7. My
philosophical perspective
Now, to philosophy in the wide sense. Over many years,
I have honed my philosophical ideas into a framework, which I use to find new
ideas on how to make life better for human beings. The branches of philosophy,
which are of particular interest here, are the areas called “ethics” and
“politics.”
Ethics is the branch of knowledge that deals with moral
principles. That is, with what is right and wrong behaviour for sentient
beings, including humans. In my philosophical system, the name I give to the
layer whose aim is to define these is Behave. And to the extent that human
individuals behave more or less according to what is right and natural for
human beings to do, they are more or less convivial. That is, more or less fit
to be lived with. Since a key part of human nature is to build civilizations,
these behaviours are also ones to which we might attach the label “civilized.”
Politics, conventionally, is taken to mean “the activities
of governments.” But I have evolved, over the decades, such a contempt for
governments and their politics, that I now use that word only in a pejorative
sense. I see the layer in my system, which corresponds to classical politics,
as attempting to answer the question: “How should we organize ourselves for
maximum benefit to all?” Thus, I call this layer Organize. Organize, done
properly, allows a group of people to make themselves into a civilization.
The “all,” to whom the organization of the group should
bring maximum benefit, are all those in the group, who behave in the ways which
are appropriate to human beings. Thus, the organization of every civilization
must bring nett benefit to those who behave according to the natural law of
humanity. And it must bring nett benefit to every single individual among them.
Otherwise put, such a group must always be organized for the
“public good.” Which John Locke defined as: “the good of every particular
member of that society, as far as by common rules it can be provided for.”
I have distilled the Behave and Organize layers of my
philosophical system down to a set of twelve key ideas. Here they are. The
first four are about ethical behaviour in general. The next three are about
inter-personal ethics. And the last five in the list are “political” or, in my
terms, organizational ideas.
1. Identity
determines morality principle
I state this principle as: Right and wrong behaviours for a
species of sentient beings are determined by the nature of the species. Or,
more briefly put, identity determines morality. Thus, any species of sentient
beings has its own natural law, which determines what is right and wrong for a
member of the species to do.
For human beings, it follows that right and wrong behaviours
are determined by human nature. And, as I indicated above, right behaviour for
a human being is convivial or civilized behaviour. The natural law of humanity
leads us to behave in ways that make us fit to be lived with, and so fit to
take part in building civilizations.
2. Ethical
equality principle
I state this principle as: Among members of the same
species, what is right for one to do, is right for another to do under similar
circumstances, and vice versa.
The principle arises from the premise that all individuals
of a species have the same nature. If they did not have the same nature, they
would be different species. And therefore, what is right and wrong for each
individual to do is the same for all individuals of the species.
3. Honesty
and integrity
The word “honesty” has many meanings. For example, seeking
and telling truth, candour, straightforwardness, sincerity, trustworthiness.
But my own definition is all of the above, and more: Honesty is being true to
your nature as a human being. It includes, in addition, all of the conventional
meanings of “honesty.” Our honesty is the part of us which, more than any
other, makes us convivial. Or otherwise said, fit to be lived with.
Moreover, in my take, integrity is the product of honesty.
Integrity constitutes the observable behaviours, which come from being true to
your nature and behaving as a human being.
4. The
Convivial Code
My fourth key idea, I call the Convivial Code. It is an
ethical code of conduct, encapsulating the natural law of humanity. It is, in
essence, a touchstone for humanity. It must be discovered by examining and
understanding ourselves, our cultures and our history; it cannot, and must not,
be invented by a cabal of politicians. And it is independent of any particular
culture, or any particular religious belief or non-belief.
The Code specifies (or more accurately, when it has been
written, will specify) the behaviours which are right (and, implicitly or
explicitly, the behaviours which are wrong) for human beings. It constitutes a
core set of standards of behaviour for all human beings worth the name. People
who follow it make themselves convivial, or “fit to be lived with.” The
opposite, behaviour that contravenes the Convivial Code, I call disconvivial
behaviour. I also sometimes use the term “real wrongdoing” for such behaviours,
or even inhumanity.
