could the universe dictate self-destruction?  It cannot.  That would take an act of free will by a being capable of acting outside of the universes laws of physics.  In other words, it would require a being with free will.

Finally, for those of faith who may be reading his, there is one more point I would make.  In most religions of which I am aware, the Creator grants us free will.  Now, do not misunderstand: I am not saying the Creator is not sovereign over all things, because He is.  If He were not, then He couldn’t be the Creator.  But even though He is sovereign, He has still granted us free will.   It has to be that free will is the one thing the Creator has given us over which He has chosen not to exercise complete control.  He can take our wealth, health, freedom – even our lives.  But He has chosen to allow us free will.   If this were not the case, we could not worship Him; we could not love Him; we couldn’t even reject Him or refuse to believe in Him because all of those things require free will.

Therefore, the first principle upon which all Natural Law must rest is that of free will.

[If you haven’t read “The Limits of Logic” yet, I strongly urge you to do so before reading this post as this post is based on the information found in there.]

 

“If there were no God, it would have been necessary to invent him.”

Those words are credited to a French political philosopher who called himself Voltaire.  Voltaire is sometimes referred to as France’s Thomas Jefferson (because he played a similar role in the French Revolution as Jefferson did in the American).  Voltaire was a Deist.  This means he believed in a Creator and that reason alone was sufficient to determine the necessity of the Creator’s existence. But I didn’t choose to use Voltaire’s words because he believed in a Creator; I chose them because he was a man of logic and reason, and as a man governed by logic and reason, he spoke a truth that is necessary to the preservation of a free society. That truth is simple: in order for a free and self-governing society to exist, it must share a universal morality.  And in order for there to be such a thing as a universal morality, there must be a higher authority than man which establishes it as a law.  This is because of the limits of logic.  Therefore, whether one believes there is a Creator or not, logic dictates that a Creator is necessary if man is to maintain a free and self-governing society based on individual rights and liberty.  Hence, if He did not already exist, God would be a necessary fallacy.

But, before Voltaire, our founders expressed their own understanding of and belief in this principle.  I cite just a few of the many examples of our founders’ thoughts on this issue, not as a source of authority, but as proof that this is – in fact – what they believed, and why:

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

–John Adams, Address to the Military, October 11, 1798

Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, they may change their rulers and the forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty.

–John Adams

History will also afford frequent Opportunities of showing the Necessity of a Publick Religion, from its Usefulness to the Publick; the Advantage of a Religious Character among private Persons; the Mischiefs of Superstition, &c. and the Excellency of the Christian Religion above all others antient or modern.

–Benjamin Franklin, Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania (1749), p. 22

“Religion is the basis and Foundation of Government…. We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.“

– James Madison, known as the “chief architect of the Constitution,” June 20, 1785, writing in regard to the relationship between religion and civil government.

The belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the World and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities to be impressed with it.

–James Madison, 1788:

The only foundation for… a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.

–Benjamin Rush, father of American medicine and, at the time of our founding, one of the three most well known and respected of our founding fathers.

“Do Not Let Anyone Claim The Tribute of American Patriotism If They Ever Attempt To Remove Religion From Politics.”

~George Washington, from his Farewell Address to the Nation

The principle we are dealing with here is who will exercise ultimate control over the individual: he, or the government.  If it is the individual, then every individual in society must have the same or very similar notion of what is right and what is wrong.  And because no person can claim to be the universal authority for such an issue as morality, this means we must all subscribe to the same or similar understanding of Natural Law – as established by the Creator.  Otherwise, we must be controlled by the government and an inevitably growing list of laws designed to constrain our avarice and ambition against our neighbor.  The choice was summed up nicely by another American, Robert Winthrop, Speaker of the House:

“Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.”

In the history of man, there have been only two nations that understood and consciously designed civil government around this principle: Israel under Moses and the Judges, and the United States of America.  And it is because of this that both nations prospered.  Likewise, the decline of both nations can be traced back directly to the point where they turned their backs on this principle.  The French political observer and philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville, in observing America in the early 1800’s, commented on how deeply ingrained this principle was and how well in worked in America (at that time):

The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.

Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must be regarded as the first of their political institutions; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious belief. I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their religion- or who can search the human heart?- but I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of their political institutions. (from Democracy In America, 1835, de Tocqueville, America’s God and Country, William Federer, p.204)

De Tocqueville affirms the connection between religion and a free and self-governing society:

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.

The main business of religions is to purify, control, and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which men acquire in times of equality.

So, whether one believes in God or not, there can be no dispute that both reason and human experiences speak to the necessity for a people to embrace the notion of a Creator and for them to see Him as the source of their moral code.  For, without this, society will devolve into much of what it has today: a collection of individuals who each believe they are bound by their own notion of right and wrong and are not obligated by any other.  And once this becomes accepted as reality, and people start to think of “freedom” in terms of their “right” to live by their own private notion of what is right and wrong, good and bad, it becomes necessary to either rule by the sword or accept the tyranny of anarchy.  Thus, it is a simple matter of logic: if a society wishes to remain free while being able to justify a claim to individual rights and liberty, it can only do so by relying on the Natural Law established by the Creator of this universe.

