Law is inherently wrong

[spuriousmonkey]

If you examine animal behavior at even the most basic level, basic morality is revealed. Interspecies killing is both rare, and frowned upon.

I think that this statement is incorrect. A member of the same species is a bigger rival in the struggle of life than a member of another species.

Lions will most of the time kill the pups when they take over the leadership of a group. This is not frowned upon. Lionesses will mate without qualm with the new leader.

Chimpansees are known for killing their own.

There is this classic example of a group of chimps splitting in two. One group was bigger than the other. Members of this group would stalk the periphery of their territory with the smaller group and kill a member that they find alone and vulnerable. After a while all the members of the smaller group had been killed or had rejoined the old group.

 

[laughing weasel]

Human values are not natural very few animals demonstrate the capability to conceive of the future much less plan for it. When you look at some of the basic human values there is usually some advantage in each one. Don’t kill= everyone has to sleep some time. Treat others as you would like to be treated = there is always someone bigger than you. If you name a basic human law I can show you how it supports human survival. We allow for specialization without predator control and that is a problem that we will deal with in time.

 

[Nasor]

Oh I would agree laws are vital for civilisation's success. But thats beside the point. If the only problem people had with people breaking the law was that they were not helping society I think their anger would be akin to someone who's angry with someone over not following cooking instructions.
Law is considered to be an ethical issue, largely. It is unethical to break the law, you are wrong for breaking the law and should be blamed because you are a bad human being, not just counterproductive. I'd agree that its counterproductive to break the law. It is actually like not following instructions.
But 'wrong' ? That seems like a big call.

I disagree. Many people follow the law as a matter of pragmatism. Maybe you're just spending all your time with self-righteous zealots? I would strongly suggest reading 'The Social Contract' by Rousseau. It's considered one of the preeminent pieces of writing on the origin of laws and society. Rousseau argues pretty convincingly that people originally started living in lawful societies because it increased their chances of survival, and that this is the foundation upon which all society and law is based. Or should be based, anyway.

Maybe evolution isn't right or wrong nasor, but by calling the actions of a human being wrong, you are calling evolution wrong whether you like it or not.
You seem to be trying to seperate evolution from the real world, like it is just something in your biology text book.
I think evolution is right, I think its earned that title at least, how animals behave is correct. Everything is either correct or incorrect.

You're missing my point. I'm saying that people working together in a society of law is the next step in human evolution. Humans who are able to control their impulses and work together productively are much more likely to be evolutionarily successful than humans who can't. You seem to view lawful society and the suppression of impulses as us straying from evolution, but that isn't the case. Living cooperatively in a society is just as valid a strategy for species survival as any other strategy found in nature. Instinctual impulses are just one of the many tools that animals can use to be evolutionarily successful, but you seem to have some sort of fixation with them.

Sadly this isn't the affect atheism has had on people. If anything athiests seem to follow the 'what would jesus do?' motto more rigidly than christians do.
I would understand that atheists don't want to go to jail and so on, but they should still feel like law is wrong. That should be a big movement, you know what I mean? 'Atheists against the punishment of instincts' but no.
They just haven't gone that far in their thinking yet I guess.

I would say it is you who haven't gotten far enough along in your thinking. You reject religious moral values as arbitrary and artificial, but by trying to use nature as a model for correct moral behavior you're just replacing religion with another, equally arbitrary value system. If you truly believe that morals are artificial human inventions, then you should realize that your nature-based moral system is just are artificial as any religious system. Yes, your moral values are based on something that exists in the real world, but you're failing to realize that there isn't really any reason to consider 'natural' behavior to be superior to 'unnatural' behavior. So other animals do it – so what? Worse, your value system isn't even very useful. At least the religious value systems usually have some utilitarian value, but it isn't clear that your 'natural' system would be of any benefit to anyone. By following your value system and giving in to all my natural impulses I would be drastically reducing my chances for a happy, healthy life.

You're falling into the trap of believing that there's something fundamentally correct about the way things are in nature. This is sometimes referred to as the 'naturalistic fallacy'. There's nothing inherently good, right, or moral about nature. It simply is. What logical basis do you have for believing that following out instincts is the morally correct way to behave?

 

[wesmorris]

OR
humans are inherently wrong

By humans I mean the animal humans naturally are.
Law demands these animals do not behave in the way evolution sculpted them to behave.

