Post a Comment On: Bruce Charlton's Notions

It is an obvious aspect of contemporary value-inversion that new laws are net-evil and old laws are not enforced. The legal system has become an agent of corruption at both global and national levels (and indeed in the sub-legal regulations that govern the workplace). Yet it used to be the case that the law was seen as essentially moral - and indeed I think it mostly was. How did we get from a situation where laws aimed at good, to the current when laws are designed and implemented such as to corrupt?The deepest answer is related to Man's contact with the spiritual realm and divine guidance. 
In the oldest kind of hunter gatherer societies there were no laws and no need for laws. Men lived - spontaneously, mostly-unconsciously - substantially immersed-in the realm of spirits (e.g. the dead walked among them, spirits participated in everyday life, spiritual guidance was sought for decisions). Divine values naturally permeated all Men and all of society - and it was obvious to the community when such guidance was defied; and what ought to be done about it.When Man lives in close communion with 'the gods' there is no need for laws - indeed laws would be a crude simplification and impairment of the natural justice of (mostly-) god-aligned Men. 
In agrarian societies of the classical-medieval era - Men retained a considerable, albeit dwindling, element of this unconscious spiritual immersion and automatic knowledge of divine guidance; but it needed to be made explicit and codified as laws. In other words, what had been unconscious and implicit, needed to become (and was) made conscious and explicit - in the summary form of laws. (Albeit, laws still needed and got interpretation. A wise judge took law as a framework but discerned, from his participation in the spiritual, the implicit intent behind particular laws; and therefore the partly autonomous-partly-immersed judge bridged between the generalizations of law and the specifics of instances.)Laws were therefore partly spontaneously-known and partly reasoned; and the spontaneous awareness aspect was widely shared among Men; such that they generated mostly-just laws; and were mostly-able to understand the justice and coherence of these laws. In sum: Men were partly-god-aligned; but needed explicit social guidance by laws. And this social guidance was also partly god-aligned (because of the Men who made the laws). So, the law served as positive and helpful 'backup' value system; to prevent the increasingly autonomous Men from straying too far from what was needed to sustain community.  
In the modern era; after childhood Men lost the ancient immersive awareness of spirits and the divine; and lost their innate knowledge of God. Society, and its laws, were no longer spontaneous, but must consciously be chosen (on the basis of reason acting upon instincts). On the whole, and by c. 2000AD overwhelmingly; modern Men eventually decided Not to choose consciously to re-engage with God or the spiritual realm.Modern Laws are therefore the product of a materialist-atheist society; one that is detached from the natural, and disconnected from the influences that previously had coordinated Man's law with the divine. And modern Men regard modern laws as simply the product of the imperatives of a materialist-atheist society. While ancient laws were an (albeit imperfect, often corrupted) expression of divine will; modern laws are understood as essentially arbitrary aspects of a system consisting of interest groups.  Modern law is just Man-Made: and its rationale and justification is no deeper than the motives and procedures of those Men who make and impose laws. 
Now, law functions (imperfectly) to assert here-and-now human interests upon the individual. The individual experiences law as either hostile and to be eluded, or a trick to be exploited for self-gain. And group interests change according to time and situation; and different societal groups generate different laws. As a result; laws are increasingly expedient; being changeable and incoherent - legally contradictory laws are commonplace. Since there is no legal coherence to enable harmony; actual implementation of laws therefore will fluctuate - unpredictably - in accordance with changes in the balance of social power.  Incoherence is intrinsically evil, because it is the opposite of the harmony of divine creation - therefore generating incoherence is a frequent tool of evil. Contradictions between laws is therefore a feature, not a bug, for those whose motivation is evil. 
If law is not positively moral, that law is immoral (because there is no such thing as 'amoral') - and therefore modern laws are immoral. This is inevitable, since there is no basis for morality in an atheistic-materialist reality without purpose or meaning. Consequently, the legal system has transformed from being an imperfect instrument of divine purpose; to an increasingly effective tool for the promotion of purposive (i.e. demonic) evil in the world.Evil is properly defined negatively; as being against Good - which is God and creation. Modern law - by its selfish and expedient motivations, arbitrary incoherence and changing implementation - works to damage, destroy, or invert the natural realm of divine creation. In other words; because new laws are disconnected from the divine and spiritual, and then imposed on Men who are themselves disconnected from the divine and spiritual; new laws must be evil - by intent and in practice. 
If we want again to have good laws; then we must first consciously choose to re-establish awareness of God and the realm of the spiritual (in other words: Final Participation); and then, from that basis; strive (through various means, potentially including laws) to live in harmony with what we would then (yet imperfectly) discover.