Category: Natural Law and Reciprocity

DEFINITIONS OF MORAL, ETHICAL, CRIMINAL

Moral: costs imposed by externality.

Ethical: costs imposed interpersonally.

Criminal: costs imposed physically

Evil: costs imposed for the purpose of imposing costs and causing suffering rather than for personal gain.

Objective morality: necessary/natural law. (think physical law, and natural law.)

Normative morality : evolved morality – includes normative contractual provisions. If a moral norm requires the bearing of a cost, and one violates that norm, one imposes a cost upon those who bear the cost. (think contract law)

Traditional Moral Commands: Religious contract traditions that may or may not be in fact moral. Since a religion requires a contract of one sort or another that causes mass behavior that is usually costly to members, it is a violation of that normative contract that imposes costs upon others to fail to observe it. (think legislation)

Declining Traditional, Religious, and normative moral rules: changing circumstance has eliminate the value of the prior order’s demand for to forgo an opportunity or bear a cost. Some continue to pay and others do not, but objectively the value of the behavior has declined. (think outdated legislation)

Abnormal Moral Rules: signal traditions that are objectively immoral but have not been eradicated through competition. (Think ancient traditions that actually cause harm.)

This is pretty much how it works world ’round.

Curt