I’ve been thinking about universal laws lately. Wow, what a confusing subject. It seems to me that a universal law has nothing to do with wants, wishes, desires, or morality. Morality doesn’t work according to laws, its subjective by nature. Right and wrong depend on the circumstances at hand. A universal law would seem to be something that exists and we can’t violate it. If we can violate it, then its not a universal law. Laws of physics or mathematics or logic seem to be the only universal laws that aren’t able to be violated. The whole field of ethics is bunk for the most part when it comes to laws. There is no objective standard by which people can decide what to do and what not to do. In order to exist in a society, you need to behave a certain way, and then you should expect other people to behave in a certain way. Hardly a rigid structural framework. People say what do to and when to do it, but we need to look at what people actually do and when they do it. Its obvious that people are all motivated by the wellbeing of themselves above all else. Anyway, back to the universal law idea. These aren’t things that can be created. They simply exist, its a peak intro the structure of reality in a way, because these universal laws are the framework of reality. Always in operation and utterly efficient in effect, they govern the workings of reality. Things can’t happen in opposition of these. Let the flaming begin…
first, i think hume proves wrong the maths/sci laws are in no way absolute.
second, why isn’t you can’t conclude, from the fact that seemingly every society must obey laws (however subjective they might be) that duty is a universal law? doesn’t seem to me to be a bad thought…
second, why isn’t you can’t conclude, from the fact that seemingly every society must obey laws (however subjective they might be) that duty is a universal
law? doesn’t seem to me to be a bad thought…
the point is that it is far from the reality that it is ALWAYS correct to follow laws.
talking about universal laws being maths and science, have a read about this 2 + 2 = 5 article
uni-graz.at/imawww/pages/hum … ndtwo.html
Yan
what about his definitions of miracles? He said that a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature. If they were violated, they weren’t laws. Therefore, miracles don’t exist. He seems to be putting some backing in the laws of nature. Laws of mathematics are laws of nature too. Laws of nature are things we discover, not create. Mathematics exists whether we choose to practice it or not. I guess you could make the same claim for ethics, but I think ethics by nature is a subjective field, whereas mathematics is not. Mathematics exists without people. Does good and bad exist without people? Does duty exist without people?
duty: an action which we are obligated to perform out of respect for the moral law
Where did the moral law come from? Seems to me that an objective law which specifically targets subjective beings is kinda weird. Maybe we should think about duty as a principle we should universally adopt rather than a universal law that simply exists. So are you saying its a universal law to do what your society says?
ok, how about 1+1=1. Why don’t I stand in front of a bright light, put a sheet of paper up and it casts a shadow on the wall. I can hold up another sheet of paper and it casts a shadow on the wall. I now have 2 shadows. If I put the 2 sheets of paper together, it then casts one shadow on the wall. That is missing the point I think.