"Properly channeled, honor encourages virtues like courage, integrity, and solidarity, and gives a sense of living for something larger than oneself." — tim wood

Sounds somewhat like a kind of virtue ethics, then.

As I recall, the cub scout oath contains language by which the scout promises "to be square and obey the law of the Pack." Perhaps that's what it is to be honorable. I can't remember what being square is, though, nor do I recall the law of the Pack. I suppose I'll have to read about it then, alas. Honor ethics, I mean.

I assumed aspects of that culture might be part of it. Also perhaps the view that certain kinds of conduct are worthy or unworthy. I think it was Mencken who said something like "Honor is simply the morality of the superior man." He tended to refer to people as superior or inferior. One thinks of the Code Duello as well.

Heidegger explicitly called himself a theologian in a letter, so yeah! But this structure also haunts anti-religion. We see this in Stirner reading Feuerbach against Feuerbach. Any lingo can function metaphysically, spiritually, politically. The libertarian language of individual freedom can and is used in class war by the 'priests' of a ruling class. It seems to me that many lovers of Trump think of themselves as masters of suspicion as they wallow in conspiracy theory (the new opiate of the masses?) — path

Well then, when he referred to some god being needed to save us in Der Spiegel, he must have meant some other god, not himself. At least he said "god" and not "fuhrer" that time. It's likely they're the same, to him, however.

'We need a strong man (singular) to cut through all the red tape and confusion.' The little people don't have the guts. They just chatter or cluck like hens. — path

If I understand you correctly, then he'd probably eulogize Trump as he did Hitler. Imagine it: "President Trump alone is the present and future American reality and its law!" I can hear it being said, see them marching.

Eh, sorry. I do get carried away.

But I disagree about there being a streak of violence in philosophy. Nietzsche may have filled his writings with exclamation points, Schopenhauer pushed noisy women down stairs, Rousseau delighted in confessing his sins and telling everyone the wonderful things he learned by sinning, much like St. Augustine, but philosophy, particularly romantic philosophy, is generally an expression of self-love or self-involvement. A kind of onanism. How's that for an analogy? Which some used to say does violence to the onanist if I recall my Catholic youth correctly, so perhaps there's something in what you say.

I hesitate to mention Dewey in a thread about Heidegger, especially since csalisbury has joined the discussion. But Dewey is an example of a philosopher--a modern one, even--who might be said to have tried to make philosophy applicable to public affairs, society and education, without evoking the destiny of some nation, race or group of peoples, and fuhrers and gods, and without demeaning other nations, races or groups of people, and some others have as well, so perhaps it can be done. The Stoics too, given their view that we're social beings, each carrying a bit of an immanent deity within us. But I doubt musings regarding the Nothing and daisen, technophobia and visions of hearty peasants lovingly placing seeds in nature's bosom will result in any true change.

No doubt I've overstayed my welcome.

Yorck seems like a pre-Heidegger, a John-the-baptist for Heidegger. — path

Ah, thank you for this analogy. Prepare ye the way of the Lord!

My fury is reserved for Heidegger. I'm merely amazed, and baffled, by those who admire him.

It's odd, isn't it, for a philosopher to be enamored by a thug, and thuggishness? I suspect this tells us something about him. The cerebral among us seem inclined to this kind of base attraction sometimes. Pound, Yeats and others were quite fond of Mussolini.

My favorite Lehrer tune is The Vatican Rag, which I think could be found somewhere in the Web.

But do I also have to pretend that all of Woody Allen's movies suck? That Louise CK was never funny? Where does it end? Why not also blast Aristotle? Frege? Or the slave-owning founding fathers? At some point we'll need our hand held as we walk through the dangerous library. — path

It may be a fault in me, but I'm unable to separate the man and his work so blithely.

Sort of like Tom Lehrer and Wernher von Braun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEJ9HrZq7Ro

Don't worry about Cic. He does this every time Heidi is mentioned. It's pathological. — StreetlightX

That may be so, I'm afraid, or close to the mark. There is a kind of revulsion.

