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> Wiki link to Murder_in_English_law All I see is an RFC that (a) defines what counts as "murder" and (b) specifies what protocols the government should follow

by kijin 13y ago

> Wiki link to Murder_in_English_law All I see is an RFC that (a) defines what counts as "murder" and (b) specifies what protocols the government should follow when murder occurs. AFAIK it doesn't contain any sentence to the effect of "persons MUST NOT commit murder", not even anything that amounts to "persons SHALL NOT commit murder". So I stand by my claim that such a prohibition is an assumption behind the law, not the content of the law. The Ten Commandments, on the other hand, definitely includes the clause "persons MUST NOT commit murder". So do a lot of other religious texts. The idea that criminal law is comprised of a set of prohibitions, IMO, is a sticky residue from the days of theocracy when people thought there was a big guy in the sky who went around issuing explicit prohibitions. > a conditional moral imperative to obey the laws if there are any I accept that ethics may differ in different situations, but only to the extent that general imperatives allow. Every conditional moral imperative (hypothetical imperative according to Kant) is an application of a general moral imperative (categorical imperative according to Kant). Therefore the proxy analogy still holds, and I don't see any general moral imperative that can lead to the conclusion that I should obey whatever 51% of an arbitrarily delimited group of people say I should. The closest you can get is that the majority is likely to be right, but empirically, that's a rather questionable assumption. In my view there is no general moral imperative not to steal. That presupposes the concept of ownership, which, as you said, is problematic. Rather, I think there is a moral imperative to refrain from depriving people of things they hold dear, which is itself an application of the general moral imperative to respect individual human beings.

foldr 13y ago
> [murder] Again, you are making a bizarre claim (that laws against murder do not constitute requirements that people should not commit murder) and provide nothing to back this up. You need to show that this is actually how laws are interpreted by the judiciary, not just give your own amateur legal opinion. > Every conditional moral imperative...is an application of a general moral imperative (categorical imperative according to Kant). That's not what I mean. I'm talking about a general moral imperative whose logical form is that of a conditional sentence. E.g. "If your society has laws, obey them." There is actually no such thing as a "conditional imperative" in Kant's system (were you thinking of hypothetical imperatives?) See the following (p. 293 first complete paragraph) for an explanation of why something with the form of a conditional sentence isn't necessarily a hypothetical imperative: http://books.google.ca/books?id=GBzrg47sxBwC&lpg=PA291&ots=tpffig6rsf&dq=kant%20%22conditional%20imperative%22&lr&pg=PA293#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.ca/books?id=GBzrg47sxBwC&lpg=PA291&ots=t... The irony here is that Kant didn't think that people had a right to break the law or rebel against the government! http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2707741?uid=3739464&uid=2&uid=3737720&uid=4&sid=21102498034087 http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2707741?uid=3739464&ui... In any case, I'm not a Kantian, so I don't really care whether his ethical theory has this consequence or not.
- kijin 13y ago
  I'm not giving a legal opinion, ameteur or otherwise, nor trying to second-guess what the judiciary thinks. The judiciary can think whatever it wants to, why does it matter? I'm only giving a philosophical opinion on the logical implications of the existence of various criminal statutes, and my opinion is that they have lots of rational-choice implications but zero moral implications. To put it another way, if everyone has a duty to refrain from X'ing, the importance of this duty is neither increased nor decreased by the existence (or lack thereof) of a law that punishes X'ers. I think I've offered plenty of philosophical arguments in this thread to try to back that up. But if you're looking for legal opinion, you're talking to the wrong guy. I did mention "hypothetical imperatives" in my comment above. "Conditional imperative" was your terminology. You're right that a conditional sentence may turn out to be a categorical imperative. But since according to Kant there exists only one categorical imperative with 3 different formulations, and since "If your society has laws, obey them" ain't on the list, I'm going to assume that Kant doesn't think it's a categorical imperative. If so, it's just another hypothetical imperative whose validity depends on whether it is consistent with the categorical imperative. Kant apparently thinks it is, for unrelated reasons. That's where I depart from Kant, because I don't think the imperative in question is consistent with the categorical imperative. At the very least, it would have to be revised to something like "If your society has laws that promote obedience to the categorical imperative and its logical consequences, follow them."
  - foldr 13y ago
    >I'm only giving a philosophical opinion on the logical implications of the existence of various criminal statutes That's why I asked you before whether you were making a claim about the actual state of affairs in the US. If it's just your philosophical opinion and not a claim about how the law is actually interpreted, who cares? You're rather fond yourself of dismissing the opinions of the judiciary. Surely your opinions on the law are of even less account. > But since according to Kant there exists only one categorical imperative That's really a terminological issue. There are clearly lots of specific moral requirements which follow from "the" categorical imperative, which meet the general requirements for being a categorical imperative (i.e. they are desire independent) and which don't meet the definition of a hypothetical imperative. I believe Kant did think that some kind of requirement to obey the law followed from the categorical imperative. Again, since Kant does not agree with you on this specific issue, and since there are lots of moral philosophers besides Kant, what exactly is your point here? That Kant might have agreed with you if it wasn't for the fact that he didn't?

