This is the fourth part of a six-part re-formulation of my
philosophical system. In this essay and the next, I aim to put a little more
“flesh” on the five dimensions of my system.
Today, I’ll cover the first three dimensions,
corresponding to Metaphysics, Epistemology and Ethics respectively in classical
philosophy. I call these three the “I” dimensions. For the questions about
humanity, which must be answered in these dimensions, are phrased in the first
person singular. “What am I?” “How do I know what I know?” And “How should I
behave?”
I’ll repeat the outline diagram of the five dimensions
from the third essay.
Figure 1 –
Outline of Honest Common Sense 2.0
The first dimension: Be
The lowest dimension, I call Be. It’s about what is. It
corresponds to Metaphysics in classical philosophy. In this dimension, there
are two main questions to be answered: “What’s out there?” and “What am I?” As
I visualize in the diagram below, for human beings, the first dimension contains
in embryo all five of our dimensions, “curled up small” as it were.
Figure 2 – The metaphysical
or Be dimension
To “What am I?” (or alternatively “what is my identity?”),
I answer: I am a human being. For, as Rand put it, existence is identity. So,
the process in this dimension is Identity. And the product, for a human being,
is Humanity. (For a cat, for example, it would be Felinity). These two pithy
statements by Ayn Rand, “Existence exists” and “Existence is identity,” form
what I think of as the twin mottoes of our first dimension.
My metaphysical opinions
I still hold to many of the metaphysical opinions I
proffered in the original Honest Common Sense. I still hold that, since
metaphysical notions exist at a level below rational thought, it really isn’t
worth trying to argue rationally about metaphysics. Metaphysicians just have to
assume away, and then justify their theories afterwards. Metaphysical theories
can be disproved if they lead to contradictions; but they cannot be proved.
I still hold my “dual aspect monist” position, that
existence and consciousness are two aspects of the same thing; just as are body
and mind. I still hold that we have free will, though I freely (no pun
intended) admit that we don’t yet know exactly how it works. I still hold that
a new mathematics (and science) of consciousness will be needed in order to
understand free will, and to explain why time appears to us to flow.
One significant addition, however, is that I have taken on
board the view that what is right and wrong for a sentient being to do is determined
by the nature of the species, to which that being belongs. It was Ayn Rand who
first pointed me in this direction; and Frank van Dun confirmed for me that I
was on the right track. Thus, what is right and wrong for a human being to do
is determined by human nature; and so, is the same for all human beings. That
is the fundamental reason why all human beings are ethically equal. I shall be
looking into this in more detail when I get to the third dimension.
The nature of a human being
At a first cut, the nature of a human being is given by
the entries in the Answer(s) column in the diagram above. In the Think
dimension, we seek knowledge, using the process which, following Jason
Alexander, I call Identification. (Ayn Rand and others have called it Reason). As
to Behave, we must behave according to our nature, that is, with honesty; and we
must respect others’ rights. And a human being, who behaves according to human nature,
becomes convivial; that is, fit to be lived with. Thus, I hold even more
strongly than I did before to the position that humans are by nature good
rather than bad.
At the level of Organize, we build civilizations. And we
do so by organizing ourselves for Aristotle’s “common good.” That is, for
maximum benefit to all. Or, as John Locke put it: “the good of every particular
member of that society, as far as by common rules it can be provided for.” This
means that we organize ourselves to achieve three ends. One, to deliver
common-sense justice; which I define as the condition in which each individual
is treated, over the long run, in the round and as far as practicable, as he or
she treats others. Two, to uphold the rights of all those who respect others’
equal rights. And three, to allow maximum freedom for everyone, consistent with
living in a civilized community.
At the top of the tree, in the dimension of Do, we create,
we trade, and we enjoy and appreciate. We fulfil ourselves and realize our
potential, both as individuals and as a species.
Animals
With regard to animals: Each species has its own nature,
which determines what is right and wrong for a member of the species to do.
Different species have different levels of development in their second, third
and fourth dimensions. As far as I’m aware, though, no non-human species on the
planet has yet developed the second dimension to anything like the level of
science, or the third to the level of an explicit sense of right and wrong. And
only humans have, to date, started to open up the fifth dimension at all.
What is special about us? What is it, that makes us
different from, and better than, mere animals? First, we have evolved languages
that are intricate and expressive. Second, we can think abstractly; for
example, we can do mathematics or philosophy. Third, it is in our nature to
take control of, and to leave our mark on, our surroundings. And we can record
our ideas for posterity, for example through writing, art, music and
architecture. Fourth, we have business and trade; not just at the level of “you
scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours,” but also, as Adam Smith put it, “give
me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want.” Fifth, it is in
our nature to be creative, and to build civilizations. Sixth, we have invented,
and are still developing, life-improving conveniences like money, property
rights, workable systems of justice, and economic production. Finally, we are a
fast-moving species. And despite periods of stagnation or regression, such as
the Dark Ages, we tend to get better – and faster – as we go.
