Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Wed Aug 06, 2025 1:58 pm**

some founders' "property" included slaves

-Imp

Posted: **Wed Aug 06, 2025 2:39 pm**

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 1:36 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 3:11 am
In point of fact, Libertarianism goes along very well with any religion that is premised on personal faith. John Locke pointed this out: a man cannot be “forced to heaven,” he said. And upon this fact, he grounded not only the right to free conscience, but the basic rights to life, liberty and property as well. And you can easily look that up. It’s in his “Second Treatise," actually, if you want help finding it. And it’s quoted in the Declaration of Independence, as the basis for human rights. So much for that, then.

and to be allowed to live and die by the consequences of that choice, of course, just as a Libertarian desires to be allowed to do. For even for Libertarians, there is no choice that is free of consequences.
But do note, using Locke directly (and thus enshrining "property") was in the draft versions of the Declaration. After debate, changed to the more general "pursuit of happiness”.

Well, all the founders were Aristotelians about that. Aristotle was the only game in town, at that time, in fact. There was no influence of either of the two competitors for Virtue Ethics in existence at that time: no Kant, no Mill, and none of their subsidiaries. The whole field was dominated by Aristotelian suppositions.

What they meant by “pursuit of happiness” was eudaimonia, and that Aristotelian word that does not mean, as so many people wrongly think today, “the right to do anything you want if it makes you happy”; eudaimonia means "sponsored by a good spirit,” i.e. “blessed (by the gods)”. And you can see this from their employment of the phrase, “endowed by their Creator.” For there is no unalienable right given by any account of the Creator to “do what you please,” but rather, there is a right to pursue that course of life the Creator intended, the one He would “bless,” the eudaimonic life, Aristotle-style, converted into Deistic and Theistic terms.

So the three rights are life, liberty and pursuit of God’s blessing in life. And that’s totally in keeping with Locke. Moreover, the founders grounded the claim to all three in nothing other than the “endowment” by the “Creator,” just as Locke said. It wasn’t contempt for property as a right that motivated them: it was the idea of Aristotelian “blessedness,” of which every one of them would have thought the right to property was surely a part, just as Locke had argued.

In fact, “property” is actually the better option. And the reasons for an unalienable right to property were logically spelled out by Locke, in precise terms. Since Locke, nobody has invented ANY justification for natural rights at all. So Locke’s the only game in town, when it comes to those.

Posted: **Wed Aug 06, 2025 2:40 pm**

Impenitent wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 1:58 pm some founders' "property" included slaves

-Imp

True: but they were Democrats.

Posted: **Wed Aug 06, 2025 3:09 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 2:40 pm
Impenitent wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 1:58 pm some founders' "property" included slaves

-Imp
True: but they were Democrats.

The Democrat party was founded in 1828.

Posted: **Wed Aug 06, 2025 3:25 pm**

Alexiev wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 3:09 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 2:40 pm
Impenitent wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 1:58 pm some founders' "property" included slaves

-Imp
True: but they were Democrats.
The Democrat party was founded in 1828.

The entire South, including those Southern founders, were going to become Democrats. And ONLY Democrats were going to end up owning slaves. So the conflation of "property" with "human being" was never going to happen in the north, or for the Republicans. From beginning to end, it was going to be a Democrat product...as was the KKK, and every Segregationist governor.

Posted: **Wed Aug 06, 2025 4:11 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 3:25 pm
The entire South, including those Southern founders, were going to become Democrats. And ONLY Democrats were going to end up owning slaves. So the conflation of "property" with "human being" was never going to happen in the north, or for the Republicans. From beginning to end, it was going to be a Democrat product...as was the KKK, and every Segregationist governor.

When you get caught in one lie, you inevitably double down. The Democrats have successfully battled segregation for 60 years now. YOur idiotic comments are like saying, "The British monarchy supports drawing and quartering."

Posted: **Wed Aug 06, 2025 4:35 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 2:46 am
Nope, that's not it Mike. It's simpler than that: Secularism itself has no basis for morality in it, and cannot explain the duty involved in any precept at all. That's all by itself. No religion involved.

It doesn’t matter about anybody’s “religion,” in this case. Secularism fails on its own terms, and would fail at the task of grounding morality even if Secularism were the only belief system on earth. That is the point.

You continue to miss what you need to show. Let me try once more to explain. And let me first split what you want to show into specific and general.

