Existential Ontological Critique of Law
EXISTENTIAL ONTOLOGICAL CRITIQUE OF LAW
It is unacceptable among humans to kill another person, or to do ten thousand other vile acts; nonetheless, law is not an honorable, honest, or ontologically authentic means to deal with inacceptable acts.
Law is existentially nonsensical and unintelligible, for there is no human ontological rationality attendant upon the mistaken jurisprudential presupposition that language of law is determinative of behavior.
Supposed law mediated jurisprudential/prosecutorial/police conduct is neither true to, nor accordant with, the only authentic human ontological process of originating an act, which sole true human action originative/determinative mode is Spinoza's "determinatio negatio est" (determination is negation), posited by Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) in 1674. G.W. Hegel (1770-1831) subsequently recast the phrase to be all inclusive, thus: "Omnis determinatio est negatio." (All determination is negation.). J.P. Sartre (1901-1980) additionally explained the existential ontological rationale attendant upon Spinoza's dictum thus:
No factual state whatever it may be (the political and economic structure of society, the psychological state, etc.) is capable by itself of motivating any act whatsoever. For an act is a projection of the for-itself toward what is not, and what is can in no way determine by itself what is not. And, further: But if human reality is action, this means evidently that its determination to action is itself action. If we reject this principle, and if we admit that human reality can be determined to action by a prior state of the world or itself, this amounts to putting a given at the beginning of the series. Then these acts disappear as acts in order to give place to a series of movements...The existence of the act implies its autonomy...Furthermore, if the act is not pure motion, it must be defined by an intention. No matter how this intention is considered, it can be only a surpassing of the given toward a result to be attained. This given, in fact, since it is pure presence, cannot get out of itself. Precisely because it is, it is fully and solely what it is. Therefore it can not provide the reason for a phenomenon which derives all its meaning from a result to be attained; that is, from a non-existent This intention, which is the fundamental structure of human reality, can in no case be explained by a given, not even if it is presented as an emanation from a given. (Being and Nothingness: An Essay in Phenomenological Ontology. J.P. Sartre, Part Four. 1943.)
Law is an existing written factual theoretical construct which, because it is a given state of affairs, cannot possibly be determinative of the acts of human beings, who act solely on the basis of not yet achieved absences.
Extant human civilization can uplift beyond existentially inauthentic "law", by first raising divers law enforcement consciousnesses up unto being reflectively aware of, and true to, the actual human ontological doubly nihilative process of free action origination, i.e., by constituting all law-oriented persons as being reflectively free persons.
Via first raising jurisprudentially oriented persons up to possession of a reflectively free selfhood, we position ourselves to advance and uplift the honor, decency, honesty, dignity, and freedom of both jurisprudence, and, of civilization.
Lawfully requiring that persons be determined or determine themselves to act, or to decline to act, by given written law, is wholly ontologically unintelligible, and, is actually an impossibility; ---(for all determination concerning human action is strictly predicated upon: what is not/negation/lack/absence/expectation/non-being, while, all the while, law is a wholly positive, extant, given, established, state of affairs); --- and, to punish persons for impossibly/nonsensically not determining themselves to act by given law, is a radically unethical inhuman jurisprudential misconduct:
Would persons being in possession of reflective understanding of his or her existential ontological freedom uplift the dignity and honorable behavior of all persons constituting extant human civilization ? Or, would such understanding result in greater common abominable conduct among persons?
Would generally knowing that law is an ontologically bogus state of affairs prompt persons to perform openly radical misconduct? Or, is a state of absolutely openly free human conduct necessarily an existential ontological normative state of civilizational affairs?
The current state of civilization is a situation wherein police freely and openly murder citizens in the name of our pitifully ontologically unintelligible law; which state of affairs already constitutes an absolutely free and completely open sphere of free human conduct/misconduct. Hence, we already have absolute chaos under our so-called rule of law.
It is unacceptable among humans to kill another person, or to do ten thousand other vile acts; nonetheless, law is not an honorable, honest, or ontologically authentic means to deal with inacceptable acts.
Law is existentially nonsensical and unintelligible, for there is no human ontological rationality attendant upon the mistaken jurisprudential presupposition that language of law is determinative of behavior.