Thus, we are, in a real sense, superior to other animals;
and I hold to my position that we can own animals, and use them, as we see fit.
Though it is, of course, both wrong and inelegant to be cruel to them unnecessarily.
They are sentient beings, after all; as are we.
Religion
I’ll end my discussion of the first dimension with religion.
Religion lives down at the level of metaphysics, because it isn’t amenable to
rational thought. There’s no point in trying to argue about religion with a
born-again Christian! Or with an atheist.
I was brought up in a Christian family. My mother was a
moderate Anglican. My father went to church only because he enjoyed singing in
the choir. But I was sent for five years to a heavily Christian boarding school.
As a result, as soon as at age 16 I was mature enough to start to think
critically, I lost Christianity. It simply leached out of me.
Of course, I’m aware of the Stoic idea of the “logos,” a
mind which permeates and animates the Universe. And if there was such a thing
as a deity, I guess it would be of this kind. But I have no hard evidence either
for or against the existence of such a mind. So, I simply don’t worry about the
issue. My answer to the question “is there a god?” is: I don’t know. And I
don’t care.
All that said, I have no problem with individuals who are personally
religious. Nor with those who wish to worship with like-minded others. Thus, I
follow what I call Neil’s First Precept of Religion: If you let me have my
religion (or lack of it), I’ll let you have yours.
But I do have a problem with institutional religion. The
Christian church of the dark and middle ages was the main weapon used against
us by our enemies in their second counter-revolution. And today, the church of
environmentalism is the biggest single plank of our enemies’ fifth
counter-revolution. So, anyone that tries to force or to browbeat their
religion on me against my will is going to get short shrift.
The second dimension: Think
The second dimension, Think, corresponds to Epistemology
in classical philosophy, Here, there is one question: “How do I know what I
know?” Jason Alexander has supplied a good answer to this question: “Knowledge
is the Identification of Identity.” For me, Alexander’s sentence is the motto
of our second dimension.
My views in this area have not changed much over the last
few years. I still like to show the way in which knowledge arises from the six
levels of our thinking processes in the form of a diagram, which I call The
Knowledge Pump.
Figure 3 – The Think
dimension – The Knowledge Pump
Our senses – sight, touch, smell, taste, hearing – all
generate sensation as a result of the external stimuli to which we are
subjected. The sub-process of perception then assembles the sensations into
percepts; that is, specific thoughts about things. When you touch a table, you may
think, for example, “This table has a flat top,” or “This table is made of
wood.”
Our perceptions are usually fairly reliable. But unlike Ayn
Rand, I do not claim that the perception process is always flawless. The table,
which you think is made of wood, may actually turn out to be made of plastic
disguised to look and feel like wood.
Conception is the sub-process which forms concepts. A
concept is an abstraction, formed from a percept or from many percepts. For
example, it might make a statement about a class of things, for example “All
tables have flat tops.” It might define a quality of a thing or of a class of
things, such as being brown in colour. Or it might widen the scope of the
objects to which a concept applies; such as from “Two tables plus two tables make
four tables” to “Two plus two make four” (of anything which can be counted).
Concepts can be meaningful (well-formed) or meaningless.
Among those meaningful concepts which make statements, some are true, some
false and some tentative or undetermined. And this truth value can vary with
time and experience. For example, finding a table with a tilting top pushes the
concept “All tables have flat tops” over the line from as yet undetermined to
false. (Unless you are willing to revise your definition of “flat!”)
Logic, the fourth sub-process, combines concepts,
according to certain rules, to form other concepts. Logic has a very long
history. Aristotle was the first to study it intensively. It has been developed
in many different directions. And among philosophers and mathematicians, there
are still unresolved controversies in it.
For the fifth sub-process, I now prefer to use Ayn Rand’s
term, “Objectivity.” In the past, I have called it “reason,” “logic grounded in
reality,” “reality check” and “the bullshit meter.” Objectivists describe it as
“the act of referencing reality in determining the truth.” It is the point in
your thinking at which you ask: Do my conclusions really hold up in the real
world? And you look for evidence for and against your thesis. When your conclusions
have successfully been through the validation process, you regard them as
provisionally true, and add them to your store of Knowledge. You can regard
such knowledge as true, until new evidence leads you to re-examine it.
Ideas which constitute Knowledge can themselves be pumped
back into the Think stack, to fuel further thinking. These usually arrive at
the level of Perception or Conception. They can be pumped from the inside – for
example, from your memory of past situations, or from knowledge which you have
gleaned from personal experience. They can be pumped from the outside – by
receiving them from others, for example by reading or hearing. Or they can be
products of your creativity, which often arrive as intuitions, hunches or
oddball “what if?” questions. They all require a pass through the bullshit
meter, before you start building other ideas on top of them. If not, you may
waste your time, or be led to wrong conclusions.
