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Mon 10 Oct, 2005 10:13 pm
This is simplistic, but could be of interest!
All other things aside, say there is a basic set of rules that goes across cultural, ethnic and national lines (a foundation for law, universal). I suppose this could be thought of as natural law. Maybe Murder, betrayal, and others emerged based on such.
I wonder if the will or instinct of survival was the first emerging affect on how law developed in the beginning. Through time maybe the development of speech, language, abstract thought, the increase in technology and etc caused law to take new shapes off the beat of law, as associated with survival. Possibly, similar to the way that the survival instinct has not potentially kept up with the evolution of the human mind, meaning that survival in this period of our development gets confused with the area of want verse need and true threat to existence verse threat of losing a certain way of life or something not a mortal threat(i.e. losing a job and etc).
Possibly, today we are in a period were free will has been eroded to the point that some sort of restoration may be in order for certain areas of the world. I am thinking that this may be applicable in the most advanced areas in our world. Maybe humanity has been polluted with abstract thought and such advancements. If following the line of thought here, maybe current law is a reflection of confusion of the human animal with the development of advanced reasoning (conflict between the two).
Advanced reasoning could include, religion, philosophy and etc.
Based on the assumption that the human animal was at its purest form during the first few instances of our species existence.
I'm not sure what you mean by "purest form." Most animal? Most unfettered? Most basic? Are you implying that is would be better to get back to that form?
Law came about to keep your instinct for survival from conflicting with mine. That we may have strayed into areas that needn't be regulated is entirely possible, even likely, but I don't see the benefit of reverting too far.
Purest form, instinct, back
Purest form, meaning before the human mind evolved to the point of supporting advanced reasoning such as, complex religion, high-level philosophy, sophisticated technology and etc.
Not sure if we should go back to the beginning, but reform for sure (back some).
The survival instinct has potentially not been able to keep up with the evolution of the human mind (leftover from our animistic beginnings), meaning that survival in this period of our development gets confused with the area of want verse need and true threat to existence verse threat of losing a certain way of life or something not a mortal threat (i.e. losing a job and etc). Law may not be about protecting us from one another's survival instinct in the traditional sense. Rather protecting us from affects of corruption of the survival instinct (i.e. not mortal threats but economic and other related).
I don't think so. I think it's the other way around. It's not because of abstract ideas that we become frustrated when we lose our job, it's because of the evolutionary leftover of which you speak. Basically when we lose our job, our status quo has changed, we feel that we have failed at something. Advancement in human thought helps us deal with these leftovers.
I think I see where you are coming from with this. Not 100% though: you may need to elaborate.
I have often thought along similiar lines. Basically, what it comes down to is our minds have gotten ahead of our bodies. We think too much! We are no longer as holistic as we may have once been. In regards to reintegrating our entire beings, and being complete as humans: I think we need to focus on this more.
We need to get our heads out of our butts
So we should stop progressing intellectually until our bodies catch up? Hasn't it occurred to you that the move from physical/animal beings to intellectual beings is just part of our evolution and not really a problem at all?
Alice
In context of corrupting law in a manner that may hinder free will and freedom in its purest form, it looks like it complicates things though. Is intellectual progression worth the cost on free will and freedom in general?
I am pretty sure that I have implicitly noted that it is potentially an evolutionary issue.
I think I see what you may be implying; the idea of natural law may need to be reworked verse the regression of evolutionary affects on the human mind. This is a great point. The legal systems would then need to be redone in general. Interesting!!!!
I'm with Alice in this one. Not having knowledge could mean the loss of freedom.
And what is the "natural law." I think that there is no such thing as a biological law, only laws of physics.
The term 'natural law' is ambiguous. It refers to a type of moral theory, as well as to a type of legal theory, despite the fact that the core claims of the two kinds of theory are logically independent. According to natural law ethical theory, the moral standards that govern human behavior are, in some sense, objectively derived from the nature of human beings. According to natural law legal theory, the authority of at least some legal standards necessarily derives, at least in part, from considerations having to do with the moral merit of those standards. There are a number of different kinds of natural law theories of law, differing from each other with respect to the role that morality plays in determining the authority of legal norms.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/n/natlaw.htm#H1
Quote:I think I see what you may be implying; the idea of natural law may need to be reworked verse the regression of evolutionary affects on the human mind. This is a great point. The legal systems would then need to be redone in general. Interesting!!!!
My mistake this was suppose to be directed to flushd
Instrumental rationality, it could apply to the thread. Along the evolutionary path of the human mind this advancement/manner of reason may be a key to the evolution of law from the natural to the current systems that we live within the parameters of. Because of this, the advancement in reasoning from more primitive reasoning systems, we went from norms within a small group/tribe and laws that applied to matters of survival to laws concerning matters of rights to certain activities not pertaining to survival, but results of ideologies derived from religion or government vectors. Although, in the infancy of our species the first vector for non-natural based law were probably religion and/or superstition.
The evolution of natural law into an advanced form (there must be formal name for this, not sure what it is yet) may have lead to all types of useless laws of ideological interest that is affectively curbing the ability of humans to exercise free will.
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