As to what such a Code might contain, I will give you
again John Locke’s simple, straightforward summary of the Code. “Being all
equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health,
liberty or possessions.” So, no killing of human beings, no physical assaults,
no infringing on others’ rights or freedoms, and no stealing or destruction of
property. That’s a pretty good start.
My own best shot so far at an outline of the Code is the
following list of 24 obligations:
1) Respect
the human rights and freedoms of all those who respect your equal rights and
freedoms.
2) Always
seek the facts on any matter, and tell the truth as you understand it.
3) Be
honest, candid, straightforward and sincere in all your dealings.
4) Take
responsibility for the reasonably foreseeable effects on others of your
voluntary actions.
5) If
your actions cause objective and unjust harm or inconvenience to others, you
have an obligation to compensate them.
6) If
you engage in activities that impose a risk of harm on others, you must have in
place resources to enable you to compensate them if such a harm eventuates.
7) Always
practise what you preach.
8) Strive
to be independent, self-reliant and rational in all your thoughts and actions.
9) Always
strive to carry out what you have knowingly and voluntarily agreed to do.
10) Always
strive to behave with objectivity, justice, integrity and good faith.
11) Strive
to be tolerant of all those who are convivial and tolerant towards you.
12) Don’t
bully anyone, or commit any aggression against anyone’s life, person or
property.
13) Don’t
interfere in other people’s lives without a good, objectively justifiable
reason.
14) Don’t
unjustly do to others what they do not want done to them.
15) Don’t
intentionally do or aggravate injustice.
16) Don’t
promote, support, co-operate with or condone any unjust violation of human rights
or freedoms, or any other unjust violation of the natural law of humanity.
17) Don’t
seek to control others through emotional manipulation.
18) Don’t
put any obstacle in the way of the economic free market, or unjustly deny
anyone’s access to it.
19) Don’t
unjustly deny others the right to make their own decisions in thought or
action.
20) Don’t
deny anyone the presumption of innocence, or require them to prove a negative.
21) Don’t
try to take more from others than you are justly entitled to, or to impose
costs on others that bring no benefit to them.
22) Don't
pick favourites, or operate double standards with anyone.
23) Don't
recklessly impose harm, or unreasonable risk of harm, on others.
24) Don’t
willingly let yourself become a drain on others.
Of these, the first seven are positive obligations – things you must do, all the time. The next four, I call positive expectations – standards you must do your very best to measure up to. The remainder are negative obligations – things you must not do.
With regard to justice: In the above, by “justice” I mean
what I call “common-sense justice.” That is, the condition in which each
individual is to be treated, over the long run, in the round and as far as
practicable, as he or she treats others. And when I use the words “just” or
“unjust,” I mean in accordance with, or not in accordance with, common-sense
justice.
When specifying the Code in detail, each rule must also state
the conditions under which individuals may reasonably break it, and at what
level they may do so. Typical exceptions might be: in self-defence, in defence
of others, and in the pursuit or execution of common-sense justice. For
example, there is a moral obligation on everyone to behave with honesty and
candour. Yet, there are nevertheless circumstances where being honest or candid
may not be practical. For example, if you are under attack by an enemy, being
honest and candid may not be the best way to defend yourself! But such
circumstances are exceptional and, for most people, rare. To make allowance for
exceptions in such circumstances does not detract from the moral force of the
obligation.
Note that these are basic minimum standards for human
behaviour. Every adult human being worth the name ought to be able to meet them
all for the very great majority of the time. Those that fail to meet them
habitually, or in large matters, are not worthy of the name human being.
Since the source of the Code is human nature, once
specified and agreed, it will be essentially timeless. Once set up, it needs no
legislative. It will need to change only when human nature itself changes, or
new knowledge becomes available about what it is. And these events are rare.