At the top left of the diagram is the sixth sub-process,
Science. Science is a, more or less formalized, method of discovering knowledge.
But it’s important to note that science, if it is to be Science, must be
utterly honest. It must focus on the evidence and the facts. It must make
falsifiable predictions. It must aim to be replicable by others. And it must
make its theories fit observations, rather than to try to modify, adjust or
cherry-pick the data to fit the theory. Anything – like much of today’s climate
science – that purports to be science, but isn’t entirely honest, isn’t
Science. It is what I call nonscience (rhymes with conscience).
“Science” has acquired an almost cult status among many of
the enemies of humanity today. They see it as something done by “experts,”
which always produces truth. To them, science is infallible. But unfortunately,
even experts make mistakes. As physicist Steven Weinberg put it: “An expert is
one who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy.” And even
where simple errors are successfully avoided, failings like groupthink, or
perverting science into an attempt to find evidence for a desired conclusion,
can render the products of “science” worthless or even downright dangerous.
The third dimension: Behave
In the third, the ethical dimension, the question is: “How
should I behave?” Hence my name for it: Behave.
From the third up, the dimensions become more complex internally.
At the outline level, the third dimension has three primary processes: ethical
equality, honesty and respect for human rights. “Ethical equality” is the name I
use for the principle that what is right for one to do, is right for another to
do under similar circumstances, and vice versa. It is the first of my
three common-sense principles. And in addition to the conventional meanings of
the word “honesty”, I use it to mean “being true to your nature.” Or, otherwise
put, acting as it is natural for a human being to act.
The product of the Behave dimension, “Conviviality,” is a
word I have borrowed from Frank van Dun. To be convivial is to live together,
and to do so well. I also use convivial to mean “fit to be lived with.”
The Behave dimension, like the Be dimension, should I
think have two mottoes. Both these mottoes are my own work; and I gave them
both in the first essay of this set. For the general motto, applicable to all
species, I propose: “Identity determines morality.” For the motto specific to
human beings, I suggest: “Humans are by nature convivial animals.”
When I focus in on Behave, our ethical dimension, in more
detail, I see far more components to it than just three. Here’s my attempt at a
diagram to represent it more fully.
Figure 4 – The ethical or Behave dimension
The lowest layer within the Behave dimension, I call
survival ethics. It interfaces downwards, towards our first and second
dimensions. This is a layer which we share with other animals; though in their case,
it is more often called instinct.
As individuals, we have an instinct that makes us act for
our continued survival. As part of this, we seek our own well-being, both in
the short term and the longer term. In a slightly different direction, we feel a
pull towards the survival of our species, the human species as a whole. This is
what leads a majority of people to want to have children. It also leads most of
us to take a generally benevolent view of our fellow human beings; as long, of
course, as they show similar benevolence towards us.
The third part of this layer of survival ethics is what I
call reasonable caution. We judge, consciously or not, whether particular risks
are or are not worth taking for us. Thus, each of us seeks to balance the
down-side of risk, both to ourselves and to others, against the up-side of
potential rewards. And as we acquire more and more life experience, our
judgement tends to become better adjusted to our own particular strengths and
weaknesses.
The middle layer within our third dimension, I call the
convivial core. It is here that the virtues, which make an individual convivial
(or, otherwise said, fit to be lived with), reside. This is the centre-piece of
our third (and central) dimension. And at its centre is Honesty.
Depending on your dictionary, “honest” may mean truthful,
sincere and free of deceit; morally correct or virtuous; honourable in
principles, intentions and actions; or trustworthy and not likely to steal,
cheat or lie. Ayn Rand defined honesty as never attempting to fake reality. And
then, there’s my own definition, which is all of the above and more: “Honesty
is being true to your nature.” Honesty is behaving as a human being.
Around Honesty, I arrange six virtues, all of which are aspects
of it. There’s Independence: which I see as the process by which a person
controls his or her own life, and seeks to avoid becoming a drain on others.
Ayn Rand included this among her list of virtues. There’s Truthfulness: seeking
the truth in any matter, and telling the truth as best you can. There’s
Responsibility: accepting accountability for the foreseeable effects of your
voluntary actions on others. There’s Integrity, another on Rand’s list; I see
this as following through on your promises, and practising what you preach.
Moving towards the virtues for dealing with others, there’s mutual Tolerance, which
can be put succinctly as: Live and let live. And there’s mutual Good Faith:
which leads us to be sincere and straightforward in our dealings.
The upper layer, which I have labelled “Respect for
others” on the diagram, is the one which interfaces upwards towards the fourth
dimension, and encapsulates the ethics of dealing with others. I have divided
it into two sub-layers. The lower half is the one which determines our
attitudes towards others. The upper half determines how we actually behave
towards them.