Supposed law mediated jurisprudential/prosecutorial/police conduct is neither true to, nor accordant with, the only authentic human ontological process of originating an act, which sole true human action originative/determinative mode is Spinoza's "determinatio negatio est" (determination is negation), posited by Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) in 1674. G.W. Hegel (1770-1831) subsequently recast the phrase to be all inclusive, thus: "Omnis determinatio est negatio." (All determination is negation.). J.P. Sartre (1901-1980) additionally explained the existential ontological rationale attendant upon Spinoza's dictum thus:
No factual state whatever it may be (the political and economic structure of society, the psychological state, etc.) is capable by itself of motivating any act whatsoever. For an act is a projection of the for-itself toward what is not, and what is can in no way determine by itself what is not. And, further: But if human reality is action, this means evidently that its determination to action is itself action. If we reject this principle, and if we admit that human reality can be determined to action by a prior state of the world or itself, this amounts to putting a given at the beginning of the series. Then these acts disappear as acts in order to give place to a series of movements...The existence of the act implies its autonomy...Furthermore, if the act is not pure motion, it must be defined by an intention. No matter how this intention is considered, it can be only a surpassing of the given toward a result to be attained. This given, in fact, since it is pure presence, cannot get out of itself. Precisely because it is, it is fully and solely what it is. Therefore it can not provide the reason for a phenomenon which derives all its meaning from a result to be attained; that is, from a non-existent This intention, which is the fundamental structure of human reality, can in no case be explained by a given, not even if it is presented as an emanation from a given. (Being and Nothingness: An Essay in Phenomenological Ontology. J.P. Sartre, Part Four. 1943.)
Law is an existing written factual theoretical construct which, because it is a given state of affairs, cannot possibly be determinative of the acts of human beings, who act solely on the basis of not yet achieved absences.
Extant human civilization can uplift beyond existentially inauthentic "law", by first raising divers law enforcement consciousnesses up unto being reflectively aware of, and true to, the actual human ontological doubly nihilative process of free action origination, i.e., by constituting all law-oriented persons as being reflectively free persons.
Via first raising jurisprudentially oriented persons up to possession of a reflectively free selfhood, we position ourselves to advance and uplift the honor, decency, honesty, dignity, and freedom of both jurisprudence, and, of civilization.
Lawfully requiring that persons be determined or determine themselves to act, or to decline to act, by given written law, is wholly ontologically unintelligible, and, is actually an impossibility; ---(for all determination concerning human action is strictly predicated upon: what is not/negation/lack/absence/expectation/non-being, while, all the while, law is a wholly positive, extant, given, established, state of affairs); --- and, to punish persons for impossibly/nonsensically not determining themselves to act by given law, is a radically unethical inhuman jurisprudential misconduct:
Would persons being in possession of reflective understanding of his or her existential ontological freedom uplift the dignity and honorable behavior of all persons constituting extant human civilization ? Or, would such understanding result in greater common abominable conduct among persons?
Would generally knowing that law is an ontologically bogus state of affairs prompt persons to perform openly radical misconduct? Or, is a state of absolutely openly free human conduct necessarily an existential ontological normative state of civilizational affairs?
The current state of civilization is a situation wherein police freely and openly murder citizens in the name of our pitifully ontologically unintelligible law; which state of affairs already constitutes an absolutely free and completely open sphere of free human conduct/misconduct. Hence, we already have absolute chaos under our so-called rule of law.
Comments (77)
No we don't.
Some thoughts 1) You seem to be talking about criminal law, which is only a small part of the law. For better or worse, a capitalist society needs laws to regulate commerce, finance, and especially property ownership. 2) Criminal law is not primarily intended to get people to do things, it's to get them not to do things. Although I agree law is not generally effective in promoting motivated action, it often works to prevent unwanted actions, e.g. I don't always drive the speed limit, but I do drive more slowly than I would if there were none. 3) Criminal law is not only intended to act as a deterrent, it is also meant to figure out how to deal with the consequences of illegal acts, e.g. restricting future actions of people who violate the laws.
I am referring to all law in my theoretical critique of law per se.