Because of this, absent such events, the Code will be applicable
retrospectively.
When a change to the Code does become necessary, any
proposed variations will need to go through an exhaustive and public change
control process. Furthermore, when the Code is updated, all parties to
contracts must decide if they agree to move to the new version; if not, they
will stay with the old.
As to the human rights and freedoms which are to be
respected, these will need to be listed and agreed. The UN Declaration of Human
Rights – just about the only half-decent thing the UN has ever done – might be
used as a blueprint for part of the list. But there will be many more. Some may
be extracted from other rights documents, such as Magna Carta, the 1689 Bill of
Rights, the US Bill of Rights and the European Convention. Others can be
inferred by examining ethical codes and virtues which have been put forward in
the past. For example, Confucius’ Golden Rule, Aristotle’s list of virtues, and
the Christian ten commandments.
5. Rights
are earned principle
My fifth key idea is the first of a matched pair on the
topic of human rights. I state the principle as: You earn your own human rights,
by respecting the equal rights of other human beings around you.
By “human rights” here, I mean all the valid rights which
have been documented in lists such as Magna Carta, the US Bill of Rights, and
much of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. And quite a few more. It is on my
“to do list” to construct a reasonably full list of such rights.
Too many people either pooh-pooh the idea of human rights
altogether, or claim that such “rights” as they do accept are granted to
individuals by a third party, usually some government or some deity. But I take
a very different line. For me, human rights are real. But each individual earns
his or her human rights, by respecting the equal rights of others. And this
respect for others’ rights is built into the nature of any human being worth
the name.
Of course, when you were born, you had already earned these
rights in principle, because you had not violated the Convivial Code, or
unjustly harmed or tried to harm any other individual. But you must continue to
respect others’ rights, in order to retain and to expand your own rights. And
all rights are qualified by the observation that, to the extent that an
individual violates others’ rights, it is fair and just to withdraw, in
reasonable proportion, respect for the rights of the violator.
6. Earned
rights are sacrosanct principle
The flip side of rights being earned is that by acting as is
natural for a human being, and respecting others’ rights, you acquire an
expectation that others will respect your equal rights.
Those, who respect the human rights of all those who respect
their own equal rights in return, show themselves to be human beings worth the
name. And thereby, they have earned their own human rights in full. If you
follow the natural law of humanity, and respect the earned human rights of
others, then you are innocent of all real wrongdoing, no matter what anyone
accuses you of. Therefore, your own rights must be sacrosanct. No-one – least
of all government – should be allowed to take away even one jot or one tittle
of any of your rights.
7. Judgement
by behaviour principle
Judgement by behaviour represents a practice of judging
individuals by examining how they behave. It means that you should not take too
much account of things outside an individual’s control, such as race,
birthplace, received religion or disability. Instead, you should simply ask: Is
this conduct appropriate for a convivial human being? Thus, 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. You judge them, not by who they are, but
by how they behave.
When properly applied, judgement by behaviour can release
both judger and judged from many of the ills under which we suffer today. For
example, racism, sexism and class divisions become very hard indeed to justify.
And it deters those that wish to treat a whole group of people as if they were
all the same, or to disparage all individuals in a group because of the
behaviour of a few.
Moreover, judgement by behaviour enables us to distinguish
those who behave up to the natural law of humanity – our fellow human beings –
from those that do not. Thus, it enables us to separate the economic species
from the political, the human from the inhuman.
Judgement by behaviour is an individualistic way of looking
at people. You treat them as people. That is, persons; not just as part of a
mass. And yet, many in the political establishment are utterly opposed to
individualism. Indeed, I saw recently an article in the Los Angeles Times,
which opined that individualism was something needing to be “fixed!”
8. Community
versus society
I make an important distinction between a community
and a society. A community is a group of people, bound together by some
shared characteristic; but not necessarily by anything more. Example of
communities are is the people who live or work in a particular town, and the
people who reside in a particular geographical area. A society, on the other
hand, is a group of people who have agreed to join in a common cause. Examples
of societies are a football club, a musical ensemble, or a political party.
