ROTHBRD

[Dglgmut]

If one private person bought up all the land surrounding another person's house and told the other person he couldn't leave, would you see a problem with that?

I think you missed his point. The problem you illustrated is only a problem if the right to the one's land property takes precedence over the other's right to freedom of movement.

Does a tiger have the right to kill you? If you have a right not to be killed by a human, but no right not to be killed by a tiger, why is that and how is that right not an invention?

[Brant Gaede]

Why buy a Glock when you have your natural rights to protect you?

No such thing as "natural rights." Human rights are based on human nature but are also a human invention. Basically they are artificial, like all inventions. The materials that go into them aren't.

--Brant

Brant,

I dislike the distinction that you're trying to draw. "Rights" are based on what is right or correct or proper vs. what is wrong or incorrect or improper. Property ownership is a right because because owning property is right for human survival. But, what is right or wrong is not a matter of choice. It is an objective fact of existence just like gravity. The recognition of gravity or the understanding of gravity is not the same as the "invention" of gravity. Nor, is the recognition that certain claims are rights equivalent to the "invention" of rights.

Darrell

Well, you can call rights "natural rights" if by that you are referring to human needs qua human organism given the thinking, conceptual state of same. I was referring to philosophical identification and legal codification and enforcement, but there is not one right as such within any human being, only the need for rights. Doing it your way or the highway means we will start talking about the right to life of the fetus and if not banning of birth control the banning of almost all abortions including the first trimester and the morning after pill. Rand stated that a right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning freedom of action in a social context so she never addressed when human life began, only human rights.

Your way for you and Rand's for me? How do you come down on Rand's formulation and expositions? What is your view on abortion in the first tri-mester? Right to life for the fetus or unborn child?

--Brant

I don't agree with your gravity analogy; gravity is not a need or human creation and production, just a fact--try clothes; people need clothes, not having much fur, and people need rights--I certainly agree with the moral foundation of rights

Humans have a "need for rights." That is true. But there is more to it than that. It is morally proper (and therefore, right) that humans respect the freedoms of others. Right in the natural rights sense, is a moral concept, not to be confused with the legal concept. For example, driving is a right according to the natural law, but a privilege under the codified law.

Darrell

It's a privilege on public roadways. (Public here can refer both to public and private roads, the later being ones you do not own.)

What is and is not morally proper is a philosophical identification-invention following the identification of rights as such. You are trying to turn cultural-intellectual normative artifacts into facts of nature for the sake of your position when, in fact, you can simply argue from facts as they are--the nature of human nature--to moral invention consonant with our shared, basic and needed attributes. Just as men build skyscrapers they build philosophies including moralities. Are they true and valid, is the question? There are no rights and moralities marching down the street in irrefutable existence. There are consequences from what people do and do not do respecting morality and philosophy. Might really does make rights right in that the rights' protectors get a hold of government and keep a hold of it and kick the violators out and hold governance to rights' protection only sinning for you in the imperfection of it all for they will violate someone's rights some ways. It's evil, I know.

--Brant

Let's say, hypothetically, that I and my family and my relatives and half the people in the town had long used a pathway to drive our horse-drawn carts, ride our bikes, etc., for generations. Then, along came some private citizen and paved it over and called it a road and said we couldn't use it any more. Do you see a problem with that?

If one private person bought up all the land surrounding another person's house and told the other person he couldn't leave, would you see a problem with that?

Property rights don't give a person carte blanche to do whatever he wants. If other people had a prior claim to the use of a piece of land, even if it were just to use as a pathway to get somewhere, another person could not just come along and deprive them of that right. Similarly, the government cannot just come along, claim a piece of land for the public, build a road on it and prevent people it doesn't like from using it. Use of the public roadways is not a privilege. People have a basic right to liberty and a prior claim to the use of pathways and roadways to get around, at least if they were freely used in the past.

