ERIC VOEGELIN: What is Right by Nature?

book | 1978 | Eric Voegelin

[cornelis]

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[cornelis]

annalex: Good legislation follows natural law. Natural law is all about rights.

cornelis: I can walk with the first one. The last one is a hoot.

annalex From Aquinas, (on his feast day): "Law is a rule and measure of acts, whereby man is induced to act or is restrained from acting." Rightfulness is an attribute of acts.

cornelis If A is B and B is C and C is D and D is E and E is F . . . then Eureka! F is A! But what if B follows A?annalex Cool.

from Libertarianism and the Public Square

[cornelis]

This post of yours makes very important points. I thought others deserved seeing it in light of the Aristotelian concept political justice elucidated by Voegelin.

I generally view the promotion and preservation of rights and liberties as a foundation for rightful law. My contention with your argument is that I do not agree that you have demonstrated that 1) a reduction in propaganda value of a message constitutes a disruption of free speech rights, and 2) offensive content in a message constitutes an act of force. That is as I understand your thesis and I would dare say, this is in contrast to common libertarian understanding of rights principles. I am not a libertarian and the justifications you seek are foreign to me. Understand that all governments are founded on the relinquishment of personal individual rights to a certain degree. But the power of governments is conferred by those governed, not by rights.

As I’ve explained to you on other threads, proximal and distal effects are treated differently. Libertarians focus only on proximal issues. It’s commonly understood that libertarians oppose all government interference in the areas of voluntary relations between individuals. I admire you for understanding that, in real life, voluntary relations in the public square can lead to chaos without government interference. Public policy, rather than produced ex nihilo are produced in the interest of tranquility in the public square and maximum liberty for the individuals who use it. We need look no further to find a rights violation at the proximal level of interaction between two individuals.

The liberty of one depends on the due restraint on the liberty of others. It’s a straightforward maximization problem.

from: link

[cornelis]

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[Pistias]

I'm slated to read Voegelin on Plato later this semester...thanks for the preview. It may be awhile before I have any comments--this stuff takes digestion.

[cornelis]

divine law -- call it "natural law" if you want to"

Tut-tut.

[cornelis]

this stuff takes digestion.

All good things come through hard work.

[jayef]

I was a student of Prof. Ellis Sandoz at LSU. Dr. Sandoz was a student and devotee of Voegelin. I think EV taught at LSU.

Anyway, I hadn't heard or thought of that name for quite some time. I just pulled out The New Science of Politics and might give it a read. Boy do I remember the spudaioi, dike, doxa, epistime.

That sure brings back memories. I think I learned more Greek in that class than I would have in a Greek language class.

[diotima]

I understand Aristotle's notion of political justice to refer to "Best Constitution theory."

I do not think Aristotle has a concept of Natural Law, one would be hard pressed to find support for that in EN V.7.

[Pistias]

"...between us and virtue the gods have placed the sweat of our brows; the road to her is long and steep, and it is rough at first; but when a man has reached the top, then she is easy to attain, although before she was hard..."
Hesiod, Works and Days

I really do love those Greeks.

[Ditter]

Hummmmmmmm..... Could you run that by me again? I have this itchy rash & I was a little distracted. ;9}

[cornelis]

Voegelin examins "the occasion on which the expression of 'right' and 'nature' first were related within a larger theoretical context, namely the Aristotelian physei dikaion

So the question remains, what is right by nature?

[Pistias]

For Aristotle, the rule of nomos thus does not cover any content whatsoever of statues or ordinances; rather one can speak of a rule of law only when the law has a definite an essential content.

Don't get it...what does he mean by statues and ordinances, and why don't they have a definite, essential content?

[cornelis]

I just pulled out The New Science of Politics and might give it a read

I wish you courage. His published essays in the new Collected Works are very readable.

[Pistias]

Given the dominance of the politikon, there can be no natural law conceived as an eternal, immutable, universal valid normativity confronting the changeable positive law. This is so because the justice of the polis, its nomos, insofar it constitutes the rule of law among men free and equal, is itself right by nature. The justice of the polis is not positive law in the modern sense but rather essential law within which alone there arises the tension between physei dikaion and a possible derailment into the making of laws by arbitrary human will. Of course, the law of the polis is also legislated and obligatory in this capacity, but this attribute takes second rank behind the question whether the content of the statue is physei or rather the product of human hybris. This Aristotelian conception of nomos does not seem to differ in principle from the older one of Heraclitus or Sophocles

These statements seem contradictory to me...what am I missing?

[blam]

US Medical Sleuths Try To Figure Out Mysterious Rash

[Jeremy_Bentham]

bookmarked for later. I'll print it out, so I can give it my full attention.

[diotima]

When you say "what is just by nature?" are you referring to an Aristotelian context? In other words what does Aristotle think is just by nature?

If you do, this is far from clear in Aristotle. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle states that "political justice is partly natural, partly legal." (1134b18-19).

What does that mean?

Well it can mean one of three things:
1. Anything politically just is either naturally just or legally just, but never both

2. Everything politically just is at once both naturally just and legally just

3. Some politically just things are naturally just and legally just. Others are naturally just but not legally just, or vice versa.

Which one is it? I would argue the last one. I would also argue that within Aristotle (N. Ethics, Politics, Rhetoric) one can only interpret what is naturally just as "the best constitution."

Am I misunderstanding your question?

[Pistias]

Let us not forget Aristotle’s comparison with the market situation, to which one or another measure might be adequate

I don't know the reference...do you know where it is?