These are questions with which human beings have been wrestling for an age, and yet it seems we never get any closer to the truth, judging by some of the practical choices we routinely make pursuant to the putative goal of living properly among and amid our fellows. Is this because the answers are too difficult for us to understand? I say no. The answers are surprisingly simple and, in fact, arrived at through the most direct and intuitively obvious logic imaginable such that any nominally bright child sees them as a matter of his natural development. On average, these proprieties are born into us.
What is difficult, then, is neither finding the answers nor following the path to them, but rather accepting the truths they carry when those truths conflict with other interests. The fact is that these simple answers often lead one to results that he finds unpalatable, which then impels him to cast about for another, more appealing "truth" - one that does not chafe against one's wishes, but rather satisfies one's perhaps unstated, tacit, and even unconscious desires. It is our human bent toward the corruption of wanting that to which we are not entitled that tends to drive us toward other corruptions, such as declaring a given issue or question either intractable or at least monumentally difficult, even though it is actually quite simple and logically intuitive once we accept the displeasing truths that attach to it. And so we arrive at the reality where people want a state of existence that enjoys all the benefits of freedom without having to bear any of the costs and other burdens of being free. Either we want that which cannot exist, the proverbial "free lunch," or we hypocritically wish to deny to others the freedoms which we arrogate to ourselves, often most stridently.
It is sad to observe the seemingly overwhelming proclivity of the average human being to resort to all manner of mental gymnastics to justify the wanting of what they want, no matter how obviously ridiculous or even criminal those things may be, not to mention the lengths to which they will go pursuant to attaining them. We could speculate endlessly as to why so vast a majority behave in this manner. I am not, however, interested in such expenditures of effort at this time. Rather, I am interested in uncovering those simple and obvious truths that define the metes and bounds of proper human relations. I will add that those principles so very happily coincide with the inherent freedoms of each and every human individual.
Beginning at the beginning, there must be a postulate - an assumption - whose innate truth is so blatantly obvious as to be acceptable to all sane, rational, and honest men. Likewise, the self-evident nature of this assumption must be such that those refusing to accept it are instantly put upon with great and immediate strain to credibly support their refusal of such a base assumption. Once accepted, the postulate becomes the bedrock upon which all that follows is built.
As such, the postulate must be not only intuitively self-evident, but also irreducible such that it cannot be validly further subdivided, conceptually, in any relevantly meaningful way. It must in itself represent a conceptually atomic primitive. This notion, to which we will refer as the Cardinal Postulate (CP) and which I would like to now offer as the basis of a set of principles of proper human relations, is as follows:
"All men are equally endowed with life"
At first blush, the assertion may seem odd, even silly, and of questionable relevance. This is perhaps precisely because it is so obvious as to not merit mention. After all, is this not a deeply tacit assumption held by most of us - so deep in fact that we may never even have given it a thought until just now having read it for the first time? That is the precise quality for which one should always seek when establishing a foundational assumption upon which to base a line of reasoning. It is especially true of those philosophical treatises, the tenets of which purport to be mandates justly imposed upon free men. Such fiats must be based upon foundational assertions that are precisely so obvious that no man deemed to be in his wits could possibly reject them. The burden to which one would be put in supporting rejection of the assertion would be so monumental that the correctness of the assertion may be relied upon with supreme confidence†.
From this simple, self-evident observation, one may now proceed to derive the sequiturs that issue therefrom.
It helps to note specifically that one is either alive or not alive. It is of no import as to the character of one's specific state of being alive at any given moment with respect to the question of whether the person in question is, in fact, alive. It is useless to speak of degrees of being alive, though people are in the unfortunate habit of thinking in such terms. For example, one might say of a man clinging to life in the wake of a terrible automobile crash that he is "barely alive." While emotionally compelling, in point of fact the degree to which the man is alive is not really relevant to the question of whether he is alive. He remains so until he dies, regardless of the quality of his life. In other words, life is life and all life as such is equivalent.
But carrying forth into the relevancies of human relations, and working under the tacit assumption of the Meta Postulate, the Cardinal Postulate zeroes in on humanity very specifically, making a correct application of the Meta Postulate in the context of human life. This arrangement may seem a mite arbitrary, for could we not say that the Meta Postulate could as readily be regarded as the Cardinal Postulate? We could, but to my thinking it is better to take that which the Meta Postulate establishes broadly and narrow its context to the population in question: humanity. This way we remain clear in terms of context and avoid irrelevant wanderings, such as the consideration of the lives of influenza viruses.
