IN the state of nature, where no society has been organized, the law governs what are usually called "human rights," those which are good for all human beings equally (although there is no reason for the law to be limited to human beings; States or nations also may be equal.) Thus we are confronted with the question, are there any human rights?

The popular answer is in the negative; it appears that no individual can establish any claim without asking others for corroboration, and thus that the sole source of knowledge ¾ as distinct from opinion ¾ is the collective. It is supposed that the principle of society is necessarily permissiveness; the individual must consult the society before he can take action.

Amitai Etzioni, The Spirit of Community [Crown, New York: 1993] has taken up the old problem of balancing the power of the collective against the liberty of the individual, and dissolved it ¾ by proving that the individual has no rights (except, perhaps, those mentioned in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, as construed by a majority of the U. S. judges at any moment in time.) The collective decides what the privileges of its members are to be (even as in the Church of Rome.)

His proof is, that the theory of individual rights puts an end to argument between factions (bad) and makes individuals, such as Etzioni, responsible for upholding those rights (even badder.) He admits that Radical Individualists teach that, given only law, order appears among individuals by trial-and-error, but he cannot understand the proof (if he can't, who can?) The possibility that some of us may actually like our ethical society, where the highways are safer than anywhere else in the world, where car dealers can leave new vehicles out on unfenced, unguarded lots all night, where advertisers invite us to "Call collect," is immaterial.

This theory leads immediately to the conclusion that ethics is empty: it is meaningless to say that society is required to defend the rights of any entity if the society is not aware what those rights are. Collective security works because no individual dare offend all the other individuals; thus it must be agreed by all what is and what is not right. Plainly, the society cannot proceed by weighing the consequences, retrospectively: the individual expects to know in advance that his right will be upheld. Nor would it be possible to base the law on values, on desiderata ¾ it is even more difficult to reach a consensus if values are concerned, a society characteristically has young and old, rich and poor, strong and weak members.

In fact, natural law† has no difficulty whatsoever with the question of human rights. Any collective must, as a matter of sheer necessity, be able to resolve the question whether one of its members has wronged another.

Such a question is posed if P has a complaint against D: "his cattle grazed on my field." We expect to find that any stable society has a good answer to such questions ¾ "good" in that the answers in every case are alike. Otherwise, one or another person will have a complaint, and the integrity of the society will be prejudiced.

There is an old and obvious technique for developing "good" solutions, ones which will command agreement. It is the moot ¾ the discussion of hypothetical (imaginary) cases. It has a characteristic advantage: if it has been agreed beforehand that, in such-and-such circumstances, D is liable to P, then no one can be affronted if, in those circumstances, he gets the wrong end of the decision.

However, the moot can take no heed of consequences, of outcomes. The only arguments which can give rise to a consensus are logical ones ¾ this case can, or cannot, be distinguished from that one. But such a priori reasoning ¾ all philosophers agree ¾ cannot result in knowledge of cause-and-effect, of consequences. The only facts which can be taken into account in the moot are the circumstances which prevailed beforehand; what may result from doing right, or doing wrong, is a question on which agreement is not to be found. Fiat justicia, ruat coelum [do justice†, though the heavens fall.]

Hence the moot recognizes rights, such that ¾ in the circumstances which have been imagined ¾ one party does have, and another does not have, the right.

It is the nature of men that, what one person has eaten, another cannot eat. Thus it must be that, among men, there is a right to food, such that one knows who can, and who cannot, eat that egg or that apple. And it is the nature of nations that they occupy space, such that whatever space one is occupying cannot be occupied by another. Thus there must be a right to space, such that it is wrong for one nation to enter the space of another.

The proposition that a nation must be confined to a finite realm is denied by, for instance, the Palestine Liberation Organization. However, it is hardly plausible to argue that an attack on Palestinians in Palestine is also an attack on Palestinians in Britain or Russia or the United States.

Persons also occupy space. However, they may not remain in the same space, but rather move from one space to another. Hence persons must have a right of way, such that until one person has passed through a particular space, no other person (equal to the first) can enter it.