Might doesn't make right. You say, "It's evil, I know." Well, how can that which is evil be right? How can that which is evil be moral? How can that which is evil be good? Unless you're going to argue that black is white and up is down you can't argue that might is evil and might makes right.

Darrell

"It's evil, I know" isn't really evil only an allusion to the impossibility of the existence of a government that doesn't violate rights, but if those violations are relatively small there is no justification for a revolution and a new government.

I have no understanding of why you suddenly think I think I'm against property rights or that my rights in law would be much or any different than your ideas of rights in law. Might makes rights in law but not in philosophy or morality. The trick is to get as much congruence as possible in law. This doesn't mean that one on one socially speaking--sans government--that you cannot inform someone he is violating your rights and to stop--even forcing him to. Take away government you'll still have your rights--that is, the right to exercise your rights and not have your rights violated--but that exercising of same might be quite difficult.

--Brant

". . . and that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men . . . ."

[anthony]

A moral man automatically recognises others' right to life and action without being told.

Does he? Why?

What is rational about that?

Why? Why not? You have regularly countered the morality that's derived from man's nature and the sovereignty of each individual mind. A rational individual acknowledges that he's not alone: that the identical metaphysics and epistemology apply to all men, not only him. Otherwise he's a solipsist, a primate of consciousness.

We apparently have differing ideas of "rational".

[anthony]

There's only one 'positive' right, the right to life, which is the right to act as one chooses.

You 'is', so therefore you 'ought'.

All 'negative' rights protect this one positive, and also protect others from your acts.

I think you are both correct. Possessing life is a given, needing nobody's permission - but there must be the invention of individual rights to defend the given.

The right to life is not a positive right. It is a shorthand way of saying you have the right to what you already have--your life--and that you are entitled to pursue such things as serve that life in ways you deem best as long as you don't initiate force against another person.

--Brant

I thought I implied and said all that.

(You've substituted "right" for "entitled", which is really the same).

Life is axiomatic - of who is now in existence, and yet to be - and that axiom directly implies the individual freedom to "serve that life in ways you deem best..." (nicely put). So, actually 'life, and freedom to act', is not a right, positive or otherwise, it's a metaphysical given.

[Dglgmut]

A moral man automatically recognises others' right to life and action without being told.

Does he? Why?

What is rational about that?

Why? Why not? You have regularly countered the morality that's derived from man's nature and the sovereignty of each individual mind. A rational individual acknowledges that he's not alone: that the identical metaphysics and epistemology apply to all men, not only him. Otherwise he's a solipsist, a primate of consciousness.

We apparently have differing ideas of "rational".

So he automatically values other men?

[anthony]

A snip from "Letters of Ayn Rand", quite fitting here.

"Dear Rose Wilder Lane:

In regard to my definition of rights, in the second instalment of my "Textbook"[of Americanism], I am inclined to agree with your suggested correction, that the sentence should read: "a right is exercised without permission" instead of "can be exercised".[...]

I agree with you that rights are a natural human function, indispensable to man's survival, but I do not understand your argument to the effect that even though it is possible to kill one man, it is impossible to exterminate all of mankind... I see some danger in this argument, for two reasons:

1. If we maintain the right of life is collectively inalienable, that is, that the race can't be destroyed - this is no defence or consolation for any particular man who is being murdered. 2. On such a basis a collectivist could claim that when he violates the rights of individuals, he is not violating human rights, since he can't enslave or destroy all of mankind...

My own definition of the existence of human rights rests on the fact of man's survival. Rights are intrinsic to the survival of a rational being, because the mind is man's only means of survival, and the mind is an attribute of an individual which cannot function under compulsion. If we accept as an axiom that man's survival is desirable, we have to recognize man's rights. The violation of these rights leads to the destruction of individuals, and if continued, can and will destroy the whole human race..."

[August, 1946]

[anthony]

A moral man automatically recognises others' right to life and action without being told.

Does he? Why?

What is rational about that?