Therefore, our Cardinal Postulate tacitly carries with it the Meta Postulate, but only so far as it applies to human beings because we are not discussing the lives of hummingbirds.
To further beat the dead horse, consider the man barely clinging to life in the context of the human Law. Were you to unplug his life-sustaining devices, you would almost certainly be charged with murder. A defense of "well, he was only barely alive" as justification for your act would not be likely to sway a jury to acquit you. Even if only tacitly held, the members of that jury nonetheless would likely have the deep and very powerful sense that regardless of the patient's condition, perhaps even because of it, you had no right to unplug him. This is certainly so in the absence of his consent, especially where there remained even so much as a thin-slice hope that he might recover. You would have taken the entirety of his life, not just some remnant scrap. We are alive, or we are not. There is nothing in between.
Based on that profoundly felt sense of life, you would then and thereby be rightly convicted of murder.
It is here that things become interesting. The status of being alive is bivalent. One is alive, or he is not. If one is alive, his status as such is perfectly equal with that of all other men. This is what it means to be "equal" in philosophical terms. In the relevant sense, equality here is precise sameness, and in terms of each of us being alive, every individual is precisely the same as all others.
From that point on, however, each individual begins to rapidly depart from his fellows in terms of the specific qualities of his life, which are largely the everyday characteristics of the individual in all of its manifold expressions. It is this distinction between the most fundamental fact of being alive and the superimposed characteristics of that life that must be understood in order to come to a clear apprehension of the nature of men and of the proper order of their interrelations.
There is a fundamental difference between raw, undifferentiated life and the characteristics a given life may assume, this being most clearly exemplified when comparing a human being with a goldfish. Both are alive, and yet a man and a goldfish, as a man and as a goldfish, are not the same. Speaking now of humans specifically, some of us are male, others female. Some have light skin tone, others dark. Some are tall, some short. Some like vanilla ice cream, others chocolate. But in my opinion, nobody in their right mind likes strawberry. As you can see, these qualities, characteristics, and preferences are all a little different, individual to individual, and yet we all share the common fundamental characteristic of being alive. Chunks of stone don't enjoy chocolate.
Let it be also pointed out that the ways in which any given human being regards a specific "quality" or "characteristic" of a given life are often determined by the various cultural influences that shape one's perceptions of those attributes. What appears to one man a wondrous quality may seem displeasing, perhaps even hateful, to another—as with strawberry ice cream. There is no single standard of judgment for individual preferences, but there is an objective standard for judging whether human life exists in a specific case.
Let us briefly summarize our findings thus far.
Life is life, regardless of its shape, flavor, and other specific features. Poor or wealthy, tall or short, handsome or homely, healthy or sickly, in all such cases one is alive, and that status of being alive is perfectly equal to that of every other individual. As such and in that regard, all lives are equal, all outward manifestations that might suggest otherwise notwithstanding. Therefore, all lives merit equal respect when considered solely as lives, regardless of the differing superficialities of those lives in terms of the manifold and seemingly divergent attributes to be found with each individual.
This may seem like splitting semantic hairs, but in fact the idea is important and should be understood by all people because if we are all equally alive, then our lives are, in sé, perfectly equivalent between any and all individuals. This means that one life is neither inferior nor superior to that of any other in any fundamental sense when such comparative assertions are subjected to the withering light of competent analysis. If one's status of being alive is perfectly equal to every other's, those statuses must therefore be regarded and treated as being perfectly equal. After all, upon what would a standard of less-than-equal be justifiably based? Upon what basis could we reasonably say that my life, as life, is inherently superior to yours, or yours mine?
Accepting the Cardinal Postulate settles all issues and leaves us with a refreshing simplicity that is not only intuitively clear and obvious, but rather pleasing in terms of the implications it carries for one and all. On the other hand, rejection of the CP opens a vast and literally never-ending path of very messy questions that represent the king of all cans of worms precisely because there are no dead-end answers, those which do not lead to more questions whose answers lead to further questions. Rinse and repeat, ad infinitum. Practically speaking, however, we rapidly come to perceive the pattern of similarly dissatisfying answers that leads to more questions in the style of an infinite loop, which in itself is a dead-end answer of sorts - one which leads to the only reasonable conclusion that rejection of the Cardinal Postulate is invalid.
From the Cardinal Postulate follows a small body of consequents that include principles and their corollaries. Let us now examine them directly. Note: Throughout this work, reference is made to "Free Man" and "Criminal". Free Man is man's natural status as a human being, whereas Criminal is a status brought about by his own culpable conduct where he has violated the equal rights of another.
