Post
Topic
Board Politics & Society
Re: Free Nation Bill of Law - Natural Law
by
wdmw
on 02/08/2013, 18:02:29 UTC
wdmw, you seem to be trying to codify a set of laws based on libertarian natural rights. I think it's an error to try to do this.

The beauty and sheer elegance of libertarian natural rights principle is the fact that it can be summed up in a sentence: people are sovereign in their own body, and any property derived from it. Naturally this extends to all manner of human rights, property rights, tort law, et cetera; it's unwise of anybody to specify how that should happen - that's the job of experts in each particular field.

So to address FirstAscent's questions: I don't know. All that's important is that the natural rights principle is applied consistently - that way the rights of all involved are protected.

To clear up, I'm trying to have a discussion about Michael Van Notten's attempt to codify natural rights into law.  I agree with your sentiment that the principle itself is what's important.  What he's done here is to start the process of interpreting and expanding upon the conclusions.

I don't think all of them are correct, but its a good effort.  In the evolution of such a code of law, precedents and rulings would build into a body of common law based on those principles.  The part I find most promising is that this would be developed competitively and non-monopolistically.  This seems like an odd middle-step.  The provision about abortion seems the strangest to me.  To quote a private message I received:

Quote
The controversy over abortion is based on the conflict between the woman's right to privacy and the unborn child's right to life.  Of course, if the unborn child is not a "person" then he has no right to life. But if he is a "person" then he does.  Only science can answer that question.

I agree with this statement.  By extrapolating the principle closer to real-life application, you lose the capacity for evolving interpretation based on scientific advancements and discovery.