A society has a “general will,” a will shared by the members
as a whole: namely, the objectives for which the society aims. Provided, of
course, that those, who cease to agree with the objectives or the conduct of
the society, can freely leave the society.
A community, on the other hand, has no general will. Thus,
it is not a society, and not a collective. It is merely a group of individuals.
9. Voluntary
society principle
The ninth key idea, I state as: All societies must be
voluntary. This principle is explicitly supported by the UN Declaration of
Human Rights, Article 20(2): “No one may be compelled to belong to an
association.”
A major consequence of this is that because those who live
in a particular geographical area are only a community, not a society, there is
no common cause in which they can be considered to have all agreed to join. So,
they cannot be assumed to support or to accept any particular political
ideology or set of policies. Therefore, the people in an area cannot reasonably
be expected to keep to rules or policies imposed by any particular political or
religious ideology or faction.
To look at it another way. If you are opposed to some
political philosophy – such as socialism, fascism or deep green
environmentalism – then no-one has the right to force you to join, or to obey
the rules of, any society that operates, or favours, that philosophy. And you
must be able freely to leave any society that adopts any such philosophy into
its tenets.
Moreover, no-one has any right to treat you as if you were
part of some collective, that you have not voluntarily joined. As a human
being, the only rules you must obey are the rules of the natural law of
humanity.
10.Failure
of the “social contract” fiction
The social contract fiction was, so it seems, invented
in the 17th century by Thomas Hobbes. According to this narrative,
at some time in the past, a group of people (or, at least, a majority of them)
made a contract with each other, that they consented to be ruled over
despotically by an absolute sovereign, and committed that they would authorize
and approve whatever the sovereign chose to do. Moreover, once the system has
been set up, there is no possibility of changing it, or of escape from it. And
we, today, are still bound by their agreement.
But I find this narrative absurd. Even if my ancestors might
have subscribed to such a thing (and, as far as I know, they didn’t), I as an
individual have never agreed to any social contract! Where is my signature on
any such damn thing? Moreover, where are the statements of the benefits I am
supposed to get from it, and the procedures for me to get justice and redress
if the government party fails to deliver? They do not exist.
The social contract fiction has led to an idea accepted by
far too many, that there is something called “Society” in the singular, to
which everyone in a particular area – such as the territory claimed by a state
– belongs, whether they want to or not. And this leads to the idea that people
owe a loyalty to, and should be prepared to make sacrifices for, this
“Society.” (Or for something they call “the community,” with a definite article
– essentially the same thing.)
Further, in the minds of the politicals and their
hangers-on, this loyalty is owed, not to their fellow human beings, but to the
political state that rules over them. But the voluntary society principle leads
me to reject altogether this idea of Society in the singular. And thus, to
reject also the idea that I should feel or show loyalty to any political state.
I also reject all derived ideas like “social justice” and
“social security.” And I reject all political ideologies that depend on the
idea. Such as socialism, where Society is supposed to own the means of economic
production. Communism, where Society owns everything, and all resources are
controlled and allocated by the political state. And fascism, which
subordinates the interests of individuals to Society and to the nation.
This social contract narrative is not only absurd, but has
been foisted on us human beings fraudulently, by those that do not have our
interests at heart.
Myself, I do not feel any loyalty towards any society of
which I am not voluntarily a member. And, far from feeling loyalty towards the
state, I see it for what it is – a political structure, that supports a
tyrannical gang of inhuman, psychopathic criminals. And I reject it, and all
those that use it for their own gain, or other purposes of their own. I simply
want to be rid of all political states. And of the “United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland,” in particular.
10a. The Lockean social contract
Now, there is an alternative form of the social contract
idea, which was put forward by John Locke. He says that a group of people may
choose to form a “political society.” This they do “by agreeing to join and
unite into a community for their comfortable, safe and peaceable living.” But
he is very clear about the purposes of the agreement: The objectives are the
preservation of their property, and the preservation and enlargement of their
freedoms.