Why? Why not? You have regularly countered the morality that's derived from man's nature and the sovereignty of each individual mind. A rational individual acknowledges that he's not alone: that the identical metaphysics and epistemology apply to all men, not only him. Otherwise he's a solipsist, a primate of consciousness.

We apparently have differing ideas of "rational".

So he automatically values other men?

He automatically values man's life.

"The Objectivist ethics holds man's life as the *standard* of value - and *his own life* as the ethical *purpose* of every individual man".

--

"It is only the concept of 'Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible."

[VoS]

[Darrell Hougen]

Why buy a Glock when you have your natural rights to protect you?

No such thing as "natural rights." Human rights are based on human nature but are also a human invention. Basically they are artificial, like all inventions. The materials that go into them aren't.

--Brant

Brant,

I dislike the distinction that you're trying to draw. "Rights" are based on what is right or correct or proper vs. what is wrong or incorrect or improper. Property ownership is a right because because owning property is right for human survival. But, what is right or wrong is not a matter of choice. It is an objective fact of existence just like gravity. The recognition of gravity or the understanding of gravity is not the same as the "invention" of gravity. Nor, is the recognition that certain claims are rights equivalent to the "invention" of rights.

Darrell

Well, you can call rights "natural rights" if by that you are referring to human needs qua human organism given the thinking, conceptual state of same. I was referring to philosophical identification and legal codification and enforcement, but there is not one right as such within any human being, only the need for rights. Doing it your way or the highway means we will start talking about the right to life of the fetus and if not banning of birth control the banning of almost all abortions including the first trimester and the morning after pill. Rand stated that a right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning freedom of action in a social context so she never addressed when human life began, only human rights.

Your way for you and Rand's for me? How do you come down on Rand's formulation and expositions? What is your view on abortion in the first tri-mester? Right to life for the fetus or unborn child?

--Brant

I don't agree with your gravity analogy; gravity is not a need or human creation and production, just a fact--try clothes; people need clothes, not having much fur, and people need rights--I certainly agree with the moral foundation of rights

Humans have a "need for rights." That is true. But there is more to it than that. It is morally proper (and therefore, right) that humans respect the freedoms of others. Right in the natural rights sense, is a moral concept, not to be confused with the legal concept. For example, driving is a right according to the natural law, but a privilege under the codified law.

Darrell

It's a privilege on public roadways. (Public here can refer both to public and private roads, the later being ones you do not own.)

What is and is not morally proper is a philosophical identification-invention following the identification of rights as such. You are trying to turn cultural-intellectual normative artifacts into facts of nature for the sake of your position when, in fact, you can simply argue from facts as they are--the nature of human nature--to moral invention consonant with our shared, basic and needed attributes. Just as men build skyscrapers they build philosophies including moralities. Are they true and valid, is the question? There are no rights and moralities marching down the street in irrefutable existence. There are consequences from what people do and do not do respecting morality and philosophy. Might really does make rights right in that the rights' protectors get a hold of government and keep a hold of it and kick the violators out and hold governance to rights' protection only sinning for you in the imperfection of it all for they will violate someone's rights some ways. It's evil, I know.

--Brant

Let's say, hypothetically, that I and my family and my relatives and half the people in the town had long used a pathway to drive our horse-drawn carts, ride our bikes, etc., for generations. Then, along came some private citizen and paved it over and called it a road and said we couldn't use it any more. Do you see a problem with that?

If one private person bought up all the land surrounding another person's house and told the other person he couldn't leave, would you see a problem with that?

Property rights don't give a person carte blanche to do whatever he wants. If other people had a prior claim to the use of a piece of land, even if it were just to use as a pathway to get somewhere, another person could not just come along and deprive them of that right. Similarly, the government cannot just come along, claim a piece of land for the public, build a road on it and prevent people it doesn't like from using it. Use of the public roadways is not a privilege. People have a basic right to liberty and a prior claim to the use of pathways and roadways to get around, at least if they were freely used in the past.