In the lower sub-layer, the first component is respect for
ethical equality. To respect ethical equality is to accept that what is right
for you to do, is right for another to do under similar circumstances. And
conversely, that what you think is wrong for them to do, has to be wrong for
you too.
The second component is respect for the equal rights of
others. To respect that equality is to accept that whatever rights you claim as
a human being, you must allow to other human beings too. The third component
does the same for freedoms. Whatever freedoms you claim, you must also allow to
others. And the fourth component is respect for justice; that is, for the kind
of justice I call common-sense justice. To respect this kind of justice is to behave
towards others, as far as you can, at least as well as they themselves behave
towards those they interact with. And, as long as they generally behave in a convivial
manner, you should treat them at least as well as they treat you.
The first component in the upper sub-layer, I call judgement
by behaviour. It represents a practice of judging individuals by examining how
they behave. It means that you should not take too much account of things
outside the individual’s control, such as race, social class, received religion
or disability. You should judge people by their actions. And, of course, their
motivations for doing what they do, as far as you can work them out. To sum up:
It isn’t who you are that matters, but what you do.
The second component I have labelled respect for
difference. Every one of us has a culture and a moral upbringing. In many
respects, our cultural characteristics are shared with others of like
upbringing. And those from different backgrounds may well have somewhat
different customs and mores from ourselves. The essence of this component is tolerance
of difference. Just because a culture is different, doesn’t necessarily make it
wrong. And just because someone is different, doesn’t necessarily make them a
bad person.
The third component, which I label social contracts, refers
not to some “social contract” in a political sense, but to contracts between
societies and their members. When you join a society, or when you are an
officer of a society which accepts a new member, you are making mutual
agreements. For someone, who voluntarily joins a society, is giving their
assent to its aims and purposes; and, for the time being at least, to its current
direction. All that said, you should strive in good faith to make your
agreements reasonable, and to keep your side of them.
The last component, mutual agreements, refers to
agreements which you make with other individuals or societies, such as partnership,
business or employment contracts. Again, its ethical content is good faith in
the construction and execution of these agreements.
Ethical equality
The ethical equality principle arises from the idea that
what is right and wrong for a human being to do is determined by human nature.
And so, right and wrong are the same for all human beings. My one-sentence
statement of the principle is: What is right for one to do, is right for
another to do under similar circumstances, and vice versa.
There are other arguments for ethical equality, too. First,
the idea of “the rule of law,” which dates back to ancient times but has become
prominent since the Enlightenment, is an application of the ethical equality
principle. Under the rule of law, the rules an individual is required to obey,
whatever they may be, must be the same as for every other individual.
Therefore, all rules made according to the rule of law must implement ethical
equality.
Second, to those that quibble with the idea of ethical
equality, I say: If we are not all ethically (and so morally) equal, then
exactly who is to be allowed moral privilege over others? How much? When? Why
are they to be singled out to have privileges? Who are you to
decide? And why should you yourself not be thrown down to the very bottom of
the heap?
Third, I can adapt John Rawls’ “original position” thought
experiment – usually seen as an argument for equality in the economic sphere – to
justify instead the ethical equality principle. In this thought experiment, a
group of people aim to agree on a political and economic structure for
themselves. Each is behind a veil of ignorance. Meaning, they don’t know what
their own abilities or characteristics will be, or how well a particular social
structure will favour them as individuals.
Rawls argues that they will use a strategy called maximin,
aiming to maximize the payoff in the event of the worst possible outcome. Now,
this seems to assume that people make decisions in a more rational manner than
we often see them do in the real world. But accepting the maximin
argument, if I were in Rawls’ original position behind my veil of ignorance, I
would start out by choosing a social structure based on political
equality, not economic. That is, I would pick an equality, in which no
individual is subject to another. As John Locke put it: “A state also of
equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having
more than another.”
Rawls’ argument can be used to – apparently – justify any
kind of equality you want it to! So, from here, it is only a short step to
choosing ethical equality. Would you pick a structure where everyone is ethically
and morally equal, and may do the same things in the same circumstances as
anyone else? Or one of moral inequality, in which an in-group – of kings or princes,
say – have moral privileges over everyone else? For example, they can make laws
to bind us, while we can’t do the same to them in return? Or they can evade the
consequences of their actions to others, while we are to be held to the
consequences of ours? Few, I think, would pick such a structure of ethical inequality.
For the likelihood of being born an oppressed commoner would grossly outweigh
the minuscule chance of being born a prince.
I’ll repeat what I said in the third essay: Let no-one be in
any doubt how radical this ethical equality principle is, when contrasted with
current politics. For Jean Bodin’s 16th-century scheme of
sovereignty, under which we still suffer today, allows to the sovereign of a
state (whether an individual or a group) an extensive list of moral privileges
over the subjects in that state. But under the ethical equality principle, a
sovereign cannot rightly exist; and so, the state cannot rightly exist. The
political state and the ethical equality principle are fundamentally
incompatible with each other. If you accept the ethical equality principle, you
must reject the state. And if you want to accept the state and sovereignty, you
must disprove the ethical equality principle.