Of course, even this Lockean form of the social contract
suffers from many of the problems of the Hobbesian version. Where is this
contract? What is in it? Where is my signature on it? What procedures should I
follow when the government party fails to deliver on its end of the bargain?
Further, Locke cautions that any government formed in such a
political society must always act for the “public good.” That is, the good of
every individual in that society, as far as that can be achieved by setting
common rules for all. If a government departs from or goes beyond this, and
seeks to “impoverish, harass or subdue” the people it is supposed to be
serving, then it has become a tyranny, and is no longer legitimate. The people
in the society then have the right to put new people in charge; or,
alternatively, to dismantle the system, and replace it by a new one. They have
the right either to reform the system, or to replace it.
Quite clearly, even if the Lockean version of the contract
is to be believed, UK governments of the last several decades have persistently
failed to act for the public good of all the people. Indeed, anyone in
government that acts against the interests of the people, or fails at least to
strive to deliver services that the people value positively, is failing to act
for this public good.
How to deal with a government that fails to deliver its side
of the bargain? Locke gave us three options. One, put new people in charge.
Two, dismantle and replace the system. Or three, abandon the whole idea of
government. But we’ve tried the first of these on many occasions before,
haven’t we? Without any recent successes at all. In most cases, as with Labour
in the UK today, the new gang in power proves itself to be even worse than the
old.
In the last 40 years at least, every UK government has been
a drain on us. Indeed, there has hardly been a government that wasn’t at least
as bad as, or worse than, its predecessor. Isn’t it high time we gave the
dismantle-and-replace idea a go? Let’s get rid of the political state, and in
its place build a system of governance that works for human beings.
11.Common-sense
justice principle
The eleventh, and perhaps the most important, of my key
ideas is the principle I call common-sense justice. I state it as follows:
Every individual deserves to be treated, over the long run, in the round and as
far as practicable, as he or she treats others. Thus, common-sense justice is
individual justice.
The principle implies that if you don’t do, or seek to do,
harm to innocent people, you don’t deserve to suffer any harms being done to
you. On the other side, if you do harm to others, or seek to do harm to others,
or impose on others unreasonable risks that lead to actual harm, you should be
required to compensate those whose lives you damaged, and if appropriate to be
punished in proportion to the seriousness of what you did.
In essence, common-sense justice is Charles Kingsley’s: “Be
done by as you did.” It is a hard taskmaster; but it is a fair one.
This kind of justice also teams up with the judgement by
behaviour idea I discussed above. Together, they provide an ideal of justice,
in which what matters is not who an individual is, but only how they behave
(and, on some occasions, their motives for doing what they do). It doesn’t (or
shouldn’t) matter what colour someone’s skin is. Or where they were born. Or what
religion they were brought up in. Or what their gender or their sexual
preferences may be. All that matters are their actions and their intent towards
others. Thus, under common-sense justice, everyone is truly “equal before the
law.”
Moreover, when an ideal of common-sense justice is in place,
I expect it to lead to a far better tone of life than we have today. For, if
you want to be treated better by others, all you have to do is find a way to
treat others better!
12.Maximum
freedom principle
The final key idea is the maximum freedom principle. I like
to put this as “maximum freedom for everyone, consistent with living in a
civilized community.” And maximum freedom for an individual is, of course,
conditional on that individual respecting the equal rights of others.
There will also be a general presumption of freedom. The
Convivial Code will contain, as far as feasible, all the known prohibitions
against disconvivial behaviour. Anything not prohibited will be allowed, unless
it violates others’ rights, or causes or is intended to cause unjust harm to
others, or imposes unreasonable risks on others.
To sum this up: Except where countermanded by common-sense
justice, the Convivial Code or respect for rights, every individual is free to
choose and act as he or she wishes.
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