Do the Birds and the Bees Know That They're Misbehaving?

Chapter 9: What Makes Us Us, Part 2

Why this book | Title Page | Table of Contents
Preface | Introduction
PART 1
Chapter 1 (1.1) (1.2) | Chapter 2 (2.1) (2.2) (2.3) | Chapter 3 (3.1) (3.2) (3.3) (3.4) (3.5) (3.6)
PART 2
Chapter 4 (4.1) (4.2) (4.3) (4.4) (4.5) | Chapter 5 (5.1) (5.2) (5.3) (5.4) (5.5) (5.6) (5.7) (5.8) (5.9)
Chapter 6 (6.1) (6.2) (6.3) (6.4) (6.5)
PART 3
Chapter 7 (7.1) (7.2) (7.3) (7.4) (7.5) (7.6)
Chapter 8 (8.1) (8.2) (8.3) (8.4) (8.5)
Chapter 9 (9.1)
Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14
PART 4
Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 |
PART 5
Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Conclusion
Appendix | Works Cited

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Note: This is an installment of The Freedom Scale: An Accurate Measure of Left and Right. See here for installments of The Distributed Nation: A Plan for Human Independence.

Chapter 9
What Makes Us Us, Part 2

Humans, animals, and the value of morality

That is what gives me the fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, promoting, and enhancing life, and that destroying, injuring, and limiting life are evil.

— Albert Schweitzer

• Morality

  • It’s a human thing…

  • Where does it come from?

    • It’s natural

    • It’s useful

    • It feels right

    • We’re taught it

  • What is it?

    • Must-nots and musts

    • Fairness and justice

    • Shoulds and should-nots

    • Customs

• Are we good?

  • The range of human morality

  • Reasons for “Evil”

    • Personal gain & the seven deadly sins

    • Ideology and “the end justifies the means”

    • "I was just following orders…"

    • Nature gone wrong

  • Lord of the Flies

  • A Standard of Goodness

• More than just a human thing?

Chapter 9.1

• Morality

  • It’s a human thing…

The central purpose of this book is to discover and justify a more accurate, useful, and rigorous political spectrum. In the course of this work, it became clear that in order to find that spectrum, we first have to explore the existence and nature of individual rights. In the long run, the results of that exploration may serve an even more valuable purpose.

For several years, the question beat in my head like a blacksmith’s hammer: What are rights? Where do they come from? Are they simply a moral abstraction? We call them “natural” rights, but how natural are they, really?

What I discovered was far beyond what I expected. Rights are not simply a construct. Rights are real.

They are natural in the deepest senses of the word: they partially result from, and are clearly evident in, physical reality and the laws of nature.

They are beneficial: they have practical value for individual and species-wide flourishing (and living creatures have an awareness of these benefits).

They are preexistent: as phenomena rooted in nature and creation itself, they preexist government and still exist in its absence.

They are universal: they are not relative to time, place, or culture; the nature and reality of rights is invariant and equally applicable to all.

And they are morally good: they result from morally good aspects of our being, and respect for rights constitutes morally good behavior.

Some of these may sound like controversial claims. We will work hard in the chapters ahead to justify them.

And speaking of controversy—who’s up for a discussion of good and evil?

Rights, though natural, are not a magic cloak. They are rooted in, and depend upon, human morality. So that is where we must go next.

Here’s what we won’t be doing: