Reason and Truth
Reason is grounded in truth as it is initiated by a person recognizing and laying claim to his life and his thoughts as his own. This is not an accidental occurrence; it is natural to the ontological (the nature of being) manifestation of human beings.
Reason is likewise grounded in rights because in order to Reason a person must know that the life he is living is his own and that the thoughts he is thinking are his thoughts. Only by this explicit claim made on one's own life and thoughts can Reason be initiated. That one is one's self is the foundation of Reason in the reasoner.
Founded in truth, Reason seeks truth. The everyday skepticism that polices Reason's search for truth in the nature of things is often confused with the hard skepticism that rejects any basis for truth in the nature of things.
Founded in itself, Reason denies truth. It can only make logical statements, and is thereafter confused with its own rules of logic. Logic is the infrastructure of Reason. Logical rules protect the careful application of Reason, but Reason is not its logical rules. Reason is grounded in truth and is the search for truth: from that ground it is the judge of experience.
Truth is a search for meaning, and so if Reason is the search for truth, Reason is also the search for meaning. The search for meaning is a search for a knowable and adequate purpose in the nature of things. Everyday skepticism is the withholding of judgment about experience where there is inadequate knowledge of the experience to make judgments about its meaning and purpose. Hard skepticism denies the possibility that meaning and purpose can be judged to be true or not. To the hard skeptic truth is such a limited concept that it can only be narrowly applied to narrow logical statements.
Natural law is the moral law derived through Reason from the nature of things based in the truth of individual human identity, the just claim by each individual on his identity, and the immediate truth, derived by the immediate intuitive insight into others known as empathy, that all human beings possess the same just claim to their own lives.
Hence the immediate corollary rights to the right to one's own life are the immediate moral implications of the moral and just claim to one's own life. Among these are the just claim to self-defense, the just claim to one's liberty, and the just claim to one's property. Likewise, just claims to a zone of privacy and to self-expression are immediate implications of the just claim to one's own thoughts.
Hence, Reason grounded in the truth of the "reasoner reasoning as himself" is formed by truth and by the immediate moral corollaries of that truth. Reason is therefore moral through and through, and its demand for truth is of its very nature. Therefore, even the conceptual clarity wrought by Reason is moral, because conceptual clarity approaches meaning and purpose and meaning and purpose express truth. Likewise, conceptual clarity is the moral imperative of Reason. To think clearly is to think morally because to think clearly is to think truthfully.
Right and wrong are therefore inherent moral judgments that attend Reason that is grounded in truth. Reason is not an assembly of logical statements. Logical statements are Reason's infrastructure, but the logic of Reason itself is that it is grounded in truth and is a search for truth and that truth is moral.
Reason is likewise grounded in rights because in order to Reason a person must know that the life he is living is his own and that the thoughts he is thinking are his thoughts. Only by this explicit claim made on one's own life and thoughts can Reason be initiated. That one is one's self is the foundation of Reason in the reasoner.
Founded in truth, Reason seeks truth. The everyday skepticism that polices Reason's search for truth in the nature of things is often confused with the hard skepticism that rejects any basis for truth in the nature of things.
Founded in itself, Reason denies truth. It can only make logical statements, and is thereafter confused with its own rules of logic. Logic is the infrastructure of Reason. Logical rules protect the careful application of Reason, but Reason is not its logical rules. Reason is grounded in truth and is the search for truth: from that ground it is the judge of experience.
Truth is a search for meaning, and so if Reason is the search for truth, Reason is also the search for meaning. The search for meaning is a search for a knowable and adequate purpose in the nature of things. Everyday skepticism is the withholding of judgment about experience where there is inadequate knowledge of the experience to make judgments about its meaning and purpose. Hard skepticism denies the possibility that meaning and purpose can be judged to be true or not. To the hard skeptic truth is such a limited concept that it can only be narrowly applied to narrow logical statements.
Natural law is the moral law derived through Reason from the nature of things based in the truth of individual human identity, the just claim by each individual on his identity, and the immediate truth, derived by the immediate intuitive insight into others known as empathy, that all human beings possess the same just claim to their own lives.
Hence the immediate corollary rights to the right to one's own life are the immediate moral implications of the moral and just claim to one's own life. Among these are the just claim to self-defense, the just claim to one's liberty, and the just claim to one's property. Likewise, just claims to a zone of privacy and to self-expression are immediate implications of the just claim to one's own thoughts.
Hence, Reason grounded in the truth of the "reasoner reasoning as himself" is formed by truth and by the immediate moral corollaries of that truth. Reason is therefore moral through and through, and its demand for truth is of its very nature. Therefore, even the conceptual clarity wrought by Reason is moral, because conceptual clarity approaches meaning and purpose and meaning and purpose express truth. Likewise, conceptual clarity is the moral imperative of Reason. To think clearly is to think morally because to think clearly is to think truthfully.
Right and wrong are therefore inherent moral judgments that attend Reason that is grounded in truth. Reason is not an assembly of logical statements. Logical statements are Reason's infrastructure, but the logic of Reason itself is that it is grounded in truth and is a search for truth and that truth is moral.
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