The Convivial Code
From the ethical equality principle, it follows that there
exists a moral code of what is right and wrong for human beings to do. To see
this, try the following thought experiment. Take a large (large!) sheet of
paper, and make two column headings: Act and Circumstance. Then write down
pairs of acts and circumstances, in which the act is wrong for any human
being to do under the circumstance, and should be prohibited. Any such
prohibition must apply equally to all individuals. Continue until you have
covered all such situations you can think of. Then take another sheet (rather
smaller), and do the same for acts which are required. In other words,
it’s wrong not to do the act under the circumstances. When finished, you
have your moral code. The first sheet lists its prohibitions, the second its
mandates.
I call this list of core rules the Convivial Code. It is the
“law of the land” for convivial people; Frank van Dun calls it the “laws of
conviviality.” And it is independent of place, culture or the social status of
an individual. It is also, to a large extent, independent of time. For, being
based on human nature, it will need to evolve only as human nature itself evolves,
or as new circumstances arise which it did not cover before.
The Convivial Code encapsulates a minimum set of standards
of behaviour for all human beings worth the name. It is, in essence, a
touchstone for humanity. Applying not just now, but in the future; and to the
past, as well.
Before anyone gets too excited, I’d point out that some
thinkers have opined that such a code would be empty. Historian Will Durant,
for example, once wrote to the effect that if you added up all the behaviours
considered sacred by some culture, then subtracted all the behaviours
considered taboo by some culture, you would end up with nothing.
But in my view, the Convivial Code is definitely non-empty. Confucius’
Golden Rule, for example, is in one form or another part of the morality of all
human cultures. And I have another candidate, too. As an American friend once
opined: “Don’t be an asshole!”
Rights and Obligations
I go further. For behaving convivially is, in large part,
about respecting the rights of others. As one whose primary view of ethics is
rights-based, I see two of the main tasks in constructing the Code as, first,
to make a list of valid human rights. And then, to back-to-back these rights
with obligations which, when kept to by convivial people, result in those
around them enjoying the corresponding rights. These obligations then become
the core of the Code.
It’s important to understand that an individual’s rights are
conditional on the individual himself or herself respecting the equal rights of
others. Thus, rights are earned, not granted by any individual, organization or
deity. And those that do violate others’ rights can’t complain if they, in
their turn, suffer violations of their own rights in reasonable proportion.
This is why it’s OK, for example, to deny freedom of movement to convicted
criminals in prison.
Over the centuries, many lists of human rights have been
constructed. From Magna Carta of 1215, via the 1689 English Bill of Rights and
the 1791 US Bill of Rights, to the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human
Rights (just about the only half-way good thing the UN ever did), these have
had positive effects on the conduct of many of those in power.
These lists contain three types of rights. First, there are fundamental
rights. These result from moral prohibitions – that is, obligations to refrain
from doing something, which apply to everyone
– of the form “Thou shalt not...” followed by something bad. Second, there are rights
of non-impedance. These result from more nuanced moral prohibitions, of the
form: “Thou shalt not put any obstacle in the way of...” followed by something
good. Rights of non-impedance always carry an implied rider: “...provided it
does not violate your, or anyone else’s, rights.” And third, there are procedural
rights. These are rights such as the presumption of innocence until proven
guilty, which must guide the procedures used in confrontational situations.
And, in particular, must guide the new forms of governance, which will
supersede the state.
At right angles to this division, there is another split of
rights into two groups: general and contractual. By a general right or
obligation, I mean one common to all convivial human beings. Thus, a general
right accrues to everyone without exception, subject only to the individual
keeping to his or her general obligations. Contractual rights or obligations,
on the other hand, arise out of contracts and mutual agreements made with others.
There is a third group of supposed “rights,” which I label
“misguided.” They are misguided, because they cannot be delivered without
violating the rights of other individuals. For example, an indiscriminate right
to “social security” requires some people to be forced to pay for things that bring
benefit to others, not to them. Most of these misguided “rights,” however, can
quite easily be re-formulated into rights of non-impedance. The supposed right
to work, for example, turns into the right not to be impeded in trading with
others in whatever way is mutually acceptable. And social security becomes the
right not to be prevented from insuring against, or associating with others for
protection against, economic hardship.
Agreement to vary
An important aspect of the Convivial Code will be what I
call “agreement to vary.” Through such an agreement, societies will be able to agree
among their members, if they so wish, extra rules or different rules from the
core Code in their dealings among themselves. Individuals and societies will also
be able to agree, by mutual consent, to vary or waive certain provisions of the
core Code, either for one transaction or on a more regular basis. For example,
this will allow people, who so wish, to agree to do dangerous activities such
as playing sports. Or religious societies to impose dietary restrictions on
their members.