Might doesn't make right. You say, "It's evil, I know." Well, how can that which is evil be right? How can that which is evil be moral? How can that which is evil be good? Unless you're going to argue that black is white and up is down you can't argue that might is evil and might makes right.

Darrell

"It's evil, I know" isn't really evil only an allusion to the impossibility of the existence of a government that doesn't violate rights, but if those violations are relatively small there is no justification for a revolution and a new government.

I have no understanding of why you suddenly think I think I'm against property rights or that my rights in law would be much or any different than your ideas of rights in law. Might makes rights in law but not in philosophy or morality. The trick is to get as much congruence as possible in law. This doesn't mean that one on one socially speaking--sans government--that you cannot inform someone he is violating your rights and to stop--even forcing him to. Take away government you'll still have your rights

Stop right there! The phrase, "Take away the government and you'll still have your rights," could be taken as an informal definition of natural rights. So, if you believe what you just wrote, then you do believe in natural rights, even though, earlier, you said there was "no such thing."

--that is, the right to exercise your rights and not have your rights violated--but that exercising of same might be quite difficult.

Having rights and being able to exercise them are two different things. But, I think you knew that, because, in closing you said:

--Brant

". . . and that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men . . . ."

Exactly! Boom! Rights exist prior to and independently of government. That's why they're called "natural rights" --- because they're based on the nature of man and his relationship to other men. They're not an invention of humans. They are a recognition --- a description --- of the nature of man and his relationship to other men. And, yes, the "trick" is to make the codified law as close as possible to the natural law.

Darrell

[Brant Gaede]

Uh, Darrell: you'll still have your rights because they were invented and embraced. Government is getting most of the friction out of rights' enforcement and is societally beneficial by benefitting the individual removing as much force as possible in human relationships. That's the libertarian ideal, anyway (x anarchism).

--Brant

our argument over "natural" in natural rights is mostly semantical: you can say they're natural if they refer to human nature but they aren't literally things in people or nature

[anthony]

The 'implicit-explicit' and 'is-ought': I think that's the crux of what you two are debating.

If life is implicitly valuable, it ought to be explicitly protected.

Coming from different ends, you only have to meet in the middle to see how easy the cross-over is. (I know, a gratuitous mention.)

[moralist]

There's only one 'positive' right, the right to life, which is the right to act as one chooses.

You 'is', so therefore you 'ought'.

All 'negative' rights protect this one positive, and also protect others from your acts.

I think you are both correct. Possessing life is a given, needing nobody's permission - but there must be the invention of individual rights to defend the given.

Actually, the right to life, properly understood, is also a negative right. The right to life means the right to live. That is, it means the right to live by your own effort. A positive right means a right to receive something at the expense of someone else. A person doesn't have a right to live at the expense of someone else. But, he does have the right to not have his freedom to pursue his life infringed by anyone else --- a negative right.

Darrell

That's a well thought out distinction, Darrell.

The right to life implies a stipulation:

The right to life as what?

The right to life can only be enjoyed outside of the zero sum system by those who are neither predator nor prey. Giving up the former is protection from becoming the latter.

[Brant Gaede]

There's only one 'positive' right, the right to life, which is the right to act as one chooses.

You 'is', so therefore you 'ought'.

All 'negative' rights protect this one positive, and also protect others from your acts.

I think you are both correct. Possessing life is a given, needing nobody's permission - but there must be the invention of individual rights to defend the given.

Actually, the right to life, properly understood, is also a negative right. The right to life means the right to live. That is, it means the right to live by your own effort. A positive right means a right to receive something at the expense of someone else. A person doesn't have a right to live at the expense of someone else. But, he does have the right to not have his freedom to pursue his life infringed by anyone else --- a negative right.

Darrell

That's a well thought out distinction, Darrell.

The right to life implies a stipulation:

The right to life as what?

The right to life can only be enjoyed outside of the zero sum system by those who are neither predator nor prey. Giving up the former is protection from becoming the latter.