Everyone knows he was a Nazi, yes. Some even know he was a devoted one. But this is trivial to philosophers and students of philosophy, a concern only to bots, yes?

I understand. It's a sophisticated perception. There are bad Nazis, assuredly, but good ones as well, and Heidegger was a good one; our favorite Nazi, in fact. There never was a Nazi quite like him. He was the best of them. Such a perceptive, insightful Nazi. Surely we can all agree about that.

So no bots on my account, please.

If only there were such bots, ready to pounce at every reverent mention of his name.

No, no. He'd say Yawhol!, not "yawn." He was quite punctilious, especially during his time as Rector at Freiburg. I doubt he ever yawned in that joyous, busy time.

ll other conquerers like Hitler--Alexander the Great, Caesar, Khan, etc--- had their empires dissolve between warring generals almost instantly upon their deaths, after which, things usually returned to much as they would have been anyway. — ernestm

Well, not Caesar. While after his death effective power was held by the second triumvirate, followed by the contest between Antony and Octavian, Caesar's adopted son, soon to be Augustus, once that was resolved Augustus established the Principate and Rome's empire was expanded. The Principate lasted (if you include the Eastern Empire) about 1500 years. The names Caesar and Augustus came to be titles which, in the case of "Caesar" was held even into the 20th century.

Not Hitler, either, of course. No warring generals succeeded him. I don't know much about the Khans, but only in the case of Alexander was an empire divided by his generals.

I congratulate myself on my restraint in not commenting in this thread. It seems I've learned to control my contempt for this vile, loathsome, bigoted, back-stabbing, mumbo-jumbo spouting mountebank and Nazi.

Aw, dammit! Not yet, perhaps.

You can dream the American Dream
But you sleep with the lights on
And wake up with a scream
--The Late, Great Warren Zevon, Fistful of Rain

'Nuff said. For me, at least.

Well, I can rant as well. Bear with me. Or don't and pass on.

I find it odd that as I grow older, I become less and less conservative. Politically, in any case.

For good or ill, I've spent most of my life in the practice of law in these United States of America. I'm an old, tired and jaded practitioner. Not as old as some, perhaps; though some of them should be put out to pasture, or put in the cornfield as a charming Twilight Zone put it. But more tired and jaded than most I suspect. I have no illusions regarding the law, I think, but have for the most part always thought that the rule of law is something to be honored and sustained.

There's problem with this conceit. The rule of law in its most significant respects is often ignored or perverted in our Glorious Union, and in lesser respects has become little more than a complex and sometimes mystifying mechanism by which the interests of a small group of people are maintained and furthered. I've quoted Bastiat in another thread and for another purpose, but the quote is one which comes to my mind more and more these days as characteristic of America and some other nations as well:

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”

Certain kinds of looting, sanctioned by the law and our morality, are not just tolerated but encouraged in our Glorious Republic. The immensely wealthy are admired in our society and have been for many years, instead of being seen as the equivalents of gluttons and hoarders they are.

The ingenious, and shrewd, great landowners, merchants and lawyers who created the U.S. took pains to protect certain civil liberties and restrict the power of government. I thought this generally wise and valuable. But I doubt even those worldly men could have imagined the extent to which wealth and the wealthy would come to control everything and everyone here. Our politicians are bought and sold many times over. It's the nature of our politics that large sums of money are required by any successful politician, and so those who govern us are mere shills for those who support them as candidates or incumbents. The idea of plunder has become such a part of our legal system that our Supreme Court has decided that money is a form of speech protected by the First Amendment.

This will only continue in the absence of dramatic change. As they see reason, the wealthy, individuals and corporations, have no reason whatsoever to change the system by which they've profited. They're unwittingly supported by many of the less well-off who continue to believe in the American Dream of which they've been deprived who so fear socialism--or whatever it is they consider that to be-- that they're quite willing for the rich to get richer and the poor get poorer, even if it means they grow poorer and less powerful themselves.

Sometimes my fondest hope is merely to be left alone in the mess that is now and will be. Perhaps that's the new American Dream. I hope I can do better.