Exceptions
One of the problems with lists of obligations is that it
isn’t always practical to keep to them with absolute strictness. For example,
to include in the Code an absolute prohibition on physical violence would be
impractical, because it would not allow those under attack to defend
themselves. Each rule of the Code must, therefore, also specify the conditions
under which individuals may reasonably break it, and at what level they may do
so.
I identify four sets of conditions, which may justify deviation
from the Code in certain circumstances. The first two arise from the layer of
survival ethics; they are self-defence, and defence of others. The other two
come from the “respect for others” layer, and are required to enable future
systems of governance, based on common-sense justice, to be effective. One of these
is for proportionate acts in the execution of common-sense justice. Such as,
enforcing judgements made by honest courts. The other is for proportionate acts,
based on reasonable suspicion of real violation of the Code; such as arresting
someone to bring them to trial. Which of these four exceptions apply to a
particular right, depends on which right it is.
Virtues and vices
But human rights are not the only source of obligations to
others. There are also the obligations which correspond to the virtues,
including honesty, which I outlined above; and to other virtues which thinkers,
such as Ayn Rand, have included in their ethical laundry-lists. Because sometimes
a virtue may not be attainable in practice, these will often be couched in
terms like “Strive to…” followed by a statement of the virtuous behaviour.
These kinds of obligations generate, for the recipient, something similar to a
right, but less strong. I will dub as “expectations” the benefits, which arise when
people keep to such obligations.
It is important, I think, to exclude from the Code the false
virtues, like altruism and self-sacrifice, that are often promoted by
collectivists. Where you have not taken on an explicit obligation to help
someone in a particular situation, the decision on what to do must always be your
own. The species survival instinct may lead you to help; as long as you have the
requisite skills and courage, and the effort and cost are not too great. But to
sacrifice yourself for the sake of others, against your better judgement, is
madness.
Moreover, you don’t have any obligation to give help to
those that have done harm to you; for example, those that have promoted or
supported political policies hostile to you. They owe you compensation for what
they did to you; you don’t owe them anything.
Beyond encouraging virtues, the Code is likely to discourage
certain vices. I do not mean the kind of arbitrary “vices” that in themselves harm
no-one else, such as being gay, taking drugs or drinking alcohol. Rather, I
mean the kind of vices that psychopaths often show. Such as: arrogance, bad
faith, corruption, deceit, recklessness towards others, and untrustworthiness.
Discrimination
This is the place, I think, to bring up the vexed subject of
discrimination. Although the judgement by behaviour principle tells us not to
put too much negative weight on traits outside a person’s control, it is a fact
that most people favour dealing with those who have some kind of commonality
with them. Shared race, religion, nationality, interests, culture, political
orientation or upbringing, for example, may provide such a feeling of
commonality.
The Code cannot make a blanket prohibition of all such forms
of discrimination. When deciding with whom they want to interact, all
individuals and societies must have the right to discriminate as they see fit.
For example, a club may admit only members of certain races or religions. A
company may refuse to hire Jews, Irish people, communists or former politicians.
A woman may pick a tall man to offer her love to, in preference to a short one.
Or a Christian baker may refuse to bake a cake for a gay wedding.
However, discrimination does go against the Code if it is
done in bad faith. Thus, if a club or company does not wish to deal with
certain types of people, they must make that clear before any contract is
negotiated. And they should make any such discriminatory policies public up
front.
Other sources of rights and rules
Another source of potential obligations for the Code is the corpus
of moral rules, which we have inherited from rule-based systems of the past.
One example is Confucius’ Golden Rule, in both its negative and positive forms.
The secular among the biblical Ten Commandments are also candidates to generate
obligations of the Code.
There are further rules, which we have received in the form
of folk wisdom; or, perhaps, as “consequentialist” ethical principles. For
example: You must compensate those, whom you have intentionally harmed, or damaged
through irresponsibility or negligence. If you want to subject others to risk, you
must make sure you have the resources to compensate them if things go wrong. If
you have children, you must take responsibility for their actions towards
others until they have become mature enough to take responsibility themselves;
and you must bring them up and educate them to be convivial human beings. All these
candidates must be evaluated, and where appropriate converted to one or more
obligations.
Here are some more rules of a similar kind, many of which I
discussed in the original “Honest Common Sense.” Don’t do intentional harm to
others. Don’t put any obstacle in the way of anyone’s access to the free
market. Don’t try to take more from others than you are justly entitled to.