This is what we have thus far:
Meta Postulate:
There is a fundamental difference between raw, undifferentiated life and the characteristics a given life may assume, this being most clearly exemplified when comparing a human being with a goldfish. Both are alive, and yet a man and a goldfish, as a man and as a goldfish, are not the same. Speaking now of humans specifically, some of us are male, others female. Some have light skin tone, others dark. Some are tall, some short. Some like vanilla ice cream, others chocolate. But in my opinion, nobody in their right mind likes strawberry. As you can see, these qualities, characteristics, and preferences are all a little different, individual to individual, and yet we all share the common fundamental characteristic of being alive. Chunks of stone don't enjoy chocolate.
Let it be also pointed out that the ways in which any given human being regards a specific "quality" or "characteristic" of a given life are often determined by the various cultural influences that shape one's perceptions of those attributes. What appears to one man a wondrous quality may seem displeasing, perhaps even hateful, to another—as with strawberry ice cream. There is no single standard of judgment for individual preferences, but there is an objective standard for judging whether human life exists in a specific case.
Let us briefly summarize our findings thus far.
Life is life, regardless of its shape, flavor, and other specific features. Poor or wealthy, tall or short, handsome or homely, healthy or sickly, in all such cases one is alive, and that status of being alive is perfectly equal to that of every other individual. As such and in that regard, all lives are equal, all outward manifestations that might suggest otherwise notwithstanding. Therefore, all lives merit equal respect when considered solely as lives, regardless of the differing superficialities of those lives in terms of the manifold and seemingly divergent attributes to be found with each individual.
This may seem like splitting semantic hairs, but in fact the idea is important and should be understood by all people because if we are all equally alive, then our lives are, in sé, perfectly equivalent between any and all individuals. This means that one life is neither inferior nor superior to that of any other in any fundamental sense when such comparative assertions are subjected to the withering light of competent analysis. If one's status of being alive is perfectly equal to every other's, those statuses must therefore be regarded and treated as being perfectly equal. After all, upon what would a standard of less-than-equal be justifiably based? Upon what basis could we reasonably say that my life, as life, is inherently superior to yours, or yours mine?
Accepting the Cardinal Postulate settles all issues and leaves us with a refreshing simplicity that is not only intuitively clear and obvious, but rather pleasing in terms of the implications it carries for one and all. On the other hand, rejection of the CP opens a vast and literally never-ending path of very messy questions that represent the king of all cans of worms precisely because there are no dead-end answers, those which do not lead to more questions whose answers lead to further questions. Rinse and repeat, ad infinitum. Practically speaking, however, we rapidly come to perceive the pattern of similarly dissatisfying answers that leads to more questions in the style of an infinite loop, which in itself is a dead-end answer of sorts - one which leads to the only reasonable conclusion that rejection of the Cardinal Postulate is invalid.
From the Cardinal Postulate follows a small body of consequents that include principles and their corollaries. Let us now examine them directly. Note: Throughout this work, reference is made to "Free Man" and "Criminal". Free Man is man's natural status as a human being, whereas Criminal is a status brought about by his own culpable conduct where he has violated the equal rights of another.
This is what we have thus far:
Meta Postulate:
00 - All life, as life stripped of all incidental trappings, is perfectly equal.
Meta Corollaries:
00.1 - No life, as life, is superior to another.00.2 - No life, as life, holds a claim to life superior to that of another.00.3 - All life, as life, is valid of itself by virtue of its nature.00.4 - All life, as life, tends to seek to preserve, edify, and advance its interests, such as they may be.00.5 - The advancement of such interests is valid.
Life is life, regardless of form, but the human arena brings specifics relevant to the issue of Human Relations:
Cardinal Postulate:
This assertion narrows the discussion to humanity to the exclusion of all other forms of life on planet earth, yet the Meta Postulate holds in any event and is carried tacitly forth in the Cardinal Postulate.
0 - All men are equally endowed with life.
This assertion narrows the discussion to humanity to the exclusion of all other forms of life on planet earth, yet the Meta Postulate holds in any event and is carried tacitly forth in the Cardinal Postulate.
Because all men are so endowed, we find the Prime Corollaries:
0.1 - Where no relevant essential difference exists, no difference in inherent entitlement can be justified.
0.2 - All men hold equal claims to life, regardless of their ability to outwardly express or assert them.
0.3 - No man's claim to life is inherently superior or inferior to that of another.
0.4 - A man is born the sole owner of his life, that life being his First Property.