It has been shown that knowledge is negative by nature ¾ experiment can show that a theory is false, but not that it is true. Thus it is not surprising that human rights are relatively few compared to "human wrongs." If there be substances which, added to or removed from food, destroy its dietary value, then there must exist the wrongs of poisoning or vitamin deprivation. If there exist diseases which are transmitted from A to B by contact, then it must be a wrong for A , who has the disease, to make contact with B, who does not have the disease. If there exists radiation, the nature of which is that it cannot be detected by the receiver but it has an irreversible effect upon him, then it must be a wrong for one to allow another to remain within the radiation. If the society consisted of dolphins, who navigate by echo-sounding, then it would be wrong for one to transmit on the frequency of another and thus jam his reception. If the distance at which one driver can follow another increases faster than linearly with speed, so that there is a speed below which the traffic flow does not increase with reduction of speed, then it must be wrong to drive slower than that minimum speed.

It is easy to see that a few drivers in a traffic lane can make room for additional traffic by slowing down; thus the relationship between speed and traffic flow is stable. But the maximum flow must occur at some speed which is not zero; once the speed has fallen to this minimum, any further reduction renders the flow unstable, stop-and-go supplants steady running. Thus whoever slows down below the minimum obstructs the drivers following him.

Just as a right has the nature that one person, or nation, can claim it against his equals ¾ the right to a name (which is, in fact, acknowledged by the United Nations) would be empty unless others could be prevented from claiming the same name ¾ so a wrong has the nature that one entity attributes it to another who is equal. A wrong is not founded upon loss or suffering, perhaps by storm or earthquake; it is founded upon some person (or nation) having done what it had no right to do.

It can justifiably be assumed that these natural rights would be admitted even in a humanist society, because they are purely logical. No-one has to believe that radiation exists, that poison exists, that the minimum speed exists ¾ only that,

The natural law, as here described, is, plainly, effective to settle certain questions which would otherwise have been difficult or even dangerous ¾ questions of the nature that all of the participants are not equally interested, that P has something to gain but D has something to lose.

But now a further field of enquiry opens up, namely responsibility. There would be no point in listening to the case at all, unless ¾ if plaintiff P convinces us that his grass was eaten by the cattle of defendant D ¾ we intend to do something. What do we do? Do we kill the cattle? Do we kill D?

This is a question which poses no difficulty in natural law. The law applies only to entities who know the law. Cattle do not have the nature that they make, and keep, promises. No one can know what his cattle may do or not do: D can have grazed the meadow of P without ever knowing it.

Thus there appears a second distinction; not only are there situations which are right and situations which are not right, but there are mental states, on the part of the defendant D, which are right or wrong.

The existence of this second distinction allows us to recognise a further possibility. Whoever fails to take up arms when A violates the rights of B (particularly, A himself) is not one of Us ¾ if he did so intentionally; we all agree, "I would never do that!" But if A made the violation unintentionally, then A remains one of Us.

The question whether D is or is not one of Us is not trivial. In the former case, the society must not only defend the rights of P, but also those of D. If it is proposed to kill the owner of the cattle, regardless of who he may be (in this case and, therefore, in all subsequent cases) some one who does not know where all of his cattle are will object. Needless to say, the proposal to kill the cattle is also objectionable (unless, perhaps, it is added that P keeps the meat). No doubt, the conclusion which will be agreed is that D should make P whole.

What does this imply? It means ¾ if D is one of Us ¾ that D has no option but to make P whole. If your broker and your banker, let alone your candlestick-maker, hold that you owe P $567, you cannot refuse to pay ¾ if you intend to live in the community henceforth.

There has appeared, then, another collective function: not only does the collective defend the rights of each entity against aggression, it also defends them against wrongs done negligently. All of Us hear the case, and all of Us agree that the plaintiff shall be made whole ¾ if D is one of Us. Obviously, the plaintiff emphatically hopes that the defendant is one of Us; the last thing he wants is to be told that We disavow the defendant, that he pays no heed to Us.

Thus there may be a "civil" dispute between P and D as to certain facts, but there is not a conflict between P and D; both of them have the same interest, namely that both of them should be accepted as equals of ours. Every entity has an interest in being part of the society; he may not fear being attacked, but he is always exposed to the risk of unintentional wrong-doing.

And the law, as we all know ¾ as we who are civilized all know ¾ addresses these problems. Natural law recognizes excuses, typically that "On that occasion, I was not myself ¾ I was drunk, or drugged, or dreaming ¾ but normally, I am indeed one of Us." In these cases, it may well be that some right of P was violated, but it does not follow that D has renounced his commitment to defend the right: it is the nature of men that they can form an intent without fullfilling it, and exhibit an act without an intention (a reaction.)

