Natural law, reason and happiness

There are many ways to define natural law. In the Ethics of Liberty (great book, google it) Rothbard defines natural law as a set of rules discovered by use of reason – law ‘founded on reason and rational inquiry’. There is an ethical aspect to reason, so that I couldn’t simply say that since I’m feeling lazy it would be ‘reasonable’ to steal my neighbour’s stuff and save myself the effort of honestly acquiring my own. The use of reason must be moral, meaning ethical and right, as Rothbard seeks 'a natural-rights standard to which the wise and honest may repair'.

Reason is not bound, as it is in modern post-Humean philosophy, to be a mere slave to the passions, confined to cranking out the discovery of the means to arbitrarily chosen ends. For the ends themselves are selected by the use of reason; and ‘right reason’ dictates to man his proper ends as well as the means for their attainment.

​The Ethics of Liberty
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This implies that theft is not reasonable. By the use of reason it can be understood that theft would not lead to good outcomes for the individuals involved (neither the thief nor the victim) or for the general welfare of society. We know this because we understand human nature. We know how we feel when people steal our stuff, and therefore how others are likely to feel if we steal their stuff. We know the implications for society if everyone is free to steal other people’s stuff. It would not be good. There are no circumstances in which one might argue that it would be ‘reasonable’ to steal other people’s stuff. Thus law prohibits theft.
 
Those who deride natural law would say that there are some situations where it is perfectly reasonable to steal other people’s stuff. There is no ‘human nature’, everything is relative, and whether or not it’s right to steal depends on who is stealing, and what, and why, and how. These people are known as relativists. Relativists believe that what is reasonable depends on political ideology.

Capitalists might believe that theft is unreasonable and should be prohibited, but that's just because they're selfish and wish to hang onto their stuff. Socialists might believe that theft is noble because it can be harnessed as a means of advancing progressivism and social justice. That's right! Steal those ill-gotten gains off the capitalists! What else can you do when faced with unprecedented market failures? Everybody knows that markets are not perfect, and when they fail, theft may be the only way to reallocate resources to where they are most needed.

So our opinions on the righteousness of theft will vary, and to the relativist that's fine. Some examples:

• It is reasonable for socialists to steal stuff because they are doing so 'from a good place' meaning with good motives and for a good cause. Being good people, on the side of the angels, they will be careful only to steal from the rich to give to the poor. Remember the legend of Our Hero St Robin of Nottingham. It is of course massively unreasonable for capitalists to steal stuff because they are not good people. Capitalists only steal from the poor to give to their rich cronies. You know who you are. Cronyism is wrong because it is not 'from a good place'.
• It is reasonable for poor folk to steal stuff valued at less than $950. That’s reasonable because the owner can easily afford to replace it. If you genuinely need stuff it’s reasonable to steal it; after all, you wouldn’t be stealing it if you didn’t need it. It would be churlish to punish you for helping yourself to stuff that you actually need, and even worse to make you pay for it. [Fact-Check: it is still technically a crime, but it's only a little crime. Nobody died. Get over it.]
• It is not only reasonable, but indeed moral, to steal basic necessities or steal the money required to fund basic necessities. It is better, of course, for such theft to be managed in an orderly fashion so that, for example, the number of rich victims may be apportioned fairly amongst the number of thieves wishing to steal from them. The use of violence might in that way be avoided except at the utmost end of need (i.e. in cases where the victim clings to his stuff and can only be separated from it by the use of force). For this purpose thieves might wish to form themselves into a system of democratic government.
• It is reasonable to steal from a corporation because that’s a victimless theft. Corporations are artificial persons and usually they're quite evil and exploitative so it’s not unreasonable to take their stuff. They have no feelings so they won’t care. It barely counts as theft. It's more like a form of wealth redistribution.
• It is reasonable to steal from unpopular people. Rich people are unpopular. This is because it's not clear how they got so rich in the first place (probably exploitation and selfishly profiting from wage-slavery). 
• It is reasonable to steal from people who perpetrated historical unfairness. That will teach them not to go about shamelessly colonising and enslaving others. So stealing their stuff is actually a selfless good deed which restores the balance of universal justice.

 
Many more examples could be derived once reason is divorced from human nature and natural law. Reason then becomes synonymous with 'opinion' and 'preference' and 'politics'. People are able to argue that stealing is moral (it's for a good cause) and arguing against theft is immoral (it shows greed and selfishness, shamelessly hanging onto your stuff when people are starving).

Analysing the link between reason and human nature is confounded by those who swear blind that they’re honestly happy to have people steal from them. They truly feel sorry for the thief. The thief is vulnerable and if you think about it historically, the thief is the real victim. 

Does this show that human nature permits a ‘band of reasonable responses’ to the problem of theft? Rothbard argues that reason is objective. We can discover what is or is not reasonable. We are not cast adrift at the mercy of conflicting opinions about reasonableness. There is 'an objective set of ethical norms by which to gauge human actions at any time or place.' There are not different valid 'opinions' on whether theft is reasonable, just as there are not different valid opinions on whether murder is reasonable. The objectively reasonable outcome may not be obvious in complex cases, but it is discoverable, just as the nature of things is capable of discovery. 

