Reality is Law

Epistemic status: provisional.

Let's say I'm walking on a trail that goes along the side of a canyon wall, so that there is a sheer slope above and a sheer slope below the trail. I come to a point where the trail is washed out, too wide for me to step across or safely jump. So, I have to go back. The wash-out ought to be there and compels my action.

I get back to town and can't find a place to sleep at night, so I sleep on the street. Around 2 AM, I am awakened by a police officer who says "You can't sleep on the streets. It's the law." I know that behind the police officer is the city ordinance. The city ordinance ought to be there and compels my action.

But perhaps it is unjust that the law exists? Why? Why isn't the wash-out unjust? Does it have a good reason to block me? What's the difference? Is it that a human enforces the law? Suppose we were hooked up Neuralink-style to all-powerful AI. And the AI would enforce the law of not-sleeping on the street by making it so that the pavement felt like it was burning hot, preventing sleep. Does that make it a just law? Is it that a human or group of humans designed the city ordinance, and so they can be held accountable, and that makes it just or unjust? Maybe we get used to not being able to argue with wash-outs, making them feel not unjust, whereas we are used to being able to argue with parents or siblings. But the law itself, is it just or unjust? Is it just to prevent people from sleeping on the streets?

Is racism suddenly okay if an AI comes up with it without any help from humans? (Is it okay if the AI isn't a general intelligence?) Sickle-cell anemia affects African-Americans more than other Americans. Should that be, just because humans didn't come up with it? You could say that it neither should be nor shouldn't be, because it just is, but then the fact of whether it should or shouldn't be can suddenly change if you find out that it wasn't due to human agency. But what we observe, simantically, is that ought is a question to ask of the thing we observe. It should or shouldn't be. Should its oughtness depend more on whether some human has happened to notice it, realizing they ought to take care of it? Or on its effects on whomever it comes into contact with?

Are humans morally accountable for what goes on on earth? Or are each of us the helpless pawns of the system? If the system makes things the way they are, then maybe it's not a case of them "oughting" to be, or not, but rather they just are. But if we think that they should not be, then we approach them differently, we are really motivated to change the system. Some people protest the unjust system. They go after people in power, because ought resides in people. But other people try to work with the technological or policy sides of how the system is built. They aren't trying to hold anyone to account -- they are only trying to solve problems as impersonal phenomena. The system can be better, and they should be the ones to help make it better. Should the system be better? If it shouldn't, then it's bad that they make it better. If it neither should nor shouldn't, then why does the "should" fall on people to make it better? It would make a lot more sense if the system itself should be better, so that people should make themselves be the ones to make it better. If we suppose that human decisions are not the problem, rather it's erosion that produces wash-outs, then ought we still fix the wash-outs? It would seem so.

The wash-outs shouldn't be there. But, of course, in a sense, they should. We relate to the wash-outs as laws, just as we relate to systems, or the decrees of a city council. What kind of law can legitimately curtail our freedom? Reality is that which can curtail your freedom -- absolutely. Reality is a law. So what kind of law is valid? Is reality valid just because it is? Or do things, instead, exist because they are valid? Or their existence just is a particular kind of validity? That it should be is that it is.

A law can be valid, but not just because it is on the books. There is something else that makes a law valid. A law is valid "as law" if it really deserves to be on the books, and it is valid "as ordinance" if it has been written in the law books and is now being enforced.

What is is always at least somewhat valid, is really valid to some extent. Whatever really is, is absolutely. There is no arguing with it. Suppose that unarguable component were merely valid "as ordinance". If it were invalid "as law", it could be invalidated on that ground. In order to be really valid, it has to be valid "as law".

What, truly and ultimately, ought to be able to curtail a person's freedom, absolutely? What is it that allows reality to be real?

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We are tempted to say that the world is at root a natural, impersonal phenomenon, but if we say that, we lose the ability to most deeply feel the wrongness of earthquakes, (like the famous one in Lisbon), because we think that there is no personal cause to it. The earthquake itself is wrong, but this doesn't make sense to us if we think that it's just a couple of plates slipping past each other. And so the suffering that comes from the earthquake -- maybe we feel it should happen, just a little bit more than if we railed against God for having caused the earthquake.

But then, we approach social systems as though they are "plates slipping past each other". Having found it easy to accept the suffering of those affected by the brute occurrence of an earthquake, we accept the suffering of those affected by social systems. In either case, we might feel something, but not what we would have felt if we felt injustice. We live blanketed by "should be", by the breath of status quo.

We could say that "is" tells us that we shouldn't feel "ought". The naturalistic origin of the earthquake blunts our "ought". Or we could say that "ought" tells us that we should adjust our view of "is". "Ought" is a connection with reality, as much as "is" is, and can guide us to see that everything is caused by personal choice, and so there isn't a naturalistic world that is not justice-apt. Justice is everywhere. Everything is made out of justice, in that everything is made out of legitimacy. (Or twisted justice, twisted legitimacy -- that which we call unjust or illegitimate.)

Seeing everything through the lens of justice can be dangerous. Having reawakened our sense of justice, we might oppose people we shouldn't oppose, fanatically. Seeing things spiritually and seeing evil properly should help with this.