Laws of Nature are a key part of the foundation of modern science. This reflects not only natural, law-like regularities such as the Law of Gravitation that promotes the Earth to the heavens (from being the sump of the cosmos) but also the perspective of many founders that they were thinking God’s creative, ordering providential and world-sustaining thoughts after him. The focal topic asks us whether our civil law is effectively an accident of power balances, or else, could it be accountable to a built in law that pivots on first duties coeval with our humanity.
The issue becomes pivotal, once we ponder the premise that the typical, “natural” tendency of government is to open or veiled lawless oligarchy:
So, let us hear Cicero in his On The Republic, Bk 3 [c. 55 – 54 BC]:
{22.} [33] L . . . True law is right reason in agreement with nature , it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions. And it does not lay its commands or prohibitions upon good men in vain, though neither have any effect on the wicked. It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to attempt to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by senate or people, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is, God, over us all, for he is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst penalties, even if he escapes what is commonly considered punishment. . . . – Marcus Tullius Cicero, On the Republic, Bk 3
This, of course, is further reflected in his De Legibus, which lays out a framework:
With respect to the true principle of justice, many learned men have maintained that it springs from Law. I hardly know if their opinion be not correct, at least, according to their own definition; for “Law (say they) is the highest reason, implanted in nature, which prescribes those things which ought to be done, and forbids the contrary.” This, they think, is apparent from the converse of the proposition; because this same reason, when it [37]is confirmed and established in men’s minds, is the law of all their actions.
They therefore conceive that the voice of conscience is a law, that moral prudence is a law, whose operation is to urge us to good actions, and restrain us from evil ones.
We see in the Angelic Doctor, a broadening of the framework, elaborating four domains of law:
Thus, following Aquinas, we can see that arguably there is an intelligible core of law coeval with our responsible, rational, significantly free nature. This built-in law turns on inescapable, thus self-evident truths of justice and moral government, which rightly govern what courts may rule or parliaments legislate, per the premise of justice moderated by requisites of feasible order in a world that must reckon with the hardness of men’s hearts. Where, we are thus duty bound, morally governed creatures.
Hence, we come to the sense of duty attested to by sound conscience [“conscience is a law”], that breathes fire into what would otherwise be inert statements in dusty tomes. We may term these, by extension, the Ciceronian First Duties of Reason:
FIRST DUTIES OF RESPONSIBLE REASON
We can readily identify at least seven inescapable first duties of reason. “Inescapable,” as they are so antecedent to reasoning that even the objector implicitly appeals to them; i.e. they are self-evident. Namely, duties,
1 – to truth,
2 – to right reason,
3 – to prudence,
4 – to sound conscience,
5 – to neighbour; so also,
6 – to fairness and
7 – justice
x – etc.
[I add, Mar 12, for clarity:] {Of course, there is a linked but not equivalent pattern: bounded, error-prone rationality often tied to ill will and stubbornness or even closed mindedness; that’s why the study of right reason has a sub-study on fallacies and errors. That we seek to evade duties or may make errors does not overthrow the first duties of reason, which instead help us to detect and correct errors, as well as to expose our follies.}
Such built-in . . . thus, universal . . . law is not invented by parliaments, kings or courts, nor can these principles and duties be abolished by such; they are recognised, often implicitly as an indelible part of our evident nature. Hence, “natural law,” coeval with our humanity, famously phrased in terms of “self-evident . . . rights . . . endowed by our Creator” in the US Declaration of Independence, 1776. (Cf. Cicero in De Legibus, c. 50 BC.) Indeed, it is on this framework that we can set out to soundly understand and duly balance rights, freedoms and duties; which is justice, the pivot of law.
The legitimate main task of government, then, is to uphold and defend the civil peace of justice through sound community order reflecting the built in, intelligible law of our nature. Where, as my right implies your duty a true right is a binding moral claim to be respected in life, liberty, honestly acquired property, innocent reputation etc. To so justly claim a right, one must therefore demonstrably be in the right.
Where, prudence can also be seen via Aristotle’s summary: “. . . [who aptly] defined prudence as recta ratio agibilium, ‘right reason applied to practice.’ The emphasis on ‘right’ is important . . . Prudence requires us to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong . . . If we mistake the evil for the good, we are not exercising prudence—in fact, we are showing our lack of it.”
Of course, we just saw a 400+ comment thread that saw objectors insistently, studiously evading the force of inescapability, where their objections consistently show that they cannot evade appealing to the same first duties that they would dismiss or suggest were so obscure and abstract that they cannot serve as a practical guide. The history of the modern civil rights movement once the print revolution, the civilisational ferment surrounding the reformation and the rise of newspapers, bills, coffee houses etc had unleashed democratising forces speaks to the contrary. The absurdity of appealing to what one seeks to overthrow simply underscores its self evidence. But free, morally governed creatures are just that, free. Even, free to cling to manifest absurdities.
This approach, of course, sharply contrasts with the idea that law is in effect whatever those who control the legal presses issue under that heading; based on power balances and so in effect might and/or manipulation. Aquinas’ corrective should suffice to show that not all that is issued under colour of law is lawful, or even simply prudent towards preserving order in a world of the hardness of men’s hearts.
Yes, obviously, if we are governed by built-in law, that raises the question that there is a cosmic law-giver, qualified to do so not by mere sheer power but also by being inherently good and utterly wise. Such a root of reality also answers the Hume Guillotine and the Euthyphro dilemma: an inherently good and utterly wise, necessary and maximally great being root of reality would bridge IS and OUGHT in the source of all reality and would issue good and wise, intelligible built-in law.
What of Mathematics? The answer is, of course, that a core of Math is inherent in the framework of any possible world. So, this would extend that core of Math tied to sets, structures and quantities expressed in N,Z,Q,R,C,R* etc to any actual world. That answers Wigner’s puzzlement on the universal power of Math and it points to, who has power to create an actual world in which we have fine tuning towards C-Chemistry, aqueous medium, cell based life? Likewise, it is suggestive on the source of the language and algorithms found in D/RNA etc.
Lest we forget, here is Crick, to his son, March 19, 1953:
So, we have come full circle, to law as expressing ordering principles of the dynamic-stochastic physical world and those of the world of intelligent, rational, morally governed creatures. Surprise — NOT — the design thesis is central to both. END
PS: As a reminder, the McFaul dirty form colour revolution framework and SOCOM insurgency escalator
U/D Feb 14: Outlines on first principles of right reason:
Here, we see that a distinct A — I usually use a bright red ball on a table:
and contrast a red near-ball in the sky, Betelgeuse as it went through a surprise darkening (something we observed separately and independently, it was not a figment of imagination):
. . . is distinct from the rest of the world. A is itself i/l/o its characteristics of being, and it is distinct from whatever else is not A, hence we see that in w there is no x that is A and ~A and any y that is in W will either be A or not A but not both or neither. These three are core to logic: P/LOI, LNC, LEM.
We may extend to governing principles that we have duties toward — never mind whoever may disregard such (and thereby cause chaos):
U/D March 13: The challenge of building a worldview i/l/o the infinite regress issue:
Framing a ship:
. . . compare a wooden model aircraft:
. . . or a full scale, metal framework jet:
In short, there is always a foundational framework for any serious structure.