Not doing something is what is known as a negative act.
The U.S. Constitution is an admirable attempt to do something radically important via law, even though law is not effectually determinative among persons. Yes, we need to regulate our conduct in all our endeavors;-- I am simply pointing out that law is not the determinative agency that we think it is, so, we need to do a lot of re-thinking about regulating conduct. My proffer is that we first render everyone reflectively free.
Yes, my subject matter is evolving/refining...
Most law is not about motivation at all. It is about how things are to be done or who's going to pay for it, not whether or not they are done at all.
Quoting quintillus
As I noted, it may be true that law is not effective in motivating positive acts, that doesn't mean it can't be effective in motivating negative acts, i.e. preventing people from doing prohibited acts.
Quoting quintillus
By which you mean:
Quoting quintillus
Easier said than done. Much, much, much easier said than done. Very easy to say. Perhaps impossible to do in groups larger than five people. It is not an achievable method of governance in our society.
Again?
I am not at all saying that we will be able to govern society via being reflectively free.
Yes, being reflectively free is attaining an understanding of how a human being originates action/inaction. It is simply understanding what double nihilation is, which Sartre fully describes in his "Being and Nothingness", Part Four.
Attaining being reflectively free is done on an individual basis.
You are our resident censor, our Cato (the Elder), our Anthony Comstock. Te saluto!
The argument in the OP is ridiculous.
A judge, when convicting/sentencing someone, states by what law he is bound and determined to do so.
You deem the OP ridiculous while, all the while, it is simply far beyond your present capacity to comprehend it.
Following the law is a false determination to act on the basis of given law, and, I am pointing out that per existential ontological theory of how human action arises, given law does not, cannot, precipitate any human act whatsoever; which is why all our jails are wholly overcrowded, i.e., the requiring law which the prisoners supposedly broke is not, cannot, be determinative of human action...but the convicting judge thinks the law determines him, and, that it must necessarily determine, by its stolid requirement, the other fellow too...
You have one idea; and it's a bad one.
Thank you.
I don't get the ' precipitated' act part of your thesis. Laws are made on the basis of preventing a behavior, things people do. Bad laws certainly exist. But there are good laws too.
The system sucks in many ways but what does the replacement look like?
To precipitate something is to cause something. And, I am saying that law is not causal for human beings, i.e., my freedom cannot be caused by some existing fact to act; for my action only originates ex nihilo, out of nothing/negation.
I am suggesting that we begin replacement by first uplifting the honor, honesty, and dignity of our legislators, judges, prosecutors and police, via assisting them to become reflectively free, and, thus, to lead them upward unto understanding the true structure of the origination of human action; which act-origination has nothing to do with law.
I have not fully envisioned a future. I expect that other intelligences, upon becoming reflectively free, may have some dynamite thoughts regarding future sociospheric possibilities.
I don't understand how you see law as a cause.
Ah, so there is no reason or explanation for your actions.
That helps make sense of your posts.
I do not see law as a cause or as capable of causing persons to act or not act; although everyone else does. Everyone thinks we humans are simply things which can be in motion moved by the language of law.
This is why "rule" works better by giving people guidance as to how to behave well, rather than telling them what not to do, and punishing them when they still do it. And so, The New Testament's "Love thy neighbour" (as positive direction) marks a vast improvement in the understanding of human nature, and human action in comparison to The Old Testament's "Ten Commandments" (as negative direction).
Since, at present, you have not had any association with existential ontological notions of how nothingness underlies human action, you are mistakenly thinking that my actions have no explanation, while, all the while, my actions are explained by the not yet future which those actions are prefiguring. For example, I intended to write a critique of law, which critique was an absent non-entity, a nothing, which nothing I gave verbal substance...
Yes. I have lately just remembered, a Baptist Minister who's daughter I was once dating, when he taught me that the instant at which Christ died on the cross, a curtain in a Jewish Temple was rent completely down the middle, representing the depassement of the LAW unto a new era of the love of Christ...So the notion of depassing law is nothing new at all...