You have two options:

Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people on the main track.
Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person." — Marin

False dilemma. Stop the trolley. It's just a "thought experiment" after all.

And the moral good cannot be decided from my absolute and abstract interior. I am good in relation to others who are good in relation to me. The opposite is a metaphysical individualism that only leads to selfishness which, although it pretends to be rational, has nothing moral about it. — David Mo

Proponents of eudaimonia and of virtue ethics don't decide what is good from their absolute interior, nor do they claim to be free from all external influences, as their concept of the good is based on the contemplation of nature and of the place and purpose of humans as part of nature. From that contemplation, or observation and analysis, they derive an understanding of the purpose of life and how to achieve that purpose. According to them, it's achieved by being virtuous.

I am good in relation to others who are good in relation to me. — David Mo

This makes being good sound like an exchange, or bargain--I'm good to others who are good to me. That may not have been intended, of course, but the formulation illustrates a problem with systems of morality which make being good conditional on something others supposedly possess which imposes restraints on our conduct or imposes obligations on us. Our actions are good to the extent we comply with those restraints and meet those obligations, wrong to the extent we fail to do so. Just as our actions are legal to the extent we comply with the restraints imposed by the law and the obligations it imposes, illegal or wrongful and subject to penalty if we don't do so. It's a legalistic theory of morality, and makes the conflation of morality and the law virtually inevitable.

For me, it's the concept of moral rights which invites selfishness, as it encourages a sense of entitlement. This is especially the case where rights conflict, as they do in the case of legal rights. It takes a huge, costly legal system to resolve those conflicts when it's possible to resolve disputes in which parties claim their rights are superior or the rights of others are subject to limitations, where that resolution is possible. In the case of claimed moral rights there is no method of resolution of the disputes which arise from the conflict of opinions regarding rights, and so those claiming rights may do so ad infinitum and without check.

I think claiming duties exist only where a right exists is misguided.
— Ciceronianus the White

I didn’t say that, I said the other way around. Rights are analyzable in terms of duties. — Pfhorrest

Well, I don't think a non-legal right necessarily exists where a duty exists, either, so I'm afraid we still disagree.

Something about the belief that we should be good, or do something right, moral, etc., because the "rights" of another requires us to do so strikes me unsatisfactory. Why not just be good, or do the right thing, without looking to some divine command or law, or something else beyond your control or belonging in some sense to someone else, as compelling you to do so? There's something pharisaical about a morality based on such requirements.

God given rights. Do you really have any? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Not me, no. I've checked.

Whenever one has a duty to another person, that other person has a right, specifically a claim right, because a claim right just is a duty owed to you by someone else. (In contrast with a liberty right, which is just the absence of having any contrary duty yourself).

Maybe not all duties are to other people, but when they are... — Pfhorrest

Just what "duty" means is certainly significant, as is the question whether a duty implies a right or whether a right requires a duty. I think claiming duties exist only where a right exists is misguided.

Some say we owe a duty to our children, or our parents. Does that mean they have a right to certain conduct on our part? Does our obligation to them exist because of their rights, or is taking care of them simply what a good person would do? If I have a duty it means I should or should not do something. I should be good; I should not be bad. Do I have a duty to be good because everyone else has a right to my good behavior, or a duty not to be bad because everyone else has a right that I not be bad? I don't think so. I have no right to good conduct on the part of the rest of humanity.

Legal rights may be subject to restrictions, yes. I don't think I've questioned the existence of legal rights, nor have I claimed there should be no legal right. I doubt anybody thinks government has non-legal right to tax. I may just misunderstand you, though.

i think I understand you to be saying we have now outgrown all this language about rights and nature; that it's meaningless to talk about unrecognized rights. Since there is no monarchy in the US that threatens the liberty of citizens, maybe that's true. We have no background for the idea of natural rights, and so it becomes meaningless except as a fixture of history.