Specific ---- For SOME PARTICULAR system of secular morality you want to claim it is invalid. You want to show that the moral rule set based on this secular principle or these principles will result, in some situation, in a DECISION (right or wrong) about a choice of action different from your what your divinely based system will give. The other person is a secularist, so you need to demonstrate an OPERATIONAL difference.

General ---- MUCH more difficult. You are arguing that NO secular basis rule set could result in a rule set that resulted in the same decision in all situations.

For some reason, you think it enough to argue "my rule set comes from god and yours doesn't". That this alone would make the secular rule set wrong/invalid EVEN IF for all situations it always gave the same answer "right" or "wrong". Do you really want to defend that? The secularist agrees with you that your rule set comes from god and his or hers doesn't. What the secularist is insisting on (and rightly from a secularist point of view) is "show me where that makes a difference" (when the systems of morality are applied)

Might I humbly suggest that your premise is not JUST "my rule set comes from god and so is correct" but more like "my rule set comes from god and so is correct and UNIQUELY correct" (no other rule set could be correct). But THAT doesn't depend on the powers of god but on the nature of all possible moral rule sets.

BTW, even if you do manage to show a difference (in the specific case) not game over. You now get to argue which choice of action is really right.Remember, god as depicted in the Bible as accepted by Jews is willing to enter moral debate with man (for example, for the sake of how many good people should Sodom be spared).

Posted: **Wed Aug 06, 2025 6:21 pm**

Oh, and that unique would be in the operationally unique sense (the answers from applying the rule set unique). Though for the life of me, can't see why might not apply to individual rules. I mean, just because the divine set has "stealing is wrong" why should we imagine that a secular rule set might not include "stealing is wrong" also.

BTW, for now I am treating "right" vs "wrong" binary, the minimum. We could also ask of a system og=f morality "of all the right choices, which is the best, most right. IMHO a system of morality is intended to be practical, guide us to making right choices in the real world, real time.Given unlimited time to ponder maybe we could decide that although X was a right action, Y would have been even more right. The interplay between different rules in the rule set can be very complicated.

Posted: **Wed Aug 06, 2025 6:40 pm**

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 4:35 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 2:46 am
Nope, that's not it Mike. It's simpler than that: Secularism itself has no basis for morality in it, and cannot explain the duty involved in any precept at all. That's all by itself. No religion involved.

It doesn’t matter about anybody’s “religion,” in this case. Secularism fails on its own terms, and would fail at the task of grounding morality even if Secularism were the only belief system on earth. That is the point.
You continue to miss what you need to show.

No, I don’t. I show Secularism cannot provide warrant for even one moral precept. That’s the point. That’s it.

Specific ---- For SOME PARTICULAR system of secular morality you want to claim it is invalid.

No, it’s ALL Secular moralities. There’s no specific one that has any more success than any other. And you can try it yourself, and find out I’m right. There’s no such Secular scheme. So let’s go straight to the “general,” because that’s where the claim is.

Might I humbly suggest that your premise is not JUST "my rule set comes from god and so is correct”...

That’s merely your summary of what you hope or imagine I’ll be arguing. But I’m not. So you can abandon that assumption entirely. It’s not serving you well here.

May I humbly suggest that in your reflections on the matter, you consider nothing but Secularism, and only on its own terms, and drop all the irrelevancies. As I pointed out: if it were the case that not even one “religious” system could do one stroke better than Secularism, it still wouldn’t mean that Secularism could do it.

Secularism stands or falls on its own two feet. All cavilling about “other ways” does not change that one iota.

Posted: **Wed Aug 06, 2025 6:47 pm**

Alexiev wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 4:11 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 3:25 pm
The entire South, including those Southern founders, were going to become Democrats. And ONLY Democrats were going to end up owning slaves. So the conflation of "property" with "human being" was never going to happen in the north, or for the Republicans. From beginning to end, it was going to be a Democrat product...as was the KKK, and every Segregationist governor.
When you get caught in one lie, you inevitably double down.

Well, you’d have to catch me in some “lie” to say that. And I’m telling the truth. All the credible history books will tell you exactly the same thing: there were no Republican slave owners (with the exception of Ulysses S. Grant himself, actually; but he inherited one as a gift from his father-in-law when he married his Southern Democrat wife) — every one of them was a Democrat, and passionately so. They fought a Civil War over it, if you remember…and “the Grey” was the South, and they were…remind me; which was it? For or against slavery? And the North, they were “the Blue,” and marched against slavery, and were…yep: the Republicans.