It is as you say, a matter of human nature. We, as beings, are inclined to act, so it is in our nature to act. But the rule of government has two possible directions to take, either to encourage us to act, or to discourage us from acting. The latter is to go against human nature. But by enacting all sorts of boundaries, and threatening punishment to anyone who strays outside the boundaries, the government takes that direction of discouraging action. Instead, it ought to focus on defining what constitutes good in humane acts, and doing whatever it can to encourage such acts.
This 'everyone does' is not a very convincing argument about why people make laws.
To translate this awkward sentence:
Supposition: Language of law is determinative of behavior.
What does that mean? I dont hear many arguing that the law, as its written, determines human behavior. It may encourage or discourage behavior.
Anyway because theres no ontological rationality underlining this supposition, law is unintelligible. Thats your claim.
What does ontological rationality mean?
Until these basic terms are explained, your thesis is very unclear and comes across as both ridiculous and incoherent.
Wow. Excellent suggestion regarding focusing on what constitutes humane good.
I am not trying to explain why law is made...
You don't need Sartre for this. Compare:
Quoting Thoreau
Within that abstruse opening assertion I said law is NOT determinative. All cannot be explained in a first sentence. Therein I merely mention, not explain, that there is an ontological rationality, which rationale I posit subsequently...
Police, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, all think that they are determined to act against persons by the law. Perhaps you have never been before a magistrate in court to hear how they speak about the law which determines their actions against you...
When I wrote an extensive explanation of Spinoza's dictum, I explained, via quoting Sartre's thinking regarding the dictum, the ontological rationale attendant upon action origination.
Of course my statements, founded in Sartreian existential ontology, are surely going to appear to be ridiculous and incoherent and nonsensical, which, really, they are not; they are just radically unfamiliar notions to positivist readers...and very difficult to understand for positivist materialist persons...
Thanks for your straightforward criticism. I amended paragraph two as a result of your responce.
"You don't need Sartre for this." you wrote, Appears you left a word out here. I don't need Sartre for what?
Excellent Thoreau !
The ignorance of laws/rules makes people vulnerable to persecution. So law, aimed at millions of peoples across thousands of miles, will inevitably result in chaos.
I sincerely appreciate your general acceptance of my reasoning, while so many others here are so absolutely unable to fathom the negative structure of human determination to action, that they sincerely deem me to be ignorant and ridiculous...
No, I was not trying to say what you guessed I was saying.
I was saying that human origination of an act is a wholly negative process, involving intention to surpass what is, for the sake of attaining what is not yet achieved. The stance that human acts arise via negation originally arose with Spinoza. Then, Sartre founded his existential ontology on Spinoza's dictum "determinatio negatio est"; and, I was opposing that negative/nihilative theory of the origin of human action, to the jurisprudential theory that published language of law is determinative of human action...
This is a philosophy forum. Not all philosophy transpires in ordinary language. The ilk of philosophy I employ speaks its own idiosyncratic language, which cannot entirely be reduced to ordinary language, without losing the intension attendant upon the central language of the particular ilk's position. I continually work to enunciate existential ontological precepts in the plainest possible language. Nonetheless, it is the reader's responsibility to research and study whatever he cannot understand, until he does understand.
Why would anyone have a responsibility to understand you?
No one at all has an a priori responsibility to understand my writing, but, if you engage that writing, and engage me here regarding that writing, it is simply your responsibility to work toward comprehension...The precepts I employ were established before all of us were born and, are understandable.
Quoting quintillus
The only reason a judge might care what motivated the criminal to act is if the application of the law would change based upon the motivation. For example, hate crimes require a certain motivation, and perhaps if one were acting in the defense of others, that motivation might mitigate things.
But, to your point that the judge thinks the law must determine folks' behavior, I doubt the judge is so naive. He probably thinks people steal, for example, because they wanted something for free and didn't care about the law.
Quoting quintillus
Despite your best efforts, you do a terrible job of it.
My responsibility to work towards my comprehension, or towards your comprehension? For example the following seems to me a clearly delusional statement:
Quoting quintillus
Am I only allowed to engage your writing so as to grasp your delusional way of thinking, or am I allowed to engage your writing in hopes of your way of thinking becoming less delusional?
