"A truly free man creates his own morality"

[magus341]

I've been reading through Law Legislation and Liberty by F.A. Hayek, and the basic theme of the first chapter is how people really don't have enough information to centrally plan society. Existing institutions embody the knowledge of the past and should be seriously considered before being rejected by reformers. Institutions evolve, just like

Comments

[psyllogism]

morality ≠ legality . Which is pretty much your point, I know. I just like posting the "not equal" symbol :-)

On a Wikipedia trip the other day, I read about a "universal ethic" in the article on self ownership. Do you think there is such a thing as a universal ethic?

I was trying to get at the roots of "what is property/ownership" and "is it good?". The classical liberal stance seems to flow from the concept of self-ownership. I'd be interested to hear your comments :-)

[magus341]

The legal/moral distinction is so much a part of how I think, I forget to clarify sometime, but yeah, that's part of what I was getting at. Passing a law is itself a moral/immoral action and so one must be aware of the meta-ethics involved, which is what I had in mind with "Laws flow freely from the mind of the unjust man. He must only think "what rule benefits me now?" and thereby gain insight into the desired law. A just man creates only the laws that can reasonably be expected to benefit all humans."

Self ownership is such a huge topic, it really deserves its own post.

[magus341]

Partial response in my next post.