Eric Lewis Jr
Professor David Spiegel
Ethics 112
September 24, 2015
Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural law
I've read through Arthur Leff's article, Unspeakable, Ethics, Unnatural law made December of 1979 at Duke University School of Law. I found the article to be very complex and extensive. His questioning and methods to unspeakable ethics, and unnatural laws are somewhat contradictory. In this paper Leff deals with the strain and conflict between what he calls “found law” and “made law.”
Leff in this article is talking about how mankind came along, sharing there is no analogue to God. He has the position, power to pronounce evaluative, morals claims. He clearly has two thoughts here: “natural law” or what we generally refer to has human nature …show more content…
He states, “I shall first try to prove to your satisfaction that there cannot be any normative system ultimately based on anything except human will.” Leffs writing is really altered here because of the way he was thinking about the mystery of mankind and found laws, made laws, especially in his last paragraph when he explains: Philosophical despair when we try to develop “found” ethical, legal propositions that are binding nothing else can withstand the cosmic “sez who.” No one is like the lord (psalms). He informs human beings are now evaluators and human will should be able to dictate …show more content…
Given what we know about ourselves and each other, this is a very unpleasant way of looking around the world. Leff states, “It appears that if all men are brothers, the ruling model is Cain and Abel. Neither reason, nor love, nor even terror, seems to have worked to make us “good,” nor worse than that, there no reason why anything should. Only if ethics were something unspeakable by us, could law be unnatural, and therefore unchallengeable. As things now stand, everything is up for grabs.” (Leff 3)
The Constitution provides us a guideline on where to draw the line. Our constitution tries to be both an individual and collectively grounded system but is still not God and won’t agree. So this incoherence forces us to have to be arbitrary and interpret it which causes disagreements. My question is if we go to find what law ought to govern us, and if we find it is not an authoritative holy right but just ourselves, just people making that law how can we be governed by what we have
Professor David Spiegel
Ethics 112
September 24, 2015
Unspeakable Ethics, Unnatural law
I've read through Arthur Leff's article, Unspeakable, Ethics, Unnatural law made December of 1979 at Duke University School of Law. I found the article to be very complex and extensive. His questioning and methods to unspeakable ethics, and unnatural laws are somewhat contradictory. In this paper Leff deals with the strain and conflict between what he calls “found law” and “made law.”
Leff in this article is talking about how mankind came along, sharing there is no analogue to God. He has the position, power to pronounce evaluative, morals claims. He clearly has two thoughts here: “natural law” or what we generally refer to has human nature …show more content…
He states, “I shall first try to prove to your satisfaction that there cannot be any normative system ultimately based on anything except human will.” Leffs writing is really altered here because of the way he was thinking about the mystery of mankind and found laws, made laws, especially in his last paragraph when he explains: Philosophical despair when we try to develop “found” ethical, legal propositions that are binding nothing else can withstand the cosmic “sez who.” No one is like the lord (psalms). He informs human beings are now evaluators and human will should be able to dictate …show more content…
Given what we know about ourselves and each other, this is a very unpleasant way of looking around the world. Leff states, “It appears that if all men are brothers, the ruling model is Cain and Abel. Neither reason, nor love, nor even terror, seems to have worked to make us “good,” nor worse than that, there no reason why anything should. Only if ethics were something unspeakable by us, could law be unnatural, and therefore unchallengeable. As things now stand, everything is up for grabs.” (Leff 3)
The Constitution provides us a guideline on where to draw the line. Our constitution tries to be both an individual and collectively grounded system but is still not God and won’t agree. So this incoherence forces us to have to be arbitrary and interpret it which causes disagreements. My question is if we go to find what law ought to govern us, and if we find it is not an authoritative holy right but just ourselves, just people making that law how can we be governed by what we have