Order provides the structure within which we live. The absence of order is disorganization and chaos. In this sense, we are referring to the arrangement that gives us the defined methodology for conducting our lives. It helps us predict reactions from actions, provides a smooth and safe flow of interactions with each other and provides a standard upon which we can see and measure collaboration vs conflict.
Let’s examine how order improves our lives.
Let’s think about an example that’s easy to visualize. Traffic in the United States contains a great deal of order. Direction is organized into lanes where all vehicles stay to the right. All traffic moving in the opposite direction is on your left. We have clear and simple rules at each intersection. Stop, look both ways, yield to cross traffic, and proceed when clear. If two people approach an intersection at the same time, the person to the right has the right of way. More defined yet, Stop at all red lights, go at all green lights. Safe speeds are posted and enforced. Warnings are posted for sharp curves, steep inclines, blind intersections, known deer crossing points, etc.
What does all this achieve? Imagine traveling in a place where lanes of direction were not designated and there were no rules at intersections. Speeds would be slower as you weaved precariously in and out of vehicles moving in all directions. Travel would be incredibly more dangerous. Intersections would frequently back up behind drivers who were too cautious or timid to venture out into the fray. Frustrations and anger would mount. In addition to being less safe, getting from point A to point B would take a lot longer.
Order provides safety. It structures vehicles to stay aligned with singular directions of travel and keeps intersections moving in efficient and repeatable patterns. This allows you to travel at greater speeds with less to worry about, allowing you to get to point B much quicker. We can easily predict what other vehicles are doing based on their lane position and use of signal lights and so we are less concerned about being flanked or colliding head on. Order de-stresses the system. In doing so, it gives us safety and efficiency and makes the tasks much less mentally and emotionally fatiguing. This in turn makes us more willing to venture out and travel to complete our desires and pursue our aims.
There are some important principles that make order work for all of us.
- Order must be established – it must exist and for it to exist, it must be created. Order is not the natural state. Entropy is. Organization occurs through the thought process.
- Everyone must agree to follow the established rules of order. If our actions intersect with one another, but we all operate using different sets of rules, then we have no unified system of order. This yields disorder which produces confusion and chaos.
- The rules must be enforced in some manner. No one is born with the knowledge of these rules and new people will constantly enter the system. People must be trained and enforcement must be available as reminders. Some will look for short cuts or disregard the rules for convenience. Whether they intend to or not, this can result in undercutting other people’s safety and other interests which mandates some level of enforcement.
- The rules must serve the best interest of the citizens. When the rules of order make sense, are easy to understand and the benefits through reason can be seen to serve the best interests of the community members, the rules will be gladly followed. When rules are viewed as oppressive and benefit can’t be found in them, people will be disinclined to follow them and insurrection will arise.
We can find examples of order in nearly every place we look. The laws of physics provide order in the natural world. We also create and institute order in many ways within the realm of civilization which include financial transactions, mail delivery, lines at checkouts, we organize libraries to easily find what we’re looking for and businesses create policies and procedures to ensure their objectives are met.
Morality is the system of order that ultimately governs all of our human to human interactions. The principles and discipline of morality provides safety and stability by establishing predictable outcomes. This allows us to collaborate more efficiently to improve our lives and provides a basic medium with which to resolve conflict. Shared systems of decency prevailingly lead to peaceful and constructive societies.
The guiding principles comprising morality, when properly understood, practiced and broadly adhered to, tell each of us how to treat others and ourselves. This is the only path towards any harmonious dealings with one another. It is also the best means to judge and force corrections on misdeeds. Without widely held agreement on ethical expectations, punishments will quickly seem to many as unfair or unjust. This leads to anarchy which can be the disintegration of civilization and the benefits that go with it.
If morality is the system of order that directs our interactions with each other, then consider the magnitude that morality has on us. As people we have the capacity to conduct any conceivable action against one another. We have the ability to wage war, to desolate homes and lives, plunder belongings, to initiate and execute genocides, to impoverish and enslave, to torment, torture, kill and maim without regard, to rape, humiliate, intimidate and otherwise reek destruction in any manner that we can invent. Morality is the only way to prevent and guard against this. There must be rules in how we interact with one another and these rules must be built from the mutual respect of people and their property.
We often say this is the work of governments, to provide safety and establish laws and enforce them. Certainly this is most often the case. Nonetheless, these laws must be built off some common system of virtue and justness that the masses consent to if the laws are to be maintained and followed. The sustained consent of the governed is only achieved through a genuine belief by the people that the laws are good and right.
The more homogeneous a culture is in their the understanding and practice of right and wrong, the less need there is for governments to establish laws to ensure order. Laws are legislated when order is needed or there is threat of it being needed. As conflict arises, peace and justice are established by defining rules. If the people know, believe in and adhere to moral codes of conduct, there is little reason to pass laws to force behavior that is already aligned with good-doing and is commonly practiced throughout society. It helps too if the culture applies some social peer pressure for people to behave in socially acceptable ways. Often small infractions are corrected quickly without the need for official intervention.
