Al-Q Honcho Hit

[andie nachgeborenen]

The dispute below is too big--basicalically it is the
subject of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. I thing
Hegel had it avout right. Early societies had a law
based on custom (Sittlichkeit, ethical culture) that
was followed pretty rigorously. The absence of formal
legal codes didn't mean no rules, on the contrary.
Those broke down as societies became larger, more
complicated, involved more relations among strangers,
diverse roles and the like. That led to the
development of formal law and the state. Of course
civil society operates below the radar of the Law,
capital L, and society can't survive at all if the LAw
is the only set of rules regulating interaction, but a
large complicated modern society cannot survive
without the Law. 

This story, btw, involves a dynamic, dewvelopmental
conception of rationality to which I subscribe. I
don't buy the idea that there's a Geist whose
necessary development towards freedom and
self-consciousness is the only unique story of
history. I'm just raiding Hegel for some naturalized
ideas about sociology. 

None of this is really relevant to whether we should
blow up suspected leaders of foreign terrorist groups
rather than seeking to have them arrested and tried,
except insofar as the claim that we need the rule of
law in modern society bears, in a general way, on that
claim. jks


> 
> On Wed, 6 Nov 2002, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> 
> > Without law, it becomes rational to strive for
> power
> > after power, even if you don't want it for its own
> > sake, to prevent someone who does from taking from
> you
> > what you care about. But with law things are quite
> > otherwise and different behavior is rational.
> >
> > Hobbes thought that whether you had the rule of
> law
> > was so important that it didn't much matter what
> sort
> > of of RoL or how it was set up.
> 
> I know JKS is a big fan of the rule of law, and I
> agree, there are good things about it.  But I still
> think it's important to keep in mind that the human
> species thrived quite successfully for tens of
> thousands of years (or more, depending on how you
> define "humans") without anything like the rule of
> law.  To say "it's rational to strive after power
> without the rule of law" assumes that something like
> with JKS and Hobbes think is "rationality" is a
> stable characteristic of human nature.  I reject
> that, not because of subtle philosophical argument,
> but rather because it is so clearly inconsistent
> with
> anthropological empirical evidence.
> 
> Yes, no rule of law in the given constellation of
> social relations in the U. S. would be pretty
> heinous.  But if you can't imagine productive social
> relations without the rule of law, your lack of
> political imagination or your knowledge of the
> evolution of the human species on this planet are
> sorely lacking.
> 
> Law is simply not necessary to encourage people to
> fulfill necessary social roles in human societies.
> For example, the vast majority of parents care for
> young children because they learn they are supposed
> to
> love them, not because of the "rule of law".  I
> think
> more social life is like this family example than
> JKS and Hobbes assume.
> 
> Miles
> 

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