1 - uumm. has this become more of a love-in than a debate?
2 - I know that as a good academic you have to quote people to seem knowledgeable (I've written a few major papers for other people - my rule was 90 pages of quotes, one page on a new idea, 9 pages of apologies for offering it - and they all graduated) and, yes, Aristotle, is a nice touch. However.. overwhelming your audience with scholarship does not win arguments, it only postpones disagreement until the other side clears away the smoke and noise to see you've contributed nothing new.
3 - so, want to win the argument for natural law? simple: ask the other side to find a single case in human history in which the failure to embrace natural law over positivism didn't start the culture down the slippery slope to social failure and disaster. Or, if you want to be more pro-active, show that every culture that embraced the core principles of natural law (see Exodus, Christianity, and the American constitutional docs - so not that many examples) prospered for the duration of the commitment.
As much as I fall on the positivist side of this dispute, I can't pass up a good article dumping on Holmes. There's a common strawman of normative antirealist positions as necessarily entailing a "might makes right" kind of view. It's a strawman which I've heard the Claremonsters echo, and while that annoys me, it's hard to blame them in this context when Holmes made real that strawman!
I think Steve gives Holmes too much credit, associating him with progressives. Holmes wasn't even a bedfellow of progressives, they weren't all nihilist Darwinists. I think the kind of formalist methodology and positivist philosophy found in new originalists has a lot to recommend it, but John would sink that whole ship by anchoring it to that man.
1 - uumm. has this become more of a love-in than a debate?
2 - I know that as a good academic you have to quote people to seem knowledgeable (I've written a few major papers for other people - my rule was 90 pages of quotes, one page on a new idea, 9 pages of apologies for offering it - and they all graduated) and, yes, Aristotle, is a nice touch. However.. overwhelming your audience with scholarship does not win arguments, it only postpones disagreement until the other side clears away the smoke and noise to see you've contributed nothing new.
3 - so, want to win the argument for natural law? simple: ask the other side to find a single case in human history in which the failure to embrace natural law over positivism didn't start the culture down the slippery slope to social failure and disaster. Or, if you want to be more pro-active, show that every culture that embraced the core principles of natural law (see Exodus, Christianity, and the American constitutional docs - so not that many examples) prospered for the duration of the commitment.
Question 3 is excellent. I'd nominate Dred Scott as my first candidate case.
I’ve studied all of the arguments. I am now a firm believer in natural positivism.
I wonder why Steve has a predilection to highlight some of the more interestingly hirsute historical figures.
Could it be envy?
As much as I fall on the positivist side of this dispute, I can't pass up a good article dumping on Holmes. There's a common strawman of normative antirealist positions as necessarily entailing a "might makes right" kind of view. It's a strawman which I've heard the Claremonsters echo, and while that annoys me, it's hard to blame them in this context when Holmes made real that strawman!
I think Steve gives Holmes too much credit, associating him with progressives. Holmes wasn't even a bedfellow of progressives, they weren't all nihilist Darwinists. I think the kind of formalist methodology and positivist philosophy found in new originalists has a lot to recommend it, but John would sink that whole ship by anchoring it to that man.