Would you side with the law on this? Do you feel evolution made a mistake, that humans are inherently an incorrect animal?
What do you base this on?

Man-made law is part of nature because man is part of nature - end of story.

 

[Dr Lou Natic]

Yes wes... and its natural that I'm starting to realise what a load of shit it is. And it will be natural when I cause an uprising of biblical proportions and change the face of the world as we know it. At least it would be if I did that, might as well give it a shot to see if its natural right?

Nasor,

What logical basis do you have for believing that following out instincts is the morally correct way to behave?

They weren't man made, thats pretty much it. Instincts are something we can't feel guilty about satisfying. The law disagrees, but we can look up at the stars and nod knowing we are correct, they are what we truely are, not something that has been imposed on us. We're like dogs trying to take a piss on telephone polls but being yanked away by our owners, fuck our owners, we gotta mark us some territory, nature instilled that into us for a reason.

If its possible to be wrong, like actually wrong in a way we should feel guilty about, it isn't by disobeying the law, but by disobeying our instincts.
You say I'm replacing religion with another just as arbitrary... how can you say there is anything arbitrary about the natural universe? Is there anything that isn't arbitrary to you? If nature is I can't imagine what you could justify as being significant.
Its another case of IF, if something is significant, its the natural world, you can committ to your proposal of everything being arbitrary, but this requires wandering around aimlessly and not behaving in any way, you can side with modern society but when you look back and see what its based on there are alot of things you have to trust which you really shouldn't.
Its just like religion, people don't have a problem with throwing away the belief in god but they don't extend that into throwing away the society that was based on the assumption of his existence.
The knowledge that increased suspicion over god's existence was that of the natural world. This knowledge is incredibly significant in my honest opinion. This is what we actually are, where we actually are, how we are here etc etc. This knowledge shouldn't stop with saying 'god probably doesn't exist', it should have a huge impact on everything. We should go back to the drawing board and really think about what we are doing. In doing so the sudden realisation is likely to come forthwith; We are supposed to do what we want to do. There is nothing left to obey but our animal selves, which by extension would be obeying the natural world and universe. The things which we owe our existence to.

Yes it is replacing one religion with another, except I'm proposing to replace it with one based on reality as opposed to one based on what we know is utter bullshit. You are all defending christianity, why? Don't you understand that you are? Law does traditionally rely on the assumption god exists, thats the whole reason it was ever accepted in the first place, now you try to justify god's law by saying its helpfull to society? That seems so ironic to me, because the society it is helping is based on it, of course it helps it, thats beside the point, if you don't believe in god you shouldn't want to help it. We're so conditioned for it that its the first thing we assume is correct, natural history tells us otherwise.
Athiests are supposed to believe in natural history, not god.

 

[Nasor]

Law does traditionally rely on the assumption god exists, thats the whole reason it was ever accepted in the first place, now you try to justify god's law by saying its helpfull to society?

No! Again, I suggest you read 'The Social Contract' by Rousseau.

You seem to be equating 'instinct' with 'natural'. Instincts are just one of the many tools that animals use to survive. There are plenty of others, including intelligence, which is the main tool of humans. We allow our intelligence and rationality to dominate over our instincts because it increases our chances of surviving, living a happy life, and just generally being evolutionarily successful. Evolution programmed you to survive. You must realize that you're more likely to survive if everyone works together in a lawful society than if everyone acts solely on their instincts. Our reliance on intellect rather than instinct is in no way unnatural. Evolution and natural selection gave us our brains precisely so that we could rationally evaluate our actions rather than simply being slaves to our instincts. You propose that we should follow our instincts because you think it would be more natural, but actually it is your 'morality of instincts' that is unnatural, because to follow it we would have to stop using the primary tool that nature has provided for us: our intelligence. It's no more 'natural' for us to run around acting on whatever instinct happens to pop into our head than it is for a dog to build a skyscraper.

You seem to be totally hung up on the idea that all law is because of religion, but that isn't true. The intelligence that nature has provided for me as my primary tool for survival tells me that I am more likely to survive if I live in a lawful society. End of story. I don't need to appeal to god, morality, or anything else. If there are laws, I am more likely to survive, and survival is what nature is all about.

 

[pavlosmarcos]

nasor all intelligence is lost when our live's are threatened so it is instinct first and foremost
one man's law is another's indifference,when in rome do as the roman's do etc.