The "stipulation" is automatic so it isn't a stipulation for as a human being is what follows. But this is all on the person (individualism) not on person to person (society). We can talk all you want about the "oughts" in all this, but if the right to life is already in the cake you are in tautological-land. This is semantical but "stipulation" needs to be replaced for there is otherwise a confusion between foundation and structure, a being and a being's choices. Or: It all hangs on "The right to life as what." Drop that sentence. If you do that you are talking about human freedom, individual rights, capitalism, the nature of governance or government or the state, not choices which are none of your business unless they are your own.

--Brant

[Mikee]

"The right to life can only be enjoyed outside of the zero sum system by those who are neither predator nor prey. Giving up the former is protection from becoming the latter."

No. Simply passively giving up being a predator is not protection from predators. Bambi better learn to run and hide, or actively support some system of protection.

[BaalChatzaf]

"The right to life can only be enjoyed outside of the zero sum system by those who are neither predator nor prey. Giving up the former is protection from becoming the latter."

No. Simply passively giving up being a predator is not protection from predators. Bambi better learn to run and hide, or actively support some system of protection.

Bambi got himself a Glock. Years later he found the hunter who did his Mom, and finished that hunter off.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[moralist]

There's only one 'positive' right, the right to life, which is the right to act as one chooses.

You 'is', so therefore you 'ought'.

All 'negative' rights protect this one positive, and also protect others from your acts.

I think you are both correct. Possessing life is a given, needing nobody's permission - but there must be the invention of individual rights to defend the given.

Actually, the right to life, properly understood, is also a negative right. The right to life means the right to live. That is, it means the right to live by your own effort. A positive right means a right to receive something at the expense of someone else. A person doesn't have a right to live at the expense of someone else. But, he does have the right to not have his freedom to pursue his life infringed by anyone else --- a negative right.

Darrell

That's a well thought out distinction, Darrell.

The right to life implies a stipulation:

The right to life as what?

The right to life can only be enjoyed outside of the zero sum system by those who are neither predator nor prey. Giving up the former is protection from becoming the latter.

The "stipulation" is automatic so it isn't a stipulation for as a human being is what follows. But this is all on the person (individualism) not on person to person (society). We can talk all you want about the "oughts" in all this, but if the right to life is already in the cake you are in tautological-land. This is semantical but "stipulation" needs to be replaced for there is otherwise a confusion between foundation and structure, a being and a being's choices. Or: It all hangs on "The right to life as what." Drop that sentence. If you do that you are talking about human freedom, individual rights, capitalism, the nature of governance or government or the state, not choices which are none of your business unless they are your own.

--Brant

I wasn't referring to external enforcement or anything else of that nature. What I was alluding to with that question was that the (what I consider to be God given) right to life has a moral condition attached to it.

[moralist]

"The right to life can only be enjoyed outside of the zero sum system by those who are neither predator nor prey. Giving up the former is protection from becoming the latter."

No. Simply passively giving up being a predator is not protection from predators.

My experience indicates that the moral Golden Rule governs the consequences of our behavior... or more simply put, what goes around actually does come around. So being mindful of what I send out into the world does indeed have a direct effect on what comes back to me.

I understand that your own life experience must be different for you are arriving at a completely different conclusion.

No. Simply passively giving up being a predator is not protection from predators.

Giving up being a predator is not passivity, but an active choice to act contrary to human nature. Moving to a completely different set of cues puts you outside of the predator/prey drama altogether because you're responding to something else besides the world.

[anthony]

Giving up being a predator is not passivity, but an active choice to act contrary to human nature. Moving to a completely different set of cues puts you outside of the predator/prey drama altogether because you're responding to something else besides the world.

You've spotted and explained well avoiding the false dichotomy of prey/predator. Fully agreed that it is an active choice.

But, you sure have a downer on human nature!

It's at this basic metaphysical level where you'll constantly come up against objections.