0.5 - No man holds an inherent claim upon the life of another.
Explanatory note: Each person has presumptive exclusive authority over his own person; no other person holds inherent authority over him nor acquires it merely by asserting it, possessing power, or joining with others.
The equal rights of men imply the Cardinal Principle:
1 - Every man is equal in his fundamental rights and authority with respect to every other man.
Explanatory note: Where essential equivalence is established, unequal claims require objective justification. To assert otherwise is to incur the burden of establishing the relevant distinctions, the standards by which they are judged, and the validity of those standards. Absent such justification, inequality is arbitrary. Equality requires no such additional assumptions.
By virtue of the equal authority that the universally equal claim to life bestows upon and between all men, we now have a basis for the Cardinal Proscription:
-1 - No man may trespass upon or otherwise violate the equal fundamental rights of another. Any such violation constitutes an injury in itself, regardless of whether additional damage ensues.
From these, the following derive and are sustained:
Primary Derivatives:
6.0 Crimes and Criminality
6.1 - A Free Man whose conduct violates the Cardinal Proscription may incur criminal culpability, civil liability for a tort, or both, as applicable. Breach of a valid contract may independently establish liability for violation of a contractual right, whether or not the breach also violates the Cardinal Proscription.
6.2 - A Free Man having committed a Crime loses his status as a Free Man and assumes that of a Criminal until he has made his victims whole to the extent possible, served such punishment as is lawfully imposed commensurate with the nature and gravity of his crime, and discharged all other obligations established through adjudication.
6.3 - A Criminal may, by virtue of his wrongful acts, become subject to justified restrictions upon the exercise of his rights, including consequences that may lawfully extend to the forfeiture of his life.
Primary Derivatives:
2.0 The Rights of Free Men Are Absolute In Accord With The Cardinal Postulate, its Corollaries, and the Cardinal Proscription
2.1 - Every man is free with respect to every other man — his right to free praxis.
2.2 - No man is inherently beholden to another, save that he respects the Cardinal Proscription - his right to be free from unjustified interference from others.
2.3 - All inherent Human Rights are grounded in a man's rightful claim to his First Property: his life.
2.4 - The exercise of any right is just and valid if and only if it does not violate the Cardinal Proscription.
2.5 - The Just and Valid Rights of men are absolute because no valid authority exists to extinguish, diminish, or arbitrarily deny them.
2.6 - No man acquires an obligation merely by virtue of another's unproven assertion that such obligation exists.
3.0 The Nature Of Rights Between Men
3.1 - Normatively, the rights of all men have, as such, equal validity, power, salience, and effect between them.
3.2 - No group possesses inherent rights independent of those of its individual members. Individuals may exercise their rights collectively, but such association creates no additional inherent authority. Rights are not additive: the rights of any number of men cannot override the equal inherent rights of a single man merely by weight of numbers.
3.3 - A single man, or his representatives, may assert his just and valid rights against the contrary will of any number of others, individually or collectively, insofar as that will would violate his rights.
3.4 — Men are inherently self-governing entities and, as such, are responsible for governing themselves. Where incapacity prevents effective self-governance, others may act on the individual's behalf, but only under authority that is protective, limited, and justified by the actual incapacity, never merely by conduct others find objectionable.
3.5 - Those who fail to govern themselves such that their behaviors violate the rights of others, whether intentionally or through negligence, may be governed by others only to the extent and for so long as objectively justified by the violation and its lawful consequences, until all necessary amendments are made and proper self-governance is restored.
4.0 Human Rights Are Property Rights
4.0 Human Rights Are Property Rights
4.1 - A man is the sole owner and proprietor of his own life, which constitutes his First Property.
4.2 - All men are free to acquire property unto their possession to the degree that rightful acts may provide.
4.3 - The licit acquisition of property establishes a just and valid claim, or "right," to that property.
4.4 — All men are free to keep, use, and dispose of their rightful property as they see fit, subject to the inalienability of First Property and the Cardinal Proscription.
4.5 - No man may assert or exercise authority over another man without the other's free, perfect, and informed consent, except where otherwise justified by the Cardinal Proscription.
4.6 — All men hold the absolute authority to defend their rights against trespass and other threats of damage thereto, except where and to the extent that such authority is justifiably restricted by the lawful consequences of their criminal conduct.
4.7 - No man or group thereof may coercively interfere with or obstruct the rightful acts or other prerogatives of a Free Man, regardless of any purported authority to the contrary.
