Philosophos: I think we’ve covered well enough why the rule of law is preferable to the rule of man (at least in times of order). But how do we make good laws?
Nomodiphas: We know that man has eternal value in that he is a creation of God. We also know that man is born in freedom with a free will. We want to do things that promote and protect the integrity of man’s value and ensure liberty.
Philosophos: How do we determine what will best protect and promote these values? We are limited in our knowledge, are we not subject to mistake?
Nomodiphas: Indeed we are—that is why we should look to tradition to see how these values were best promoted in the past.
Philosophos: But our past is littered with mistakes and we men are often unable to correctly discern between mistake and success. I think we need to take a step back here. We must first determine how we know any type of truth and from this method we will be able to determine the truth of how we should order our government and laws. What are the different ways by which we may know the truth?
Nomodiphas: Four methods come to mind: subjectivism, empiricism, rationalism, and revelation.
Philosophos: What one is best equipped to guide us in the discovery of good laws?
Nomodiphas: I’m not sure.
Philosophos: Then let’s go through these four methods one by one. As far as subjectivism is concerned what type of truth does it reveal and how does it reveal that truth?
Subjectivism
Nomodiphas: Subjectivism reveals individual truth to an individual from within the individual. It reveals personal tastes and preferences. I may like or dislike a movie or like or dislike a dessert—these truths arise from within me and are true for me alone. If I like a movie I would not say it must be true that all like that movie. I don’t reason to these conclusions, these conclusions are immediate within me. These conclusions are reactions or feelings.
Philosophos: Does subjective truth provide a good basis for laws?
Nomodiphas: In one sense yes in another way no. Subjective truth is for the individual, while laws are for a society. We don’t make different laws for every individual person and subjective truth differs from person to person. So in that sense no. But on the other hand, in many areas people tend to have the same reaction to things. People tend to feel that murder and theft are wrong and charity and courage are good. People agree with these things based on their natural reactions, they believe in them for subjective reasons. Since most people naturally agree on what is right and wrong subjective truth would seem to be a sound basis for good laws.
Philosophos: This belief of yours, that subjective truth can serve as a sound basis for laws, if I am correct assumes that people naturally hate what is bad and love what is good. And because people’s inclinations are naturally good we can base our laws off of people’s natural inclinations. These natural inclinations and feelings are not thought through, but are conclusions themselves. These conclusions are subjectively true to each individual, but most individuals agree on them so they may serve as our basis for laws. Have I understood you correctly?
Nomodiphas: Yes.
Philosophos: Have you ever seen a wolf?
Nomodiphas: Of course.
Philosophos: Where did you see it?
Nomodiphas: At the zoo.
Philosophos: So you have never seen a wolf in the wild?
Nomodiphas: No.
Philosophos: If you did, what would you expect the encounter to be like?
Nomodiphas: I imagine I would be frightened and I imagine the wolf would be frightened of me as well. The wolf would either attack me out of fear or run away from me due to its fear of me.
Philosophos: So this is the natural reaction of the wolf. A wolf’s natural instinct or impulse when it sees a man is to be afraid and either run away from the man or attack the man?
Nomodiphas: As far as I know, yes.
Philosophos: What about going into the pen of a wolf in the zoo, how do you imagine an encounter with that wolf would proceed?
Nomodiphas: From my end of things, it would probably be the same. I would be afraid even of a wolf born and raised in captivity. But things would be different for the wolf. The wolf, owing to its daily contact with humans, would have no fear of me. In fact, I imagine that a zoo keeper feeds the wolf a couple of times a day and the wolf would look forward to these encounters. If I came in with food the wolf would probably be excited and come to greet me, expecting me to feed it.
Philosophos: Why does the wolf act differently in these two situations? Has the wolf developed reason that has enabled it to act in spite of its natural tendencies?
Nomodiphas: I don’t think the wolf has reason by any means. The wolf still acts from impulse and instinct, it is just that those impulses have changed because of its environment.
Philosophos: So an animal’s environment can change its natural impulses?
Nomodiphas: Yes.
Philosophos: If the wolf from the zoo was released into the wild, what would its fate be?
Nomodiphas: I reckon the wolf would die quickly.
Philosophos: How so?
Nomodiphas: Well the wolf has been conditioned to trust humans. If a wolf encountered a human in the wild it should run away. Instead of running away a wolf raised in a zoo would probably approach a human hoping to be fed. This human may very well be a hunter and the wolf with the wrong instincts would make easy prey for him. . . . I can see what you are getting at, that we humans may have natural impulses and instincts that are good, but if we grow up in a bad environment our impulses can become wrong and serve as bad guides for determining what is right and wrong. We may like what is bad and dislike what is good; our impulses would therefore not serve as a good foundation for the law. I recognize the point you are trying to get across, but there is a big difference between wolves and men. Just because something is true for the former does not mean it follows for the latter.
Philosophos: Of course men and animals differ in many ways . . . but before we move on, let me ask you this. The zookeeper, the first time he walks into the pen to feed the wolf, how does he feel?