I wonder if we need a new words to deal with the challenges we face now. What do you think? — frank

The concept of "rights" as used now is, I think, relatively new, and probably arose during the Enlightenment as you note. Perhaps that's the case also with "natural rights" which I think is something different from "natural law." Stoicism influenced the development of the concept of natural law, but in the sense that the ancient Stoics thought that nature, i.e. the cosmos, in which a divine, rational spirit was immanent, reflected that spirit in a manner comprehensible to humans because of our capacity of reason, which we share with the divinity. To live according to nature was to live according to reason, as it is the peculiar and essential natural characteristic of humans. It's also one of our natural characteristics that we are by nature social animals.

The current concept of "rights" however focuses on individuals as opposed to community. According to that concept, each individual is entitled to X, Y and Z. Morality based on the current concept of rights is a morality of entitlement, and (taking a Stoic view) because we're fixated on things that aren't by their nature in our control--money, property, reputation, position--we find the idea we're entitled to such things if we can get them attractive, and this is especially the case when a system of morality justifies their pursuit and acquisition. So, e.g. the billionaire has a right to his/her money and assets, and that right should not be restricted, legally or otherwise, because it is a right. The billionaire doesn't have to share it with anyone else. There are some who argue the billionaire shouldn't do so.

Someone I think quoted Bastiat earlier in this thread, or somewhere else (I can't remember). He put it well: "When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it." I think that a moral system which emphasizes individual rights, thought it may be well-intentioned, can result in this kind of selfishness.

A legal system is another matter, though. We can't adopt a law compelling everyone to be virtuous, or Stoic Sages. When we try to legislate morality we come up with abominations like Prohibition. Legal rights are needed to restrain certain conduct of a particularly offensive kind.

There's a difference between morality and the law. Because we don't regulate ourselves (particularly where we think we're entitled to so much) the law must regulate us. Morality shouldn't be confused or conflated with the law, and concepts that are useful in the law, like rights, aren't necessarily conducive to moral conduct. If we could teach virtuous conduct to all, that would be ideal.

Well, like Ayn Rand, you're free (have a right?) to define "moral virtue" (as opposed to "immoral virtue" or "piano-playing virtue" etc., I assume) as you see fit if it pleases you, thus multiplying virtues as well as "rights." Vale.

As I said, one is obligated (has a duty) to live a particular way--i.e. virtuously--to live according to nature. That doesn't mean someone else has a right to one's virtuous conduct.

I'm not sure what you mean. That legal right may not exist someday, as many think there should be no such legal right. Would that mean the right is no longer recognized, or that there was no such right? Will women continue to have it if that happens? In what sense? Is it a natural right, or a moral right? What difference would that make if the law prohibits it?

"Non-legal rights" are what some people think should be legal rights, but when other people think they shouldn't be rights of any kind, there can be problems.

You don't explain what a non-legal right is, but I won't chide you for it. No doubt you'd reference some right not to do so.

Aristotle is not my favorite (I prefer the Stoics, and find it hard to like someone so admired by Ayn Rand) nor is the unfortunate Kant. But I think you misunderstand Aristotle.

Regardless, I think it futile, but will try again. Virtues are qualities of an agent. A virtuous person acts in particular ways because he/she is virtuous and so acts virtuously, not because of the consequences to others, nor because of any sense of obligation to others. Consider as I suggested you do the classical virtues, which include prudence or wisdom, temperence, courage, justice or fairness. The exercise of these virtues isn't mandated by any obligation to others deriving from claimed rights. It has everything to do with living a good life, one seeking eudamonia. One is obligated to live in a particular way--one should live in a particular way--to achieve eudamonia, to live in accordance with nature as the ancient Stoics put it.

For the Stoics, desiring things beyond our control or being disturbed by them is contrary to the good life. So seeking to control people, seeking after their property, being disturbed by what they do, all the things that motivate people to kill or injure each other or take things from others, or enslave them, are contrary to living well and are therefore improper. They're not improper because of any claimed right to life, or liberty, or property.