End of story is silly statement as it's not is it

 

[laughing weasel]

Heroism is just the ability to ignore your fear for five minutes. There are people who are able to act calmly when terrified and their lives are in danger. The ability to reason is what makes us human. Laws are a tool to increase the reliability of our reaction to each other this predictability is what allows us to live together as a society. The difference between laws and customs is that laws are enforced consistently by the state and customs or instincts are only enforced informally and the punishments for violations are not as consistent.

 

[Neildo]

Well I'd hate to state the obvious, but aren't laws part of our evolution? Heh. So what's the problem? We don't know our place in the universe so we can't say what is right or wrong -- we can only feel and assume.

Sure, we can all go back to the basics and be little people in loincloths and spears, but who is to say that's how we're supposed to be? So we continue to advance and that's how laws come to be. If one wants to advance, one can't stay "in the basics". So whether law is wrong or not in the hinderances it may or may not give, that's part of the balance that is needed for us to advance and well, that's evolution so they're both one in the same thing.

There's so such thing as morals or right and wrong when we're not our creator to know what those rules are, if there's any period. And then if there are rules, why are our rules different from our creator's (if they are)? Morals are just rules that are agreed upon in the now. They change all the time like yesterday's underwear. What was once shunned upon is now common place. So there's no real rules set in stone otherwise we'd have the same laws as we did when we were in those loincloths chuckin spears.

So I wouldn't say laws or humans are wrong. The extremeties of each are wrong. Rely too much on those animal instincts and it's bad. Have too many laws and it's bad too. Just use those basic human instincts and you're fine and just use those basic laws and we're fine as well. Too much of either is when problems happen. Too many laws restrict us when it shouldn't be and too much animal instinct leads to chaos. Balance is what we need and it's why both still exist and are part of evolution.

- N

 

[Nasor]

nasor all intelligence is lost when our live's are threatened so it is instinct first and foremost
one man's law is another's indifference,when in rome do as the roman's do etc.

End of story is silly statement as it's not is it

Since it would be trivially easy to give all sorts of examples of life-threatening situations where people respond calmly and rationally – especially when the people in question have special training – I don't know why you would even bother trying to claim something so silly.

 

[Undecided]

Of course most laws is unnatural, but not laws. There is such a thing as natural law, which transcends all beings and is a universal truth for all humanity. I don’t think in any culture there is any form of dogma that allows murder of completely innocent people. Natural law has many implications, and many problems but laws exist in nature as well as in mankind. In nature although the law is not written down they are implied. Positive law theory is what I presume this conversation is really about. Positive law deals with things that nature doesn’t have things like corporate management crimes, drunk drivers, cars for that matter. I personally don’t buy the concept that no laws would lead to anarchy, I think it would lead to a temporary period of anarchy. Animals live in a constant state of anarchy, yet are they dying in WWII-esqe wars? No, humanity started without “law” as well yet was able to survive. When systems collapse we as humanity have to bond together and reach the communistic/anarcho system of interdependence, like we did during the time of the cave man.

 

[15ofthe19]

Dr. Lou you seem almost apologetic about being the supreme predator on this planet. Why? It's not your fault you were born superior to every other species on Earth. Stop apologizing for it and embrace it. You have it better and easier than any other thing that has to make a living everday on this ball of rock and water. You are the animal planet junkie, right? You should already know that.

If you really think you're ready for a state of nature experience it can be arranged anytime you're ready. Just do something and watch what happens. They are always making room for people like you who think you're smarter than nature. Leavenworth and Attica are full of flaming geniuses like yourself. I'm not sure if you will have internet access from the inside or not, but at least send me a few letters updating me on your progress as the powers inside give you a crash course on nature everynight, 10 or 12 teachers at a time. American History X in the shower? Remember that scene? That will be you. If you continue to be obstinate once inside you will die very quickly, much like the fate of most of the of the too-smart for the world fuckwits that get sentenced to prison every single day around the world. Maybe you could join Al-Qaeda and get yourself sent to GitMo? That is supposedly one of the best case studies in nature presently showing.

You probably should read up a bit more on this supposed state of nature that you think you would thrive in before you go spouting off about how law is based on christianity and whatnot. You sound very naive. That sort of thinking usually leads to someone bashing in your skull in a parking lot somewhere because you simply couldn't get the lesson. Good luck Dr. Lou.