Nomodiphas: Probably the same way I would, scared.
Philosophos: So fear is his initial impulse?
Nomodiphas: Yes.
Philosophos: After some period of time, say ten years, of feeding wolves at the zoo how does he feel when he walks into the wolf pen?
Nomodiphas: Probably nothing. The job is so routine for him that he probably does it without really thinking about it.
Philosophos: So his initial impulse has changed?
Nomodiphas: I guess so.
Philosophos: So like the wolf a man’s internal impulse may change due to external factors.
Nomodiphas: Yes. But this hypothetical situation is different. The wolf was brought into a corrupted, unnatural environment—that is why his impulse changed. The same goes with the zookeeper, he realized this was an unnatural environment and that is why his impulses became unnatural.
Philosophos: So you concede that environment and external factors can change natural impulses in men.
Nomodiphas: Yes I concede that, but with a caveat: the reason the impulses change is because the environment is not natural.
Philosophos: Picture a wolf born into captivity. He is born at the zoo and for his whole life he interacts with humans within the zoo. He would know no other truth than that which was presented to him in his pen. This wolf would think that men are good because they provide for him and care for him. His environment would limit his access to truth and his corrupted and incomplete notion of the truth would in turn form his impulses. Like you say, this is an unnatural environment, but because the wolf has grown up in this environment and knows no other truth, he has no way of knowing that his environment is unnatural and that this unnatural environment has corrupted his impulses.
Don’t cut in yet, I know what you are about to say: I am still talking about wolves, but humans are different. But before you say that, imagine a child born into a zoo. Throughout his upbringing the child never once leaves the zoo. The only time he sees a wolf is when he goes into the pen to feed the wolf. The child never sees a wolf in nature and in fact is not told by the managers of the zoo that an outside world even exists where wolves operate differently. Given the child’s environment its natural impulse would not be to fear wolves, but rather to trust them or at least be ambivalent about them. True the environment the child has grown up in is not natural, but because this environment is the only thing the child has known, the child has no way of recognizing that the environment is unnatural and that this unnatural environment has in fact corrupted his impulses.
The fact is we live in an unnatural environment. We live in a world full of sin and decay and death. This is not the natural state of the world. When God created the world there was no evil and no death. Before the fall man lived in a perfect environment and because of that his impulses were perfect as well. Man had a free will that allowed him to choose contrary to his impulses or conscience, but his conscience in and of itself always directed man to the right course of action. But because of the fall of man every culture, every society on earth, is now a corrupted and unnatural environment. Every society varies in how unnatural and corrupted it is, but none of them are perfect. Because every man grows up in an unnatural environment, no man’s impulses are all good as they should naturally be—and would in fact be if men were raised in the perfect environment in which they were created to live. Further, because all we know is the unnatural environment we have grown up in, we have no way of knowing by impulse alone what impulses are right and which ones are wrong. Our false environment limits our access to the complete truth of reality in the same way the hypothetical zoo limited the child zookeeper.
We don’t have to look very hard in history to see how men’s impulses have led men to do very vile things. Murderers and molesters often have natural impulses to commit their crimes and feel no guilt over committing them.
Nomodiphas: But that it is different. Most men agree about what is right and wrong. We cannot look to just one man’s conception of what is right and wrong, we must look to the majority’s conception of right and wrong if we are to use subjective truth as the basis of our laws.
Philosophos: Because we grow up in the same unnatural environment we often are blinded by the same falsehoods. It many places it is the cultural norm for men to beat their wives. Slavery has been accepted in our society in the past. What about child sacrifice? It existed because a group of people came together and thought it was the best thing to do.
Nomodiphas: Well those people were lied to by their priests. The people who controlled information did not give them the whole of the truth. If they had known how foolish it was, they would not have killed their children.
Philosophos: So true, but because their information was limited they had no way of knowing that the information they were getting was false and the beliefs they formed from their misinformation were wrong as well. How many people today think that abortion is fine simply because the people who largely control the information on the subject (in this case the media) tell them that it is an all right thing to do? People in history who have done heinous things like child sacrifice thought they were taking the right course of action because they had been conditioned by their society to believe and feel that it was the right thing to do. For many it is easy to point mistakes in other societies but hard to do find them in our own society. But do you think our society is somehow exempt from mistakes? If we can point out evil things that people collectively did in the past without recognizing the wrongness of their actions because they had been conditioned to do them, why would we think we are somehow different and that we somehow are not conditioned into doing evil things and that we are not molded by our environment to the point that we don’t even recognize the wrongness of some of our actions?
This is why subjective truth fails to be an adequate foundation for lawmaking. Societies as a whole have been and continue to be corrupted by their environment. We all live in an unnatural environment with limited access to information. Our natural impulses may very well be all good, but because of our unnatural environment our impulses have been corrupted. Because these impulses are wrong we cannot use them as a basis from which to make laws. When people have done this in the past it has led to disastrous results and we will do so again if we allow them. Response?
Nomodiphas: None, I concede. Let’s move on.
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