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Also pertinent here is Nagel's analysis of what it means to say that doing something is wrong, and of what, if anything, makes it true to say this. "To say it's wrong is not just to say it's against the rules. There can be bad rules which prohibit what isn't wrong—like a law against criticizing the government. A rule can also be bad because it requires something that is wrong—like a law that requires racial segregation in hotels and restaurants. The ideas of wrong and right are different from the ideas of what is and is not against the rules. Otherwise they couldn't be used in the evaluation of rules as well as actions" (59 f.). Of all the objections that can be made to thinking and speaking of "natural law" as such, as distinct from somehow thinking and speaking about a "more objective standard" of right and wrong, perhaps the most serious is that it encourages the misunderstanding that being moral in the sense of doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong is a matter of following or not following the law, i.e., the rules.

Of all the objections that can be made to thinking and speaking of "natural law" as such, as distinct from somehow thinking and speaking about a "more objective standard" of right and wrong, perhaps the most serious is that it encourages the misunderstanding that being moral in the sense of doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong is a matter of following or not following the law, i.e., the rules.

19 July 2004