by kijin 13y ago

foldr 13y ago

> [murder] Again, you are making a bizarre claim (that laws against murder do not constitute requirements that people should not commit murder) and provide nothing to back this up. You need to show that this is actually how laws are interpreted by the judiciary, not just give your own amateur legal opinion. > Every conditional moral imperative...is an application of a general moral imperative (categorical imperative according to Kant). That's not what I mean. I'm talking about a general moral imperative whose logical form is that of a conditional sentence. E.g. "If your society has laws, obey them." There is actually no such thing as a "conditional imperative" in Kant's system (were you thinking of hypothetical imperatives?) See the following (p. 293 first complete paragraph) for an explanation of why something with the form of a conditional sentence isn't necessarily a hypothetical imperative: http://books.google.ca/books?id=GBzrg47sxBwC&lpg=PA291&ots=tpffig6rsf&dq=kant%20%22conditional%20imperative%22&lr&pg=PA293#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.ca/books?id=GBzrg47sxBwC&lpg=PA291&ots=t... The irony here is that Kant didn't think that people had a right to break the law or rebel against the government! http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2707741?uid=3739464&uid=2&uid=3737720&uid=4&sid=21102498034087 http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2707741?uid=3739464&ui... In any case, I'm not a Kantian, so I don't really care whether his ethical theory has this consequence or not.

kijin 13y ago
I'm not giving a legal opinion, ameteur or otherwise, nor trying to second-guess what the judiciary thinks. The judiciary can think whatever it wants to, why does it matter? I'm only giving a philosophical opinion on the logical implications of the existence of various criminal statutes, and my opinion is that they have lots of rational-choice implications but zero moral implications. To put it another way, if everyone has a duty to refrain from X'ing, the importance of this duty is neither increased nor decreased by the existence (or lack thereof) of a law that punishes X'ers. I think I've offered plenty of philosophical arguments in this thread to try to back that up. But if you're looking for legal opinion, you're talking to the wrong guy. I did mention "hypothetical imperatives" in my comment above. "Conditional imperative" was your terminology. You're right that a conditional sentence may turn out to be a categorical imperative. But since according to Kant there exists only one categorical imperative with 3 different formulations, and since "If your society has laws, obey them" ain't on the list, I'm going to assume that Kant doesn't think it's a categorical imperative. If so, it's just another hypothetical imperative whose validity depends on whether it is consistent with the categorical imperative. Kant apparently thinks it is, for unrelated reasons. That's where I depart from Kant, because I don't think the imperative in question is consistent with the categorical imperative. At the very least, it would have to be revised to something like "If your society has laws that promote obedience to the categorical imperative and its logical consequences, follow them."
- foldr 13y ago
  >I'm only giving a philosophical opinion on the logical implications of the existence of various criminal statutes That's why I asked you before whether you were making a claim about the actual state of affairs in the US. If it's just your philosophical opinion and not a claim about how the law is actually interpreted, who cares? You're rather fond yourself of dismissing the opinions of the judiciary. Surely your opinions on the law are of even less account. > But since according to Kant there exists only one categorical imperative That's really a terminological issue. There are clearly lots of specific moral requirements which follow from "the" categorical imperative, which meet the general requirements for being a categorical imperative (i.e. they are desire independent) and which don't meet the definition of a hypothetical imperative. I believe Kant did think that some kind of requirement to obey the law followed from the categorical imperative. Again, since Kant does not agree with you on this specific issue, and since there are lots of moral philosophers besides Kant, what exactly is your point here? That Kant might have agreed with you if it wasn't for the fact that he didn't?