Sunday, February 15, 2004

Another day, another opinion.

Encarta has a good article on Natural Law. I was looking up Jeremy Bentham's comment that Natural Law is nonsense on stilts so I could explain calling him a hose monkey last night.

"To live virtuously means to live in accord with one's nature, to live according to right reason."

I buy that.

"Because passion and emotion are considered irrational movements of the soul, the wise individual seeks to eradicate the passions and consciously embrace the rational life."

That's crap. Passions need to be examined and (I got a Jackie Chan cartoon going on behind me.) subordinated to reason, not eradicated.

Hey! A quote from Cicero! From De Republica:”True law is right reason in agreement with Nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions. . . . There will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and for all times.”

Wonder when that's gonna happen. The article goes on to blame Nazism on Bentham. Good boy!

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