You seem to make what I consider to be the error of treating rights as if they're legal rights. We tend to do that in America, where everyone claims they have all kinds of rights, the right to their opinion however foolish or bigoted, the right to do as they please even if others are exposed to harm, etc. Legal rights are useful in a system of law, regulating conduct, but outside of law, I prefer an ethics that focuses on what we should do.
,

,

You beg the question by insisting I address a situation involving a right. I don't address circumstances where someone has a right to what I have because I don't think such a right, or any right, exists unless it's a legal right. Remember?

Now I could, and perhaps should, demand that you explain to me what a non-legal right is since you claim I must address only circumstances in which they're at issue. I'd be interested in your non-circular definition.

I confess I find it hard to understand why you believe, apparently, that acting virtuously, e.g. wisely, prudently, benevolently, justly, is a matter of rights and duties.

You haven't explained any difference between being allowed and being entitled. — David Mo

I allow someone to share food I'm eating. Or, someone takes some of the food I'm eating, and I don't prevent him/her from taking it. He/she isn't entitled to my food, has no right to it, in either case.

Have you never permitted someone to do something even though there is no right to do it? Have you never exercised forbearance (declined to restrain someone from doing something although there is no right to do it)?

I would forbear from allowing someone to die a dignified death not because of some purported right to suicide, but for reasons such as: I should not decide whether someone lives or dies; I should not be the cause of another's suffering, or perpetuate the suffering of others.

It isn't virtuous that people be allowed to die. Virtue refers to how I/we should conduct ourselves. The question what is virtuous in the case of someone who wants to die arises only when it is in the power of a person to prevent another person from fulfilling that desire. The question then arises--should I/we prevent the person from dying although they want to under the circumstances (e.g. because they're suffering and that suffering will not otherwise end)?

I would say no, for reasons such as those I noted earlier, not because they have "a right to die."

But no, if you're now asking me to explain why being virtuous is good and not being virtuous is bad, I decline to do so. This discussion doesn't require we each describe what is moral, and why. Also, I want to get some lunch and do so of that law stuff.

Knowledge of the cause of anguish? Knowledge of what anguish really is?
— Ciceronianus the White

Both. — David Mo

I think anguish is caused by reading Sartre--dread being caused by thinking about reading Sartre, as I noted previously. Behold this knowledge of the causes of anguish and dread.

I did not mention natural rights, but moral rights. — David Mo

Now there are moral rights as well as natural rights and legal rights?

Furthermore, the examples you give referred to legal rights, which exist as soon as a law stipulates them. Not to moral rights that are of another order. — David Mo

I don't think so. You seemed to feel there was some moral right (apparently) which was "in back of" or justified or resulted in the various regulations I mentioned. I don't think they create legal rights, let alone moral rights, but was trying to point out that there are no recognizable rights of any kind on which such regulations are based. Thus, there is no right to comfort or warmth on which building codes are based, or right to buildings made in a particular manner, or rights which somehow support lawn height regulations like a supposed right to well-ordered and pleasing lawns or some kind of aesthetic right.

Marchesk asked you a question that you have not answered: what is the difference between X can do Y and X has the right to do Y? You have not explained the difference yet. — David Mo

Well, I think I did, in a reply to him a portion of which you quote.

I mention once more virtue ethics. Put very simply, those who live virtuous lives don't kill people because killing people is not virtuous, not because people have a right to live. Those who wish to live a virtuous life are obliged to act virtuously.

I prefer an ethics which isn't based on the claims of people that they are entitled to be treated in a certain way. I prefer an ethics which provides that one should strive to be virtuous, which means to act in a certain way in order to live a good life (the old Stoics, or some of them at least, used to say "act in accordance with nature" meaning in accord with the underlying reason pervading nature). The emphasis is on people having the responsibility to act in a proper manner rather than people being naturally or otherwise entitled to all kinds of rights they must be granted which must be honored by everyone else.

I did not propose the feeling of anguish as knowledge, but Sartre's theory on the feeling of anguish. They are two very different things. — David Mo

If you say so. I'm not sure what knowledge his theory of anguish would encompass, or derive, in that case. Knowledge of the cause of anguish? Knowledge of what anguish really is?