Don’t intentionally do or aggravate injustice. Don’t try to claim that you have
moral rights that others do not. Don’t unjustly deny others the right to make
their own decisions. Don’t require anyone to prove a negative. Strive to uphold
the principles of Civilization: voluntary society, common-sense justice, human
rights, and maximum freedom for all. Don’t lie, deceive, cheat, mislead or
bullshit. Strive to be independent in thought and actions. Don’t willingly let
yourself become a drain on others. Always strive to do what you have knowingly and
voluntarily agreed to do. Do not knowingly aid, encourage or condone
disconvivial behaviour. Do not tolerate dishonesty, unless there is good and objectively
justifiable reason to be dishonest in a particular situation. And last, but not
least: Practise what you preach.
To review all these many sources of rights and rules, to assess
the relevance, validity and appropriateness of exceptions for each suggested
right or rule, and to draft statements of the corresponding obligations, are mammoth
tasks. They demand a follow-up essay, or several. There are also practical
issues to be addressed, such as: How to get a first such Code agreed among very
many people? And how to control any changes to it, which may prove necessary?
Property rights
I’ll briefly discuss property rights. For, behind life and
security of person, property rights are the most important rights of all.
Property rights imply that money, land, goods and other wealth, which have been
justly earned and have not been traded or given away, must remain under the
control of those who earned them, and may not be unjustly taken by others.
After the Neolithic revolution, the idea of property was rooted
in real estate – areas of land and water. Containable resources, like crops and
domesticated animals in the fields and fish in the lakes, also became property.
Soon, to these were added the buildings on the land, their fitments, and the
tools which enabled people to pursue the necessities of life.
John Locke recounts, in a famous chapter in his Second
Treatise of Government, how the idea of property had evolved from these
roots up to his day. For him, the key element in making something into property
is “mixing labour” with it. Indeed, he observes: “In most [products useful to
the life of man] ninety-nine hundredths are wholly to be put on the account of
labour.” He tells, also, how the invention of money enabled people to acquire,
through their own efforts, more possessions than had been possible before.
Property can be justly acquired in three ways. The first,
not so easy today, is by “mixing your labour” with resources not previously
owned by anyone, and thereby taking possession of those resources. The second
is by voluntary trade of resources, including your labour, with others. And the
third is a special case of the second, where one individual makes a gift to
another of what they themselves have justly acquired.
Tracing back each individual’s justly owned property to its
source, I find that every item of it has been earned, wholly or mainly, through
labour. And this is so whether the labour is physical or mental, and whether in
business, in do-it-yourself or for a wage. So, all justly owned property can be
traced back to part of someone’s life being expended in creating or improving
it. Thus, as I like to say, property is life.
For most of us, who don’t receive big legacies from rich
parents or uncles, this means that our property is the product of our own
productive lives. Your earned money and property represent the time and energy,
which you used up in order to earn them. Thus, if a criminal gang, or anyone
else, takes away your money or property, without providing something of value acceptable
to you in return, they are killing the part of your life, which you used to
earn that money or property.
This includes the situation where the gang doing the taking away
of your property is the state, using Franz Oppenheimer’s “political means.” And
in that case, the killing was clearly pre-meditated. That is why I like to say
that unrequited taxation is murder.
Private and public space
I’ll now focus on real property (land, water, buildings).
A key characteristic of real property is that it allows the proprietor, whether
an individual, a family or a society, to control access to the property.
Boundaries can be set around and, at need, within the property, and rules made
and enforced on access to it. These rules can specify which parts of it may be
accessed by whom, when, and for what purposes. Access rights can even be traded
away, for example by renting out the property. All this is accepted as normal
in most countries of the world.
Against this right to control access to real property, there’s
another consideration, which I call the non-encirclement principle. People need
to get from A to B. And if a landowner of a large territory in between places a
block on all access to it, this may become unreasonably difficult. The
solution, which evolved in England over many centuries of trial and error, is
called easements. Easements allow for a general presumption of freedom of
movement along designated routes, even across property owned by others.
As a result, land (and water, too) have become divided
into two types of space: private space and public space. Private space consists
of owned spaces, each with its own boundaries, but not including the easements.
Public space consists of those easements.
There is also what I call semi-private space. That is,
space into which the owner will invite anyone, subject to certain reasonable conditions
like opening hours, being a bona fide customer, and in some cases
pre-booking. Common examples of semi-private space are shops and bars; but
transport such as taxis, buses or even aircraft are also semi-private space.
(This is why airlines – not governments – are entitled to impose
reasonable “security” rules on their passengers).
The only valid “no-go” borders are those which arise from
the property rights of individuals, families and societies. Thus, the borders
of political states, not being borders of property, are illegitimate; except in
the rare cases where certain restrictions on free movement may be objectively
justifiable, for example during an epidemic.
Moreover, the valid boundaries are all either at the edges
of, or within, private spaces. Further, the non-encirclement principle requires
that these borders can only restrict movement from the public space, or from
other private spaces, into a private space, never in the opposite direction.