Now, having established this principle, and explaining how it is a logically justified exception to the rules of logic (itself an indication that there must be a Creator), I wish to make it clear that this is in no way a claim as to which God we should obey.  In fact, I think Franklin stated it best when he described the “American Religion” in this way:

 There is a God.

He governs in the affairs of men.

We have a duty to honor Him.

We will be judged in the next life according to the way we lived in this one.

The best way to honor and serve God is by serving our fellow man.

 So long as the people share the same notion of right and wrong, this is all that is required for the maintenance of a free and self-governing society based in individual rights and liberty and the rule of law.  But without these things, such a society cannot exist – and has never existed.

One of the major mistakes made by fully half – if not more – of the Enlightenment philosophers was a turn toward pure materialism.  This turn was born from the false belief that everything in the universe could be or would eventually be explained by logic and reason, and that science was the path to such discoveries and understandings. I say this is a false notion because it demonstrably false, yet many of the problems of our modern society are the product of people who have insisted and acted as though it were.  I can’t speak to the particulars of what drove most of these Enlightenment aged thinkers to embrace this notion that everything is and can be explained in material terms, but, when you read their writings, you’ll discover a reoccurring themes.  In short, the people who label the previous periods “Dark Ages” and embraced materialism all did so because they believed ‘science’ had freed them from the bonds of religion and the need to explain the world in terms of God.  Sadly, this shows how little these philosophers understood logic and reason, not to mention science: sadly, because the entire Western world is now paying a tremendous price for their ignorance and arrogance.

Logic has limits.  It can help us to understand many things.  It can even help us determine some things with absolute certainty.  Case in point: there are many people who would tell you that we can’t know anything about the true nature of reality; that everything is just a creation of our own perception, and that we can never be certain that even that is real.  But this is a self-induced deception.  We most certainly can know something about reality, and we can know it beyond all doubt.  This is the beauty of René Descartes’s simple but powerfully elegant statement:

“I think, therefore, I am.”

Now, it is true that we may not know the true reality of our nature, or of the universe, but those words prove that we can be absolutely certain that we are.  Even if someone challenges us by asking “How can you know you actually think,” we are still thinking about that challenge, so the truth of Descartes’s words still stands.  But logic is just a tool, and like all tools, it has its limits.

One of the limits we’ll be most concerned with on The RTC is this: logic cannot prove or disprove the truth of an abstract or non-material concept.  This is why we cannot prove or disprove the existence of a Creator.  When I was earning my philosophy degree, my basic logic professor put a formal proof on the board.  If I remember correctly, it was only four lines (logic uses a form of shorthand formula very similar to mathematical equations).  He turned around and challenged the class.  Was it sound?  Yes.  Was it valid?  Yes.  Was it rational?  Yes.  “So,” he said, “I just ‘proved’ that God exists.”  Then he erased a couple of words in two of the lines, switched them, and suddenly, he had just proved that God does not exist.  This is the problem with issues such as morality: man can devise a sound, rational and valid argument for nearly anything that is not material in fact.  Consequently, man can never devise a universal moral law that is not subject to challenge, and as long as a society’s moral law is subject to challenge, man can never design a stable society.  This is the problem with moral relativism: if we accept that what is right for one may not be right for another, society will quickly devolve into anarchy as any law – any law – becomes a moral atrocity to the sensibilities of someone who doesn’t recognize it.  Unfortunately, if one thinks only in material terms, one is very likely to overlook this fact because one has made a god of logic and/or science, and recognizing this fact suddenly amounts to blasphemy.  And, as it is with all blasphemy, those who are devoted to the faith will reject it and stone the blasphemer.

The work of John Stuart Mill is a great example of what I am trying to explain.  Mill was part of the Utilitarian movement.  Mill is very appealing to people of widely differing ideologies, partly because it is so tightly argued (his logic is generally very good), but also because it is so adaptable to so many different desires.  Many Libertarians are especially fond of Mill; as are some conservatives, but few people realize that he and his work were among the founding principles of the Fabian Socialist movement.  Now, I ask you, if Mill was one man writing about one idea, how is it that this idea has been embraced by three very different ideologies, all three of which are generally at war with one another?  It is because of this limit of logic and the ability to adapt an argument to suit any purpose when dealing with intangible matters.

For this reason, we need to possess something that logic doesn’t address very well: wisdom.  Now, logic still deals with things such as wisdom.  This school of logic is called metaphysics.  It’s just that, if basic logic dealing with the material has limits, metaphysics has even more.  In fact, no one has ever been able to so much as to provide a definitive definition for metaphysics.  One might say that it takes wisdom to know what it is when you see it, as well as to know what it is not.  We won’t worry about metaphysics right now.  The only thing we need to take from this post is that, when dealing with matters that are not strictly and totally material in nature, wisdom is of paramount importance.  It is the only sure means by and with which we can apply our use of logic and reason.  But one word of caution: wisdom is not to be mistaken for feeling or desire.  Just because we ‘feel like’ something is one way, or we don’t ‘believe’ it isn’t another, this is not sufficient enough to constitute as wisdom – especially if we have allowed our desires to cloud our judgment.  No, wisdom is something much more and, unfortunately, much like metaphysics: darn hard to explain and/or define.