The Democrats have successfully battled segregation for 60 years now.

They didn’t. Check your history. Every single slave owner, all the original members of the KKK, and every Southern governor who turned the hoses and dogs on the Freedom Marchers was….that’s right…a Democrat.

Why do so few people know that? Only because they don’t check the history books. And they’ve been sold a lie about a “Southern Reversal” they allege happened in the 60s. But it never did. Still, to this day, Democrats are absolutely desperate to divest themselves of their own past record, and if possible, to push it onto their opponents.

But those who read history know. So read the history. You’ll find I’m right.

Posted: **Wed Aug 06, 2025 8:52 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 6:47 pm [
Well, you’d have to catch me in some “lie” to say that. And I’m telling the truth. All the credible history books will tell you exactly the same thing: there were no Republican slave owners (with the exception of Ulysses S. Grant himself, actually; but he inherited one as a gift from his father-in-law when he married his Southern Democrat wife) — every one of them was a Democrat, and passionately so. They fought a Civil War over it, if you remember…and “the Grey” was the South, and they were…remind me; which was it? For or against slavery? And the North, they were “the Blue,” and marched against slavery, and were…yep: the Republicans.
The Democrats have successfully battled segregation for 60 years now.
They didn’t. Check your history. Every single slave owner, all the original members of the KKK, and every Southern governor who turned the hoses and dogs on the Freedom Marchers was….that’s right…a Democrat.

Why do so few people know that? Only because they don’t check the history books. And they’ve been sold a lie about a “Southern Reversal” they allege happened in the 60s. But it never did. Still, to this day, Democrats are absolutely desperate to divest themselves of their own past record, and if possible, to push it onto their opponents.

But those who read history know. So read the history. You’ll find I’m right.

]"some founders' "property" included slaves:

Response from IC:

True: but they were Democrats

Since the Democrat Party would not exist for 50 years after the founding of the U.S., this is clearly a lie.

Everyone knows Abe Lincoln was a Republican, and that the Republicans were anti-slavery in the 1850s and 60s. So what? Everyone knows British monarchs supported beheadings and drawing and quartering. We cannot assume Charles or Elizabeth 2 do likewise.

Posted: **Wed Aug 06, 2025 8:57 pm**

When were you ever right! Lies and distortions are part of your DNA. No escaping that. You really have a Trumpian sense of truth. Everything you say requires either a major revision, an outright denial or simply shaking one's head in disbelief!

Was every single slave owner, all the original members of the KKK, and every Southern governor a Democrat?

No, not every single slave owner, original member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), or Southern governor was a Democrat, though there was a significant correlation between the Democratic Party and these groups during certain periods of American history.

### 1. **Slave Owners**

* **Predominantly Democratic**: The majority of slave owners in the South during the 18th and 19th centuries were associated with the **Democratic Party**, particularly in the pre-Civil War era. This was because the Democratic Party was the dominant political force in the South at the time, and it supported the institution of slavery.
* However, not all slave owners were Democrats, and there were some in the South who identified with other political groups, but they were in the minority.

### 2. **Original Members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK)**

* **Democratic Connection**: The KKK was founded in **1865** by a group of former Confederate soldiers, many of whom were aligned with the Democratic Party, especially in the South. The Klan's primary aim was to resist Reconstruction and maintain white supremacy, and it was active in the Democratic-controlled Southern states.
* That said, it would be an oversimplification to say that **every** member of the Klan was a Democrat. The Klan was more of a paramilitary organization aligned with Southern white supremacy rather than a formal political party. However, it was strongly linked to the interests of the Democratic Party in the post-Reconstruction South, as the Democrats were the dominant political force in the region at that time.

### 3. **Southern Governors**

* **Predominantly Democratic**: In the **pre-Civil War** and **Reconstruction eras**, almost all Southern governors were Democrats because the Democratic Party was the dominant political party in the South. The Democratic Party was closely associated with defending slavery, and after the Civil War, Southern Democrats opposed Reconstruction efforts and civil rights for African Americans.
* However, as the **20th century** progressed, particularly after the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, many Southern politicians (including governors) began switching their allegiance to the **Republican Party** due to the growing support for civil rights within the Democratic Party. This shift, often referred to as the **Southern Strategy**, resulted in more conservative Southerners aligning with the GOP by the 1970s and 1980s.