Here's a little mind experiment: Begin by accepting just for now 'man's nature' as rational, volitional and autonomous being (and nothing more) and head in the opposite direction - away from "something else besides the world" - to 'everything that is in existence' (and no more).

You see the point. Rather than contrary to, one is acting synonymously with, human nature and all nature.

[Brant Gaede]

I wasn't referring to external enforcement or anything else of that nature. What I was alluding to with that question was that the (what I consider to be God given) right to life has a moral condition attached to it.

Start with faith (God) end with faith (attached moral condition). You just blew up the entirety of the Objectivist metaphysics and ethics (and politics for lagniappe). No need to talk about reason; it's not the season. You are where the conservatives are. That's how they talk about rights, life itself being "God given."

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

"The right to life can only be enjoyed outside of the zero sum system by those who are neither predator nor prey. Giving up the former is protection from becoming the latter."

No. Simply passively giving up being a predator is not protection from predators.

My experience indicates that the moral Golden Rule governs the consequences of our behavior... or more simply put, what goes around actually does come around. So being mindful of what I send out into the world does indeed have a direct effect on what comes back to me.

I understand that your own life experience must be different for you are arriving at a completely different conclusion.

No. Simply passively giving up being a predator is not protection from predators.

Giving up being a predator is not passivity, but an active choice to act contrary to human nature. Moving to a completely different set of cues puts you outside of the predator/prey drama altogether because you're responding to something else besides the world.

Changing from a predator to a cautious non predator cuts ones energy needs down. It is more economical not to be a predator.

[Brant Gaede]

"The right to life can only be enjoyed outside of the zero sum system by those who are neither predator nor prey. Giving up the former is protection from becoming the latter."

No. Simply passively giving up being a predator is not protection from predators.

My experience indicates that the moral Golden Rule governs the consequences of our behavior... or more simply put, what goes around actually does come around. So being mindful of what I send out into the world does indeed have a direct effect on what comes back to me.

I understand that your own life experience must be different for you are arriving at a completely different conclusion.

No. Simply passively giving up being a predator is not protection from predators.

Giving up being a predator is not passivity, but an active choice to act contrary to human nature. Moving to a completely different set of cues puts you outside of the predator/prey drama altogether because you're responding to something else besides the world.

Changing from a predator to a cautious non predator cuts ones energy needs down. It is more economical not to be a predator.

I find I only need to rob the bank two or three times a year to sustain myself.

--Brant

easy pickings

they think my hard-on is a gun, but one teller did ask me for a date

short-armed robbery

[moralist]

Giving up being a predator is not passivity, but an active choice to act contrary to human nature. Moving to a completely different set of cues puts you outside of the predator/prey drama altogether because you're responding to something else besides the world.

You've spotted and explained well avoiding the false dichotomy of prey/predator. Fully agreed that it is an active choice.

But, you sure have a downer on human nature!

Our human nature is to do evil... and doing good is acting contrary to our nature. But over time as we continue to act contrary to our nature, doing good finds a home in us and gradually becomes our nature as we grow to love goodness, and whenever we genuinely love goodness of our own free choice... Heaven literally manifests Itself upon this Earth.

It's at this basic metaphysical level where you'll constantly come up against objections.

Well, that's half the fun of it.

Here's a little mind experiment: Begin by accepting just for now 'man's nature' as rational, volitional and autonomous being (and nothing more)

I'm tracking right with you... with the difference being that I accept goodness as being God's nature and not mine. However, by learning how to act contrary to my nature, God's goodness comes to live in me.

and head in the opposite direction - away from "something else besides the world" - to 'everything that is in existence' (and no more).

I hear you. I see it as there being two worlds, and they are like water and oil... all swirled around together but without actually combining. And I get to choose in which world I live as a consequence of my own actions.

You see the point. Rather than contrary to, one is acting synonymously with, human nature and all nature.

