Bible

• Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.
• Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Buddhism

• Infinite Gratitude for all things past, Infinite Service for all things present, Infinite Responsibility for all things future.

The Philosophy of Liberty

• You own your life.
• To lose your life (murder) is to lose your future.
• To lose your liberty (slavery) is to lose your present.
• Property is the product of your life and liberty. (too hazy)
• Property is the fruit of your labor; of your time, energy, and talents.
• Property is that part of Nature which you turn to valuable use. (Implies it could be taken away if you are not using it to create "value".)

Martin Gardner, "Why I am not an Ethical Relativist"

• It is better to be alive than dead.
• It is better to be healthy than sick.
• It is better to be happy than miserable.
• It is better for a culture to survive than perish. (Even a bad culture?)
• It is better for the human race to survive than become extinct.

Richard Maybury, Whatever Happened to Justice?

• Do all you have agreed to do.
• Do not encroach on other persons or their property.

Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, The Principles of Natural Law

• The ultimate end (aim) of man is happiness.
• Reason in the only means that man has to attain happiness.
• An enlightened and rational love of ourselves may serve as the first principle with regard to the duties which concern ourselves.
• Society is necessary to man.
• First principles of natural law are religion, self-love, and sociability.

Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals and Critique of Practical Reason

• Moral Law is determined a priori by pure practical reason
  • self-love is the motive of empirical senses, and does not lead to absolutes
  • happiness is end of self-love and inclinations, but is not the summum bonum
• The greatest good is a good will, or choosing to do good from duty alone (determined by reason)
• The categorical imperitive is to always act such that thy maxim (statement of motivation) may be elevated to a universal law.  (golden rule)
• moral law requires: reason, free will
• rational being are ends in themselves, and must never be treated as means to other ends

Myself:

• Scarcity creates the need for ownership. That which is abundant has no value.
• If I have a right, you have the same right. Or, egotistically, if you have a right, I have the same right.

Life, Liberty, Property?

• Most feel the need to establish the rights of life, liberty, and property. (Property is more difficult to justify.)
• John Locke -- "No one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions."
• George Mason -- "That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, ... namely the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."
• Thomas Jefferson -- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." (happiness, not property)
• Supreme Court -- "Among these inalienable rights, as proclaimed in that great document, is the right of men to pursue their happiness, by which is meant the right to pursue any lawful business or vocation, in any manner not inconsistent with the equal rights of others, which may increase their prosperity or develop their faculties, so as to give to them their highest enjoyment."

Necessities for Life:

• Food, water, warmth, shelter.

Necessities for Liberty:

• Safety, freedom, education. (?)