### Summary:

* **Slave Owners**: Mostly Democrats in the South, but not universally.
* **KKK Members**: Tied to the Democratic Party during Reconstruction, but as an extremist group, it wasn't a direct political affiliation.
* **Southern Governors**: Predominantly Democrats pre-1960s, but a significant political shift occurred as part of the Civil Rights Movement and the Southern Strategy.

The political landscape of the U.S. underwent significant shifts over time, especially when it comes to party ideologies and regional politics, making it important to view this history in context.

Posted: **Thu Aug 07, 2025 12:27 am**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 6:40 pm
Nope, that's not it Mike. It's simpler than that: Secularism itself has no basis for morality in it, and cannot explain the duty involved in any precept at all. That's all by itself. No religion involved.

No, I don’t. I show Secularism cannot provide warrant for even one moral precept. That’s the point. That’s it.

No, it’s ALL Secular moralities. There’s no specific one that has any more success than any other. And you can try it yourself, and find out I’m right. There’s no such Secular scheme. So let’s go straight to the “general,” because that’s where the claim is.

Now I am really unsure of what you are trying to say.

Are you arguing that no secularists have ever proposed a basis for morality, and from that basis generated a set of rules?. Rules that when applied to a situation and a proposed choice of action evaluate "right" or "wrong" If you say you've never seen one, we can show you such attempts. Remember, at this point NOT making a claim that this secular moral system is good for anything.

OK, you say you do have a valid moral code, based on the rule set given by divine authority.

Now I am going to argue
"If a moral system applied to a situation and choice of action always gives the same evaluation as a known valid moral system applied to that same situation and choice of action, then it is also a valid system".
It is operationally valid, and irrelevant where the rules of its rule set came from. Their warrant is "we work together to give the correct answer"

Do you agree with that or not. If you say "not", explain why not. I believe you are using (in addition to) "this rule set valid because divine" something like "and it is unique" (NO OTHER RULE SET COULD ALWAYS GIVE THE SAME EVALUATIONS). Are you sure you want to go there? You mean even god could not come up with an alternate set of rules that would give the same evaluation.

I am arguing that in order to claim a secular rule set invalid, attacking its basis, warrant, etc is meaningless*. What you have to do is find a situation and choice of action such that the secular system disagrees with your known valid one. That should settle the matter for YOU that the secular system is wrong. (the secularist might not agree your divine moral system is valid, heck, might not even recognize your divinity)

* The way I have defined "also valid" there doesn't have to be any basis/warrant. Say there is a heap of 100,000 moral precepts and we randomly select 40 of them and call the resulting rule set moral system Y. There is still a chance that it would test "also valid". It's not IMPOSSIBLE.

Posted: **Thu Aug 07, 2025 4:58 am**

Alexiev wrote: ↑Wed Aug 06, 2025 8:52 pm Since the Democrat Party would not exist for 50 years after the founding of the U.S., this is clearly a lie.

Let's revise: they were the same people who were to become the Democrats, to own slaves, to fight against the North that was trying to free them, to impose Segregation, and to fight against Civil Rights, and to establish the KKK...and now to sack black neighbourhoods in order to advance their Socialist aspirations...in other words, the Democrats.

Happy now?

Posted: **Thu Aug 07, 2025 5:08 am**

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Thu Aug 07, 2025 12:27 am Are you arguing that no secularists have ever proposed a basis for morality, and from that basis generated a set of rules?.

No, I'm saying Secularism could never justify any.

Secularists, the various people who believe Secularism, that is, have often attempted the impossible task, and in every case, failed. Secularism provides them with no warrant at all.

You can try yourself, if you think you can do better. Just come up with one moral axiom that Secularism requires.

There's no such thing. Try and see.

Now I am going to argue
"If a moral system applied to a situation and choice of action always gives the same evaluation as a known valid moral system applied to that same situation and choice of action, then it is also a valid system".

Not logical. You can't make an irrational system rational merely if some precept it has happens to or seems to agree with something else. That is to say, IF (and there's no such thing, according to Secularism) there were some "known valid" moral system you could use as the metric, having some accidental and non-rationalized overlap with an arbitrary or non-valid code would not make that non-valid code into a valid one.

Besides, Secularism has no valid moral system one could use in order to achieve such a magical transformation, even if it were rational to suppose one could...which it clearly isn't.

Do you agree with that or not.

No, for the reasons above. It's illogical.

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