Where did the Private Internal Moral Laws Arise from?

[henry quirk]

Then don't hang out with them.

I don't. The guys who broke into my house years ago: I didn't invite them.

The cops who execute no-knock warrants, often on the wrong house: they aren't invited.

The government that demands you license yourself to do business, and penalizes when you don't: not invited.

The nutjob who decides he doesn't like the look of you, and who, for that reason only, sucker punches you: not invited.

If you live among men: risk exists.

Obviously, if you're homebound, live in a gated community, are isolated, your risks are lower. I, however, prefer to live rather than live in fear, so I accept the real risks of bein' interfered with by bein' able and willin' to push back.

When I had your attitude

Based on your posts: I really don't think you know what my attitude is...about anything.

Like bubba: I don't think you're actually readin' my posts.

I seriously doubt anyone is after you or yours, Henry.

You misunderstand: it's not me who's a target...it's all of us, includin' you.

Nice lecturin', by the way...always nice to be spoken down to....

[Sculptor]

Morality has to be argued for. It is not "natural" though it might hang on natural tendencies, it is learned.

Oh, I have. I point to the simple fact that each man knows about himself -- that he is his own -- and I derive an ethic or morality from that: A man's life, liberty, and property are his; it's wrong to use him as property, to steal from him, to kill him, to defraud him, etc.

All those things are just second hand ideas from the American playbook. They are not yours.

I don't see how the fact or the ethic derived from the fact are disputable.

Mebbe you can?

C'mon, give it a shot.

It's obvious. You were born in the US and your moral naivete is totally predictable.

If you had been born a slave of Aristotle you would have thought yourself lucky, no, privileged, not to be a slave in the silver mines of Laurion most of whom lived no more than a couple of years before they died of lead poisoning. And you would have thought of yourself as very grand to be in the service of a great man.

[henry quirk]

All those things are just second hand ideas from the American playbook. They are not yours.

The fact -- you belong to you and no one else -- is self-evident to anyone, everywhere, any when. You know you are yours and no one else's, yeah?

The codification I use is Bastiat's. You believe a man in Tristan Da Cunha believes in his bones it's right to be property? You believe a man from one million years back didn't know he was his own? Only an American can believe he is his own?

As I say: Instinctually, invariably, unambiguously, a man knows he belongs to himself.

He doesn't reason it, doesn't work out the particulars of it in advance. He never wakens to it, never discovers it. It's not an opinion he arrives at or adopts. His self-possession, his ownness, is essential to what and who he is; it's concrete, non-negotiable, and consistent across all circumstances.

It's not American, it's human.

If you had been born a slave of Aristotle you would have thought yourself lucky not to be a slave in the silver mines of Laurion most of whom lived no more than a couple of years before they died of lead poisoning.

Sure, right along with wantin' to not be a slave to begin with.

Again: a man knows he belongs to himself, any man, any where or when. And when he's enslaved he knows it's wrong. That someone leashes him doesn't negate this fact.

[Sculptor]

All those things are just second hand ideas from the American playbook. They are not yours.

The fact -- you belong to you and no one else -- is self-evident to anyone, everywhere, any when. You know you are yours and no one else's, yeah?

The codification I use is Bastiat's. You believe a man in Tristan Da Cunha believes in his bones it's right to be property? You believe a man from one million years back didn't know he was his own? Only an American can believe he is his own?

As I say: Instinctually, invariably, unambiguously, a man knows he belongs to himself.

He doesn't reason it, doesn't work out the particulars of it in advance. He never wakens to it, never discovers it. It's not an opinion he arrives at or adopts. His self-possession, his ownness, is essential to what and who he is; it's concrete, non-negotiable, and consistent across all circumstances.

It's not American, it's human.

If you had been born a slave of Aristotle you would have thought yourself lucky not to be a slave in the silver mines of Laurion most of whom lived no more than a couple of years before they died of lead poisoning.

Sure, right along with wantin' to not be a slave to begin with.

Again: a man knows he belongs to himself, any man, any where or when. And when he's enslaved he knows it's wrong. That someone leashes him doesn't negate this fact.

You are a brain dead moron.
It's like talking to Trump.

[henry quirk]

You are a brain dead moron.

Mebbe so.

I'd like an answer: You know you are yours and no one else's, yeah?

[henry quirk]

Like how you tossed this one in...

And you would have thought of yourself as very grand to be in the service of a great man.

...after the fact.

I can, with absolute certainty, tell you any man, anywhere, any when, may resign himself to bein' slaved, but he never believes it to be right, that his place is to be property. He may count his blessings that he's comparatively well-treated, but he'll never number among his blessings bein' a slave.

Not me, not you, not anyone.

[Janoah]

where did this private internal Moral laws ... arise from?

They arise from conscience.

Leo Tolstoy has a saying,
"People speak of the tradition of moral doctrine, or religion, and of conscience as two separate guides of man. In reality, there is only one guide - conscience, because only conscience recognizes or does not recognize the traditions of moral teaching, or religion."

[promethean75]

I have no such thing as private internal moral laws and I don't know why you would say such a thing. All things are nothing to me, and I am perhaps the last of the great American immoralists.