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10 jul 06 "What is 'law'?" "law" is the enforced morality of a society -- rulers telling the people "what is good, and what is bad", and making sure everyone agrees, under the ultimate threat of physical coercion. i already mentioned this in the nietzsche question -- rtfm, as they say. no, that's rude; i hate it when people manifest this attitude on bulletin boards. one might think that a question in the form of "what does this word mean?" can be answered with a dictionary. but, i'm sure quotes around 'law' are more scare quotes than they are terminology quotes -- the asker thinks that its meaning is complicated enough, and perhaps ambiguous enough, that it requires some ellaboration. and i guess this is true, but i think i've done all the ellaboration that's necessary. a 'law' can also mean a pattern of instances of a phenomenon that is always the same, as in "the law of gravity". in this case, it has nothing to do with morality, but is rather simply the "way things are". this is interesting, because it implies an objective set of laws, one that is always true for all observers. it just occurred to me that the last three questions might be some kid's philosophy assignment. it's the middle of summer, so maybe that's unlikely. who takes a summer session of philosophy? no one, that's who. i once took an elementary math class over the summer in high school, because i had failed it over the regular semester. high school summer session is a manifestation of hell: hot, stuffy, filled with failing students from around the county, and in an unfamiliar building. i left after one day, and just accepted the consequences on my class schedule for the coming semester. getting back on track, perhaps attempts to make a 'law', as in a morality for a people, into an objective law, like the law of gravity, generates to a lot of problems; suffering, death, etc, because it's not clear to every consciousness that this moral law being intended as an objective law is going to result in a lot of confusion and disagreement. |
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