Since I don't know what knowledge is for you, I will answer according to my criteria: The concept of anguish in Sartre is the feeling caused by the knowledge of the factuality and responsibility that freedom entails. It is proposed as knowledge. True or false, it is another matter. — David Mo

We're probably thinking of "knowledge" differently, then, or at least "branches of knowledge." What Jolly Jean-Paul (sorry, I enjoy giving philosophers nicknames) felt was caused by knowledge of the factuality and responsibility that freedom entails, whatever that may be, and why he considered it anguish wouldn't meet my definition of knowledge, any more than the dread I would say is caused, in me, by the thought of reading his work. It strikes me that in the case of Sartre's anguish we have speculation, and in the case of my dread we have what may be called taste, as in inclination or judgment.

With the rise of Catholicism, the title "pontifex" was transferred to the Pope and to Catholic bishops. — VagabondSpectre

Very sensibly, when the Republic transitioned into the Empire, the Emperors were granted (assumed, really) the title Pontifex Maximus, Highest Priest, thereby obtaining imperium over all those damn pontifices of the traditional Roman religion, not to mention the various priests of other temples and cults throughout the Empire. That title was assumed by the papacy, and so, if I ever have an audience with the Pope, I'll hail him by his true title: Salve, Pontifex Maximus!

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.shopify.com%2Fs%2Ffiles%2F1%2F0938%2F5674%2Fproducts%2Fd6cbba20541fba594eb4a4bf31daf348.jpg%3Fv%3D1475766819&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fitm%2F415014-France-Medal-Franciscus-Pontifex-Maximus-Religions-beliefs-%2F191989719709&tbnid=IRdLJcZNIwCOfM&vet=12ahUKEwib9pSiqsPpAhXFdK0KHdJBCdMQMygIegUIARCLAg..i&docid=mSTyPILTyuAiKM&w=1024&h=1024&q=pope%20pontifex%20maximus&ved=2ahUKEwib9pSiqsPpAhXFdK0KHdJBCdMQMygIegUIARCLAg

The difference arises from the fact I think what it is proper or moral to do should not be determined based on supposed "rights." I don't think I should prevent a competent person who has an incurable, painful disease from taking his/her own life because I have no good reason, no moral reason, to compel that person to live, and by doing so I would be cruel. That isn't the same as saying the person has a right to die. There can be moral duties without entitlements.

And do you think that Sartre's concept of anguish -for example- does not speak of the world and man's relationship to the world? Sartre would not be an "armchair" philosopher? — David Mo

I'm blissfully ignorant of Sartre's concept of anguish, and it is my daily prayer that I will remain so. In what sense does his concept constitute knowledge of the world in which we live, though, and how was it obtained? Those questions would seem to be pertinent.

All the examples you mention define or regulate legal rights. For example: building codes regulate various rights for the exercise of a certain economic activity with respect to free enterprise, the environment, etc. that affect the rights of the builder, the clients and the inhabitants of the surroundings. — David Mo

You must think that our world is full of natural rights or legal rights, brimming with them. We have no natural or right to windows of a certain thickness, to toilet traps of certain minimum width, or not live adjacent to properties which have fences which exceed a certain height, or to have curbs and gutters, to retention ponds. Neither do we have a natural or legal right to have up to a certain number of cats without being required to obtain a license, all derivative of a natural (I think?) right to the exercise of a certain economic activity. Builders rights, client rights, inhabitants rights. How may rights do you believe there to be?

Such provisions are regulations designed to achieve what's thought to appropriate and in the interest of promoting public welfare in various respects. But there is no right to have housing or office space or roads, etc., of a particular kind. Nor is there any general right of public welfare, or right to be comfortable, or to be warm, or to be happy or pleased because one's lawn doesn't have weeds or isn't enclosed by a high fence.

If you say that a person should be allowed to do X, you are saying that this person has the right to do X because the right is nothing more than the expression of the conditions of use of a capacity or the obligation to do somethin — David Mo

It's not necessary to accept the existence of a natural right to do X, however, to declare that X should not be prohibited. If you refer to legal rights, I've never claimed they don't exist, nor have I claimed they shouldn't exist.