Thus, absent good and just reasons to deny access to it to
specific individuals (for example, to those convicted of serious crimes and
thereby sentenced to incarceration), the public space must be open to all,
without exception. And once an individual is rightly in the public space, he or
she has the right to go anywhere in the public space. So, the entire public
space must be open to all, subject to reasonable conditions like not causing
damage or excessive noise. And those conditions must be the same for everyone.
Moreover, I expect there will be, ultimately, only one
public space world-wide, which will be connected. That is, any point of it will
be accessible from any other point without leaving the public space.
Convivial and unconvivial conduct
Convivial conduct is the behaviour habitually indulged in
by those who are, generally speaking, good people to have around you.
Peacefulness and honesty are examples of convivial conduct. And aggressions,
threats, theft, lies and deceptions are examples of conduct that is
unconvivial.
A person, who always acts in a convivial manner, is a
convivial person. (Or would be, if such a perfect individual existed). However,
an unconvivial act doesn’t necessarily make the person unconvivial. For we
often do things that, strictly speaking, are unconvivial. We may occasionally
be unpleasant to others. And we may even cause actual harm in some small way.
For example, heating our homes with wood fires causes pollution; or riding a
motor cycle causes noise.
But we do these things, not out of any desire to harm
others, but because the costs to us of not doing them are far greater than the
costs to those adversely affected by us doing them. If we are to do such things
without becoming unconvivial, then we must be willing to allow others similar
latitude in return. And, if the harm we do is significant enough, we must be
prepared to provide compensation to those adversely affected by it.
An important aspect of convivial conduct is what I call mutual
tolerance. Or, otherwise put, a spirit of “live and let live.” In
principle, if an objective harm is done to you, you are entitled to
compensation if you want to pursue it. In practice, though, if the harm is
small, most of us will choose not to pursue compensation. That may, perhaps, be
because it’s too small to be worth the effort or cost of pursuing the matter.
Or it may be in a spirit of mutual tolerance; accepting others’ small faults,
in expectation of being able to offset that acceptance, if you need to, against
any small harms you may cause others. For everyone makes mistakes, and we all
sometimes have bad moments. Only if the harm we suffer is significant, or
persistent, or apparently intentional, will most of us pursue compensation.
Disconvivial conduct
However, violations of rights, or harmful or potentially
harmful acts, that are done in bad faith, or are gross, persistently repeated,
malicious, seriously negligent, or irresponsible beyond the bounds of reason,
are worse than merely unconvivial. The word I’ll use for these acts is disconvivial. Those that perform
disconvivial acts, I call disconvivials.
In the realm of conviviality, “disconvivial” means much the same as does
“criminal” today. And an extreme kind of disconviviality is shown by those that
make a living or career out of unconvivial acts. Such as gangland criminals,
bullying government officials, lobbyists for harmful agendas, most politicians,
and crony corporate bosses.
Because the Code arises out of human nature, convivial
conduct, in the round, is human conduct. Put succinctly: human is as
human does. In contrast, disconvivial conduct is criminal, or inhuman,
conduct.
And because the Code evolves only as fast as human nature
evolves, which is quite slowly on a scale of lifetimes, disconvivial acts
committed prior to the introduction of the Code are just as culpable, and so
just as punishable, as those committed afterwards. For the Code comes from
human nature; and every adult human being worth the name ought to know his or
her nature. Moreover, a claim of “sovereign immunity” does not excuse
culpability. Indeed, it is a disconvivial act in itself, because it contradicts
the ethical equality principle.
So, what of those, that use or have used what Franz
Oppenheimer called the “political means” – the unrequited appropriation of the
labour of others? What of those, that have lined their own pockets, or those of
their friends, with money taken in taxation from us human beings, without
offering in return anything valuable to us as individuals? Or have used political
power to re-distribute wealth away from those they disfavour, and towards
themselves, their cronies or their supporters? Do they not deserve to have
their ill-gotten gains taken away, to be made to compensate the victims of
their predations, and to suffer punishment in addition?
And how about those, that use or have used the state and political
power to make “laws” that unjustly obstruct, or harass, or impoverish, or damage
or inconvenience, or otherwise violate the human rights of, people who have neither
done nor intended objective harm to anyone? By using the state as their tool,
they have rejected the ethical equality principle. And by their conduct towards
their victims, they have shown themselves to be dishonest and disrespectful of
rights. They have rejected all three elements of humanity in the Behave
dimension – ethical equality, honesty and respect for rights.
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny; as Edmund Burke, rightly,
told us almost 250 years ago. Then are not those that promote bad laws, that
support bad laws, that make bad laws, that enforce bad laws, the worst sort of
criminals? Should we not demand full compensation for what they have done to
us? And if they cannot or will not compensate us, should we not reject and
ostracize them? Indeed, are they even fit to be accepted into any community
of human beings worth the name? Is it not, then, fair and reasonable to regard
them as not human? And so, not us?
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