I think youre right. The fallacy of appealing to law, and positive law in general, makes it clear to me that some believe law is determinative of behavior, despite the very notion being nonsensical.
The judge convicts the defendant for the reason that the judge deems the defendant to have been under a social obligation to determine his actions in accordance with the law; and, the defendant, from the judge's viewpoint, did not determine to negatively do a requisite inaction.
Personal existential ontological existence is a continual failure to coincide with one's aims. I have been working to cast existentialist constructs in plain language for decades, easier said than done. When I first encountered these radically unusual constructs, I was exceeding at sea; however, I buckled down and did alright. The texts required to be read were not watered down, they were the thinker's original, final, published concepts; so, I know it can be done. One can study one's self out of any fog...
You partly think I have done a terrible job because you, at this point, lack the determination to put in the work requisite to understand ontology; I gave reference to the beautiful original texts for the reader to peruse...it is radically modern stuff.
What the judge did was that he listened to the evidence, did his best to figure our what happened, then looked to see if the facts as he believed them to be violated the law, and then entered his ruling.
If that's what you meant, then I agree. If not, I don't.
But let's say we had a jury and not a judge in your example. If the jury were instructed by reading them what you just said, who knows what they'd do. They'd probably send back a question asking for an actual instruction of what they were supposed to do.
Quoting quintillus
This is a good example of a meaningless metaphor about an ocean. Try this instead, "when I first came across this idea that I've convinced myself is too complex for the common man, I was in over my head. Fortunately, I came up with an obscure language to describe it. That way, people won't really know what I'm talking about, and I can hide behind the confusion I create. And, if they call me on it, I'll just tell them to work harder like I had to before it all came together."
My guess is you'll get a lot of folks not to play along.
Actually, it is you who is going off half cocked, by failing to notice the portion of your quote that I bolded.
What is delusional, is your belief that you have a good understanding of the thinking of everyone else.
It is what is known as the materialist illusion when persons name given, existing states of affairs as the reason/cause for their actions.
The actual, authentic, true mode of origination of human action is consciousness; which proceeds via the double nihilation, wherein consciousness, on the one hand, makes the nothing that is an imagined future state which it wants to be; and, on the other hand, makes the present state nothing by transcending that state toward the not yet existing future which it wants.
Yes, everyone mistakenly thinks law is determinative...
Get hosed.
There's the narcissistic rage that I was expecting to see.
Im as materialist as they come but I dont believe in determinism.
Is this sarcasm or stupidity?
Sure you can be outraged. As I said, I expected you to be 'outraged'. I'm not providing the sort of narcissistic supply you are looking for.
In any case, this latest comment of yours exhibits the black and white thinking characteristic of narcissists.
Pearls have been thrown before your swine ignoramus idiot ass and all you can do is argumentum ad hominem. Defeat the OP, not me, fool.
I posit something radically avant guarde here and, simply get shit on in return by limited intellects?
Surely the future cannot be nothing in any absolute sense, because the future is what forces the human being to act. If a human being did not act, it would be crushed by the force of passing time, (the future becoming the past). Accordingly that human being would be forced into the past, by the future, annihilated. So the future must be something very real, therefore not nothing.
Here we are speaking of freedom, which, ultimately, is consciousness.
Consciousness imagines a future state of affairs which it desires to usher into the world. That future is absent; lacking; non-existent; and, hence, as non-existent the intended future is nothing.
The absent future does not, cannot, force free consciousness to do anything, for it is free consciousness which prefigures, imagines, makes the not-yet that is its future existence. Time originates via this nihilative capacity to conceive the absent future, whereby, the present is transcended and made past...
Nothing, nothingness, is consciousness' milieu, wherein consciousness continually makes the not that is the future, is real.
But imagine if a person does nothing, the person would die of starvation or something like that. This dying, which would occur, would be the person being forced into the past, by the future, as the future becomes the past in the passing of time.. So the person must do things of necessity, or else be forced into the past by the future Therefore the force of the future makes it necessary for the person to do things. Our inclination to do things is a reflection of the reality of the future.
Contrary to what you say, the future is not absent at all. It is here with us, all the time, continuously making it necessary (forcing us) to act. If there was no future imposing itself on us, we would have no anticipation, no anxiety, no desire to eat, or desire for anything whatsoever for that matter, therefore no inclination to act.