4.7 - No man or group thereof may coercively interfere with or obstruct the rightful acts or other prerogatives of a Free Man, regardless of any purported authority to the contrary.
Explanatory note: First Property is inherently inalienable. Therefore, though a Free Man may voluntarily delegate authority over his conduct through contract, no agreement may permanently extinguish his self-ownership or his authority to withdraw consent. Withdrawal does not necessarily extinguish lawful contractual obligations.
Explanatory Note: "Perfect" consent is consent complete in all particulars material to the matter for which it is given, sufficient to establish its validity.
5.0 The Right to Contracts and Consensual Agreements
5.1 - All men retain the right to enter into contracts and other agreements with one another, singly and severally, though its exercise may be restricted only to the extent justified by the individual’s criminal conduct and its consequences under the Cardinal Proscription.
5.1 - All men retain the right to enter into contracts and other agreements with one another, singly and severally, though its exercise may be restricted only to the extent justified by the individual’s criminal conduct and its consequences under the Cardinal Proscription.
6.0 Crimes and Criminality
6.1 - A Free Man whose conduct violates the Cardinal Proscription may incur criminal culpability, civil liability for a tort, or both, as applicable. Breach of a valid contract may independently establish liability for violation of a contractual right, whether or not the breach also violates the Cardinal Proscription.
6.2 - A Free Man having committed a Crime loses his status as a Free Man and assumes that of a Criminal until he has made his victims whole to the extent possible, served such punishment as is lawfully imposed commensurate with the nature and gravity of his crime, and discharged all other obligations established through adjudication.
6.3 - A Criminal may, by virtue of his wrongful acts, become subject to justified restrictions upon the exercise of his rights, including consequences that may lawfully extend to the forfeiture of his life.
6.4 - A Free Man who commits a tort or applicable breach of contract may be held accountable for the resulting injury and any obligations justly arising therefrom.
6.5 - Willful refusal to satisfy a just and lawful judgment, where compliance is reasonably possible, constitutes a separate wrongful act for which the offender may be held accountable. No judgment contrary to the Cardinal Proscription imposes a valid obligation.
Explanatory note: Injury alone does not establish criminal culpability. Culpability requires wrongful conduct, whether intentional or negligent. Negligence consists in the failure to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances. Harm resulting from pure accident, where reasonable care was exercised, establishes no culpability.
A Free Man need not exercise every right he possesses, but he must never be compelled to surrender one merely for another's convenience. Voluntary restraint is an exercise of freedom, whereas compelled surrender is its negation.
This, methinks, is the Canon, more or less. It may require tuning, but I do believe that what we have here has more or less captured the essence of what it means to live properly among and amid one's fellows.
I invite and challenge anyone and everyone to examine it and attempt to punch holes in the logic it employs and the notions it conveys.
We have described the fundamental nature of men's rights and how they relate one to the other. We have captured the single circumscription that exists to limit men's prerogatives and what it means in the most general terms when they violate those limits.
The rest, so far as I can tell, are matters of a secondary and perhaps changeable nature addressing the proper formal responses to criminal acts. Once codified, I do believe that the entire and correct basis for all human Law will have been established in a form that has perhaps never been before presented to the world, though I would not bet the farm on my speculative assertion.
Please do give this some thought. Play with it; take it apart; try to drill holes in it, smash it even. It is the only way to better ensure that what one has at hand is what he thinks it is, and is not something else.
Thanks for your time, and in advance for any thoughts you may share.
Until next time, please accept my best wishes.
I invite and challenge anyone and everyone to examine it and attempt to punch holes in the logic it employs and the notions it conveys.
We have described the fundamental nature of men's rights and how they relate one to the other. We have captured the single circumscription that exists to limit men's prerogatives and what it means in the most general terms when they violate those limits.
The rest, so far as I can tell, are matters of a secondary and perhaps changeable nature addressing the proper formal responses to criminal acts. Once codified, I do believe that the entire and correct basis for all human Law will have been established in a form that has perhaps never been before presented to the world, though I would not bet the farm on my speculative assertion.
Please do give this some thought. Play with it; take it apart; try to drill holes in it, smash it even. It is the only way to better ensure that what one has at hand is what he thinks it is, and is not something else.
Thanks for your time, and in advance for any thoughts you may share.
Until next time, please accept my best wishes.
†Nonetheless, it is always good form to question even that which seems supremely and irrefutably true, just to keep ourselves in good habits of thought and reason, lest we fall into the trap of blind acceptance without giving an "established" truth a good thrashing to confirm that it is, indeed, true.
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