I live in a place that is on the border of "civilization" and raw open land, so I get to observe nature up close and personal... and man, I tell you, beautiful as it may be, it's animals killing and eating other animals. Everything alive is sucked into the food chain. We are meant for something of a higher order than nature...

...and it is possible for us to enjoy living ~in~ nature... without being ~of~ nature.

[BaalChatzaf]

Moralist: you wrote: "Our human nature is to do evil... and doing good is acting contrary to our nature. But over time as we continue to act contrary to our nature, doing good finds a home in us and gradually becomes our nature as we grow to love goodness, and whenever we genuinely love goodness of our own free choice... Heaven literally manifests Itself upon this Earth."

I respond: That is a gross distortion of human behavior. Human behavior is a mixed bag. Some times good deeds are done, some times evil deeds are done. Most of the un-good we do is not because of malice, but because we have not identified our situation correctly. Our un-good flows primarily from ignorance and laziness, not utter malice and wickedness. There are very few utterly wicked people and there very few unconditionally good people. Must of us wallow about in The In Between.

You look at the world through moral spectacles and this distorts your view of the world. Not every issue or situation has moral or ethical import.

Your ultra-puritanical view can absolutely snuff out the joy of existence. You do not sound like you are fun to be around.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[moralist]

"The right to life can only be enjoyed outside of the zero sum system by those who are neither predator nor prey. Giving up the former is protection from becoming the latter."

No. Simply passively giving up being a predator is not protection from predators.

My experience indicates that the moral Golden Rule governs the consequences of our behavior... or more simply put, what goes around actually does come around. So being mindful of what I send out into the world does indeed have a direct effect on what comes back to me.

I understand that your own life experience must be different for you are arriving at a completely different conclusion.

No. Simply passively giving up being a predator is not protection from predators.

Giving up being a predator is not passivity, but an active choice to act contrary to human nature. Moving to a completely different set of cues puts you outside of the predator/prey drama altogether because you're responding to something else besides the world.

Changing from a predator to a cautious non predator cuts ones energy needs down. It is more economical not to be a predator.

Yes, it most certainly does!

Moral is also practical. (wink)

[BaalChatzaf]

Yes, it most certainly does!

Moral is also practical. (wink)

Moral is indeed practical but moral is not everything.

For example you have the money to buy an ice cream cone. Choosing which flavor is not a moral issue at all. It is an aesthetic matter and a matter of taste.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[moralist]

Moralist: you wrote: "Our human nature is to do evil... and doing good is acting contrary to our nature. But over time as we continue to act contrary to our nature, doing good finds a home in us and gradually becomes our nature as we grow to love goodness, and whenever we genuinely love goodness of our own free choice... Heaven literally manifests Itself upon this Earth."

I respond: That is a gross distortion of human behavior. Human behavior is a mixed bag.

It is truly mixed depending when we choose to act contrary to our nature.

Some times good deeds are done, some times evil deeds are done.

That is certainly true.

"There are only two races... the decent and the indecent."

--Viktor Frankl

Most of the un-good we do is not because of malice, but because we have not identified our situation correctly.

...and that is by our own free choice not to see clearly. We can either choose to act on complex convoluted intellectual justifications and transient irrational emotions... or we can calmly choose to respond to reality.

Our un-good flows primarily from ignorance and laziness, not utter malice and wickedness.

We each see that differently. I see evil as actions justified by the angry blame (unjust accusation) of others. Show me a person who does evil... and I'll show you someone who regards themselves as an "innocent" oppressed angry offended "victim".

There are very few utterly wicked people and there very few unconditionally good people. Must of us wallow about in The In Between.

I'd say that everyone is a mixture... and we each get to freely choose the proportions.

You look at the world through moral spectacles and this distorts your view of the world. Not every issue or situation has moral or ethical import.

Your ultra-puritanical view can absolutely snuff out the joy of existence. You do not sound like you are fun to be around.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Then it's a blessing that this is the internet. (wink)

(for some reason, the posting and editing function on this forum is running bare bones, so I spell out the smilies.)