Now, it is true that the word ‘discovery’ should not be uttered. It has been banned. This is due to the preponderance of white men who claim to have discovered stuff. You see all their statues lording it over others and shamelessly harming them with scientific discoveries.

​I have discovered this, I have discovered that!

- Shameless Statue of White Man
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But it is not reasonable to live in ignorance, to declare that nothing can ever be known, that everything is just people's subjective opinions. To throw up your hands in defeat, to decide never to investigate the nature of things, to just follow whatever the government tells you to do, leads to frustration and despair. It is better to think, to know things, and to understand their true nature including the nature of man and what is good for us.

​What is good is what will make us happy. Not just happy in the moment (after all, the thief is 'happy' with his heist as he flees the scene of his crime) but tending towards the happiness of human beings over time. Not idiosyncratic subjective 'I feel so happy when I wallow in a cool mud bath on a hot day' personal preferences, but objective 'this makes human beings happy' - things like being loved or being engaged in meaningful and enjoyable pursuits. Vices may feel good in the moment (laziness, envy, hatred etc which feel momentarily satisfying) but they wouldn't be called 'vices' if they were capable of leading to long term happiness. Natural law reflects the principles that sustain long term happiness for human beings.

​The natural law, then, elucidates what is best for man – what ends man should pursue that are most harmonious with, and best tend to fulfil, his nature. In a significant sense, then, natural law provides man with a ‘science of happiness,’ with the paths which will lead to his real happiness.

The Ethics of Liberty

​This is why even the ferocious St Greta has decided to abandon anger and ingratitude, and instead try to calm down and be a bit happy. Her father informs us that she is ‘much happier since becoming an activist’. That’s nice. Her growing happiness is testament to the reasonableness of her pursuits.

It is not reasonable to choose to be consumed by anger. It is an objective truth that human nature being what it is, being happy is better than being unhappy. Happiness is associated with life, and it is objectively true that life is a good thing.

There is in fact an objective moral order within the range of human intelligence, to which human societies are bound in conscience to conform and upon which the peace and happiness of personal, national and international life depend.

​The Ethics of Liberty
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Natural law is ascertained through reason. Through reason we derive the right to life, to liberty, to the pursuit of happiness. The law prohibits interference with these rights [Fact check: rights are not absolute] but the law does not dictate the moral exercise of one's rights. The property owner may choose to exclude homeless people and that may be immoral, but it would not be illegal. [Fact check: yes, many crimes are both immoral and illegal]. The definition of rights is distinct from the moral exercise of those rights.

It is a man's right to do whatever he wishes with his person; it is his right not to be molested or interfered with by violence from exercising that right. But what may be the moral or immoral ways of exercising that right is a question of personal ethics rather than political philosophy - which is concerned solely with matters of right, and of the proper or improper exercise of physical violence in human relations.

The Ethics of Liberty

Finally, and most important of all, we must ask, is reason racist? Is it racist to be reasonable, or to expect others to be reasonable? We must ask these questions in order to comply with the dictates of identity politics.

At first glance, the use of reason appears to be racist, sexist, Androcentric, Patriarchal, and worst of all, Eurocentric. This is because Aristotle, who advised everyone to be reasonable, was a white man. I know, shocking. They don't tell you this at school, and it's quite shocking to discover that he was a white male (sexuality unknown). They really ought to decolonise the syllabus so that innocent children who are either racially or politically black are not exposed to Aristotle's ideas. Why should black children read Aristotle, when Aristotle wasn't even black? Innocent young girls, forced to study his ideas, without being informed that he was a cis-man and therefore harmful to the female-gendered psyche. Even worse, he lived in the heart of Europe, right at its very foundations. This shows that he was a white supremacist.

These are all marks against reason. It is well known that Aristotle did not do his mandatory equality and diversity training, and therefore we cannot trust anything he said. His theories, as far as we know, could well be riddled with microaggressions. Surely it is safer to read books by black folk which, though they might be lacking in reason and rationality, are at least safe and fact-checked for the absence of harmful microaggressions. 

Dig a bit deeper, however, and it appears that the use of reason is the province of all human beings. Unlike animals which survive by instinct, human beings survive and thrive through the use of reason. Reason is not optional, my friends, if you are a human creature and you wish to live. Forget about Aristotle's provenance and ask yourself whether you wish to choose life. You should want to live because, as highlighted earlier, it is objectively true that life is a good thing. And life depends upon the use of reason. Your own use of reason, accessed by engaging your own brain.

​Reason is man's instrument of knowledge and of his very survival; the use and expansion of his mind, the acquisition of knowledge about what is best for him and how he can achieve it, is the uniquely human method of existence and of achievement.

The Ethics of Liberty