Why?
Indeed, why in the previous two posts have I been examining the concepts of natural rights, Reason, and truth? (Reason is capitalized to emphasize its meaning as the self-aware individual human mind engaging in abstract rational thinking.)
I'm doing that because of the extent to which Reason has been mischaracterized as mere transitory islands of accumulated logical statements bound only to the rules of logic, and having little to do with truth in general and nothing to do with moral good. And I'm doing it because of another mischaracterization, from the postmodernist direction, that the only truth is that there is no truth. Both of these mischaracterizations reject the concept of natural rights (including the right to one's own life as a direct matter of human nature). The first mischaracterization confines truth to the smallest circumstances, and the second mischaracterization rejects truth entirely.
My purpose is to show that Reason is grounded in truth, that its purpose from that beginning in all of us is to gain adequate knowledge of the truth, that this purpose is moral, and through this purpose moral truth can be adequately known.
That would mean, for instance, that "thou shalt not kill" is an immediate fact discoverable by Reason from its ground in each person's claim on his own life. It is the immediate truthful abstraction of the claims of individuals to a general claim understood among all individuals.
In other words, morality is not made up. It is found in the immediate ground of Reason in each person.
In fact, a failure to make this moral ground explicit within one's own mind will negate the force of Reason, which is the search for truth.
The negation of truth, of Reason based in truth, and of the natural rights at the foundation of Reason, is a negation of human ontology, leading to human beings being characterized as nothing but bags of protoplasm making things up as they go along.
Reason as clear moral insight, truth as the essential object of reasoning, and the natural right to one's own life as the requisite foundation of Reason in each person, are all immediately knowable essential aspects of the reasoning person.
I explicitly reject the dictum of hard skepticism that Reason is a logical isolate with no moral ground and where truth is carefully confined or rejected completely.
I'm doing that because of the extent to which Reason has been mischaracterized as mere transitory islands of accumulated logical statements bound only to the rules of logic, and having little to do with truth in general and nothing to do with moral good. And I'm doing it because of another mischaracterization, from the postmodernist direction, that the only truth is that there is no truth. Both of these mischaracterizations reject the concept of natural rights (including the right to one's own life as a direct matter of human nature). The first mischaracterization confines truth to the smallest circumstances, and the second mischaracterization rejects truth entirely.
My purpose is to show that Reason is grounded in truth, that its purpose from that beginning in all of us is to gain adequate knowledge of the truth, that this purpose is moral, and through this purpose moral truth can be adequately known.
That would mean, for instance, that "thou shalt not kill" is an immediate fact discoverable by Reason from its ground in each person's claim on his own life. It is the immediate truthful abstraction of the claims of individuals to a general claim understood among all individuals.
In other words, morality is not made up. It is found in the immediate ground of Reason in each person.
In fact, a failure to make this moral ground explicit within one's own mind will negate the force of Reason, which is the search for truth.
The negation of truth, of Reason based in truth, and of the natural rights at the foundation of Reason, is a negation of human ontology, leading to human beings being characterized as nothing but bags of protoplasm making things up as they go along.
Reason as clear moral insight, truth as the essential object of reasoning, and the natural right to one's own life as the requisite foundation of Reason in each person, are all immediately knowable essential aspects of the reasoning person.
I explicitly reject the dictum of hard skepticism that Reason is a logical isolate with no moral ground and where truth is carefully confined or rejected completely.
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