If the act was done unintentionally, the actor may have been negligent or mistaken or unfortunate on that occasion . . . or it may be that he regularly acts unintentionally, that he is an infant or an imbecile. If the latter is true, then the actor fails the test, does he take up arms . . . ? He is not one of Us.

Thus there can be recognized an actus reus ¾ an act which is wrong ¾ and also a mens rea ¾ an intent which is wrong. There are, then, four possible combinations: one in which both act and intent are wrong, two in which one is wrong and the other is not, and one in which neither is wrong. These classes of action are seen in Table 6.1.

In the diagram, one diagonal defines acts which are wrong, the other intents which are wrong; thus the area above both, where the action is wrong, appears to be even-more-actionable than the other three areas. This conclusion, however, would imply that the people accept responsibility equally for one who does wrong negli gold or silver (or platinum) coin; if the money of account is depreciating, then the asset will appear to make a profit for year after year, but when it is worn out, there will not be enough capital saved up to replace it.

Some assets, we are told, are not renewable: if some form of life becomes extinct, the genetic variations available are diminished forever. No doubt this is true ¾ but animals and vegetables also are best conserved by their owners.

Let me record the finest example of a Socratic argument known to me. My position was contested by a Californian judge: "Do you mean to tell me that if I see an ownerless dog, I can shoot it?" The Nevadan Libertarian by my side asked: "Is it all right for a lion to kill a deer?" "Of course it is!" "Is it all right for a lion to kill a man?" Silence ¾ to say "Yes" again is to admit also that a man can kill a lion. [This little tale is all the more piquant in that the Libertarian was aged sixteen at the time.]

Nowadays, it is considered quite normal for so-called "activists" to resort to picketing or sabotage or assault in pursuit of their happiness; the remainder of the citizens do not rally to oppose them. And the state is allowed to argue that it has an "interest" in bringing about some state of affairs.

However, as we have seen, all of us can agree upon means; and our agreement includes opposing those who use wrongful means. It is possible that all men can agree upon some end, such as domestic tranquillity: nevertheless, the citizens will dictate to the state how they intend to achieve domestic tranquillity, e.g. by establishing a republican form of government. The state has been endowed with powers to do only what is agreed to be right; it is necessary that the citizens be able to see whether what it did yesterday is what it has been set up to do, or otherwise.

Moreover, if an end is claimed to be of over-riding importance, then presumably what is desired is that the pursuit of it shall be successful. And the way success is achieved is by not doing things wrong ¾ or, if things have been done wrong, finding out quickly what is wrong ¾ which is achieved by democracy. Yes, there is the special case where to be "right" you have to do what the enemy does not expect, and so the plan cannot be agreed in public: but even in war it still pays to have a plan that is free from errors, one to which the specialists all agree.

It is widely believed that the Freemasons, or the international bankers, or the Church of Rome, or the Council on Foreign Relations, or the Bilderbergers, or the Zionists, or some other closed body, are dominating current events. And indeed, considering how obviously our present society is deteriorating, it would be odd indeed if there were not movements attempting to change the system: international bankers are very likely to disapprove of governments that change the value of the money without ample notice, particularly if the change is downward and thus costly to creditors. If wrong-doing by governors were regularly condemned, rather than condoned, fewer people would be devoting their money and their efforts to reform, or to revolt.

Admittedly, at present, any fairly large number of citizens who vote as a block can have a decisive effect in elections ¾ except in the very few States that are dominated by one party.

But this supposed defect in the republican form of government can be overcome by making elections local rather than general; it is unlikely that any Block would be distributed evenly over all the counties. (Birds of a feather flock together, particularly if they do not speak English.) If one presidential elector were chosen in each congressional district, instead of all the electors of a State being chosen at large, then the candidates in each district would be rather well known to the voters, and there would be more likelihood of the best candidate winning. (As has been observed above, the electoral college is expected to meet and deliberate and hold a secret ballot, not merely follow the majority of voters who have not had the opportunity to meet and deliberate.)

Similarly, the U. S. government is open to being influenced by the various appointees in the executive and judicial branches. If the Senate determined to consent to no nominee whom it had not first advised, then no-one could be appointed who was not well regarded in many States: the Masons, or the international bankers, would have an influence only so far as they were represented in both large and small States.