I don't have to accept that we all have a right to live to say that we should not kill one another. Virtue ethics, for example, isn't premised on perceived or assumed rights and obligations.

his is very confusing. "Thinking alone", "armchair"... You mean philosophy doesn't do experiments? This would differentiate philosophy from the natural sciences, but not from many other branches of knowledge. Pure mathematics, for example. — David Mo

I gladly acknowledge my ignorance of pure mathematics. Let's say natural sciences, practical mathematics, what we used to call the "social sciences"; any branch of knowledge which has as its subject matter the world in which we live and is based on our interaction with that world as living organisms. How's that?

Your answer does not clarify your concept of the law, which is what I was asking. — David Mo

The law is so enormous I'm not sure it's useful to attempt to define it. I've practiced law for 40 years now, and am leery of efforts by philosophers to fit it into boxes of their construction. The law is civil and criminal. The law consists of legislative acts, regulations adopted by adminstrative agencies, judicial opinions. In the U.S., such laws are enacted and enforced by federal, state and local governments. The Common Law often has application in civil matters. The law is whatever legislation and regulations that have been adopted in the manner recognized in the system by federal, state and local governments, supplemented by interpretive judicial decisions, which address virtually all aspects of human conduct.

Examples of laws which don't involve legal rights: Building codes; setback requirements; traffic laws; laws governing the licensing of cosmetologists, veterinarians, surveyors, dieticians; laws imposing permitting requirements for hunting and fishing; laws governing fence heights, noxious weeds, lawn height, stormwater regulations, zoning variances and conditional use permits; signage. Laws related tot he licensing of dogs and cats and other animals. Alas, I could go on and on.

quote="David Mo;413966"]The law that prohibits legal access to euthanasia interferes with the moral right to a dignified death that a large part of society considers inalienable. Do not tell me that there is no conflict between legality and morality here, because it seems obvious.[/quote]

First, we have the question of moral righs. As you know, I don't think such rights exists. If the law prohibits euthanasia, there is no right to a dignified death. I thing people who are competent should be allowed to choose death (I'm a traditional Stoic, in this an other ways). That doesn't mean they have a right to do so. There are systems of morality that aren't dependent on "rights." I don't think it follows from the fact that the law may address conduct considered moral or immoral that they themselves are moral or immoral.

All these things can be studied from other branches of knowledge that are not philosophy. What makes them different from philosophy? — David Mo

Unlike other branches of knowledge, philosophy purports to study them, and even to know them or something about them, by thinking alone; from the armchair, as it were (ex cathedra, literally). Not many branches of knowledge can make such a...boast?

Philosophy is the study of reality, knowledge, existence, beauty, and goodness, and most anything else, to the extent that can be achieved by thinking about them, sometimes really hard.

Explain this and what it has to do with our subject, please. — David Mo

Imprimis, fairly early on in this thread, titled "Natural Rights," I noted that I felt the only rights that exist are legal rights. The conversation then devolved into whether there is such a thing as an immoral law. I took, and take, the position that it's inappropriate to refer to a law as immoral. You then claimed that the immorality of a law is what creates the right to oppose it, and made reference to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You also asserted that laws are prescriptive, apparently in support of your claim that laws can be immoral.

Now laws which create legal rights and provide for their protection and enforcement are prescriptive in nature according to your definition. Therefore, or so it seems your argument goes:

A law is a prescriptive act: it defines what can and cannot be done and what must be done. Therefore, if immorality refers to acts, you cannot separate the law from the acts, and the law that prescribes immoral acts is immoral. — David Mo

Taking as I do the position that it's inappropriate to characterize laws as immoral (or moral), I noted that there are very few laws, including those regarding legal rights, that address what is moral or immoral as they don't prohibit or allow or mandate actions that we would characterize as moral or immoral.

Therefore, assuming for the sake of argument that your claim that laws may be immoral is correct, I point out that very few laws are of the kind you think can be said to be immoral.

I hope that helps.