I posted my definition of Classical Liberalism. I define it as the application of classical logic to the question of liberty. Rousseau and Kant were the beginnings of Modern Logic.
The US Founders appear to have been happy with the common law tradition and the ideas of natural law. I don't recall any claims in the Federalist Papers or Constitution about the state having moral authority.
I’m very familiar with classical liberalism. That’s the political tradition that I draw from. The founding fathers aren’t some infallible source of wisdom and their actions often deviated from the ideals of liberty.
Rights are moral claims are they not? You claim in your original post that abortion is a moral grey area, which I would agreee with, and that the state should therefore regulate it through legislation. This would imply that the state or rather the politicians and bureaucrats that make it up, is a moral authority. Where does this moral authority come from? How does a group of people who are more inclined to psychopathy, pathological lying, thievery, and other kinds of immoral behavior, compared to the general population, attain the status of moral authority?
The US Founders were not absolutists. They did not consider themselves infallible. They valued reason and compromise.
So, here is the dilemma: If a human fetus is a human; then it has an inalienable right to life. Killing a fetus denies a person their most fundamental right.
People in the pro-life life camp see abortion as murder.
The pro-life camp is not seeking to regulate abortion. They see abortion as murder and want it punished as such. They are not seeking regulation, they want to protect the fetus's right to life.
The pro-life case is extremely strong from multiple angles.
I like the laws that require abortionists to inform people of alternatives because it falls in the area of compromise.
The founders believed in reason and logic. The thing they did right was realize the need for compromise.
As I understand the law has the abortionist read an argument stating the case of the fetus and it includes an alternative. This brings the mother in contact with a very important moral issue.
When life begins is a super emotional issue. I think this law is a very good compromise.
I was asking you to justify the existence of the state itself not articulate an argument for being pro-life. I am pro-life myself, but there is a vast difference between means and ends. Saying you want a certain end result, in this case reducing abortion, does not automatically justify your means for getting there. You have to prove separately that your means for getting there is ethical and necessary.
Let's see. I said pro-lifers see abortion as murder (depriving a person of the fundamental right to life).
Truthfully, I cannot derive from the æther proof that murder is wrong. If a person is walking down a street killing people; it is customary for the police to shoot back.
I do not have a grand philosophical argument for the policeman's action.
The founders seem to be adherents of ideas like natural law and common law. Essentially, in the long western tradition, people have tried to develop laws that work well for humans.
When one looks at the classical liberal tradition, one finds people engaged in numerous debates about ethics. The debates often contradict each other.
The legal tradition is mesh of legal precedents and rulings. The founders clearly wanted a deliberative legislatures at the state and federal level to oversee and occasionally modify the laws.
The founders valued individual rights, but did not require the creation of grand philosophical systems to justify each law.
The founders appear to be following a middle path. They wanted a combination of legislatures, courts and a large private sector. They valued compromise and deliberation.
So, I see the law that you hate as a good compromise between those who see abortion as murder and want courts to try abortionists as murderers and those who believe that women are self-sovereign and have control over their body.
You keep dodging my question. I don’t care what the founders think. Their thinking was limited by their own self-interests and the norms of their time. They also didn’t believe in equal individual rights, which is really the heart of moral law and the only thing that makes it feasible. They considered some people property and others second class citizens; basically a caste system not much different from the ones that existed in monarchist Europe at the time. If you wanted a coherent and meaningful exposition of natural law theory and individual rights you would have to turn to ‘radicals’ like Thomas Paine or Herbert Spencer in Victorian era England.
My question did not concern the morality of abortion or the desirability of reducing abortion. It was a question of whether the means of getting there was morally right. Your argument rests upon the implict assumption that the state or rather the federalist system is morally legitimate. A defense of this law necessitates a defense of all the evil shit government does, otherwise you’re just retreating to wishful thinking.
Moral Authority!?
That is a somewhat antiquated question. So, here goes: The Divine Right of Kings holds that divine authority flows from God through the King and a network of dukes and lords to the people.
Conservatives in the kings court used to say a Republic is rule and a Kingdom is rule by God.
Islam says that moral authority runs through the Koran. Sharia Law is the only law with divine moral authority.
A lot of people say moral law flows through revelation.
I live in Utah. The LDS Church holds that divine authority flows from God, through the Book of Mormon to the First Presidency and down through a political hierarchy of the LDS priesthood. Did you know that Mormons actually have a ceremony where they crown powerful people as kings?
I guess some people hold that moral authority flows through an infallible Pope.
Some philosophers tried to claim that moral authority flows through elected leaders. Others end up setting up their political party as the moral authority.
The big problem that keeps happening in history is that a large number of people who claim that moral authority flows through them have proven themselves to be rogues.
I like when people discuss morals. I am very skeptical when people claim the source of moral authority.