You are positing an absolutism of the future, while, all the while, consciousness is always free and unbound, to imagine its next future...You have become so totally deterministic in your world view, via living in a totally jurisprudentially deterministic world, that you absolutely insist there must always be something Other out there which, cinesiologically, is in motion forcefully moving you...
This is not me at all, and it demonstrates that you did not understand what I said.
I understood; and, I responded kindly. You set forward an untoward absolutism of the future; but, you are kind and do not attack one's person.
It is not an "absolutism" concerning the future, but proof that the future is real and therefore not as you claim, "nothing".
It is not my personal claim. What I am presenting here is J.P. Sartre's conception of how a human act originates by what he calls a "double nihilation", to which I subscribe. 'Nihilate' is a word Sartre invented, and means: to make nothing. Future is a human creation, and is, in current worldwide existential ontological thought, a "present absence".
You have the future determining the person while it is actually persons that determine future.
I think what I was trying to show is that Sartre and the "current worldwide existential ontological thought", might be a little of the mark in how future is represented. If the future was really nothing, then our freedom would be absolute. But our freedom is limited, as I explained above. The future exerts a real force on us, which would kill us if we did not act to prevent it from doing that. Therefore the future is not noting, and Sartre's existentialism seems to have a mistaken premise.
However, I would appreciate it if you could provide for me a coherent interpretation of Sartre's "double nihilism" so that I might better understand the concept.
According to Sartre human freedom is an absolute capacity to intend a particular future, although, circumstances can and will obviate the realization of the intended state.
I have explained double nihilation, I think twice here already, but, here it is: Human consciousness nihilates, i.e., makes a nothing which is a particular intended future state of affairs, which is unrealized; absent; not-yet; hence non-being/nothing. As consciousness establishes that absence as a presence, it transcends the present, rendering the present as past. That rendering present as past is the second nothing making/nihlation wherein the present becomes nothing.
Do you accept that the human capacity to realize an intended future state, is not "absolute" as you claim Sartre affirms? If so, then you will see that "obviate" is not an appropriate word to use here in the description of how circumstances relate to the realization of the intended state.
In reality, the circumstances indicate to us the real restrictions which exist in relation to our "capacity to intend a particular future", making this capacity far less than absolute. In general, we recognize the circumstances as limiting the possibilities. Possibility, often known as "potential" is how we understand the future. So the conventional understanding is that the future is not "nothing", it is what may or may not be (as potential), and this violates the law of excluded middle. So the future has some sort of real existence, but it is a type of existence which violates this fundamental "law" of logic.
Quoting quintillus
For the reason explained above, this is not an accurate representation. The "particular intended state of affairs" is understood by the human consciousness as a possible, or potential state. Potential is not nothing, it is categorically distinct from being and non-being (existent and non-existent) as that which cannot be described by those terms. Further, the human consciousness apprehends circumstances, (describable in terms of what is and is not), as having a bearing on, or being somehow related to future possibilities. This relationship is understood in terms of "necessity", what is "necessary". That is why, despite what Sartre says, human freedom is not commonly understood as "an absolute capacity", and this is a misrepresentation of how human consciousness actually apprehends its own freedom.
I can make neither head nor tail of your thinking Sir...
Well, If you cannot grasp the fact that the human capacity to realize an intended future state is not "absolute", then go ahead and keep your daydreaming mind occupied by your fantasy world. But don't try to do anything strenuous please, that might shatter your illusion.
The right/freedom to hold or not hold religious belief is absolute.
Even if rights could be absolute (an assumption which in itself requires justification), how would that be relevant to the human capacity to realize intended future states?
It is absolute that free choice is absolutely without justification. The capacities to realize, to fail, are ontologically absolute, and cannot possibly be overthrown. The double nihilation is ontologically absolute and cannot not be done/performed..
Law, though an absolutism, is not absolute, human freedom to obey/disobey is absolute.
You set forward an absolutism of the future. This is very deterministic.
No, I am describing human freedom, an absolute, which can fail in its quest to make an intended future. Humans constitute past present and future...