When morality breaks down and degrades, entropy of character becomes prevalent. Something will be called forth to fill this void. As the conduct of people moves more and more towards base inclinations, increasing conflict and hostilities arise. To the dismay of many, some will seek ways to force their own advantages. Many will appeal to authority to bring back peace. Authority will rise. Chaos nurtures authority to grow power and seek the fulfillment of its own base urge towards centralized regulation. Rules given as edicts of the authoritative will be established to bring order to the omniscient chaos that permeates all endeavors of the civilization. Since morality no longer exists to guide an individual’s actions, a new rule will emerge every time a new transgression is tested. As people descend into degeneracy, their aims increasingly become base desires and so they continue to disregard others to seek the fulfillment of their desires. More rules are put forth as the solution. With the coming of all these rules is the inauguration of totalitarianism. It is the inevitable conclusion of bringing amoral order to an immoral society. Disorder invokes the need for authoritarian ruler to establish order.
As rules grow in number, it becomes increasingly difficult for any single mind to retain them all. As the law becomes increasingly more detailed, it becomes difficult for a man of average education to understand the letter of the law. Specialists emerge. For a fee they help to represent the man who’s life and profession don’t leave him adequate time to understand the rules. In time, no single legal specialist can understand all the law either. They proliferate and become sub-specialists. All the while, prices for good representation increase dramatically and the heavy fog of confusion sets in. Too many rules becomes oppressive and they can begin to add more burden to the common man than benefit. Overregulation turns to tyranny.
For this reason, morality and freedom are inseparably linked. The more like minded a culture is in their view and practice of morality, the more similarly they act and conduct their affairs in ways that align to socially accepted ways. A common understanding of morals brings order to society. This, to a large extent is a safe guard against the need and desire for authoritarianism. In preventing the rise of authoritarians, freedom of the individual is preserved.
From this we have learned that some rules are needed to ensure general alignment to a commonly recognized code of moral conduct, but too many begin to constrict freedom. We can derive that these rules must be easily understood to improve all of our lives and to serve the purpose of securing and protecting individual rights rather than being overly regulatory. These are important principles to establish and understand clearly.
- Rules exist to secure our individual rights and liberty. They must be reasonably obvious in their widespread benefit to each individual.
- Rules must be derived from our understanding of morality since they define and establish expectations of what right and wrong are within society.
- Rules must reign supreme over the ruler. A Ruler is a person (or group of people) and like any of us, they are subject to base inclinations, vice, misjudgment and all other manner of error. No one can be above the law. Every member of society, regardless of status must be subject equally to the laws.
From these observations, we arrive at another important concept. Rule of Law.
RULE OF LAW
In a free society it is the law that we consent to be governed by, not by a person. This is referred to as rule of law. Under this system, rules are publicly published and all members of society, citizens and leaders, are subject equally to the law. There are no exceptions, and no one is above the law including anyone holding any office in government. In a republican or democratic system, the common man has a strong voice in establishing laws.
There are also rules that have been publicly disclosed to govern how all laws are made or amended. Lawmakers must follow prescribed procedures to create and enact a law. If this were not so, a ruler could decree whatever law he wanted, negating the rule of law. Another time, we will discuss how separating legislative, executive and judicial branches help to preserve this system.
Rule of law provides stability, predictability and fairness. Laws can be derived from reason and they can have clear aims. Anyone who plays a part in drafting or executing laws is equally subject to them and can be prosecuted in the same fashion as anyone else. This helps keeps legislators fair. Because rules are public, anyone can reference them and know the rule and its limitations. There should be no mystery of legal right and wrong in a free and orderly society.
To achieve rule of law, a government that values strong political freedom will draft their legal system from a charter that details the role and limitations of government. It will call out who holds what authority, how legal proceedings are to be held, how laws are formed and so forth. This charter provides the structure for the government and the rules it must follow to execute its job. In the United States, we call this our Constitution.
DUE PROCESS OF LAW
To execute the law fairly while protecting the natural rights of each citizen, we arrive at another concept known as due process of law. The government and members of its offices must respect all legal rights of anyone subject to the law. There are proceedings that must be followed to legally execute the law on a violator, but also to determine if the accused indeed violated the law. Several key things are essential and must exist to protect citizens from unlawful abuses of power or unfair treatment.
- Presumption of innocence until proven guilty (Referred to throughout many contemporary court rulings and widely held as a tenant of western republicanism and democracy)
- A right to a defense (US Constitution, Amend. 6)
- A right to fair and speedy trial by an impartial jury of peers (US Constitution, Amend. 6)
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witness in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.
– The United States Constitution, Amendment 6
- No cruel or unusual punishments – punishments must follow the prescribed rule of law. (US Constitution, Amend. 8)
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fine imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted
– The United States Constitution, Amendment 8
Further, our United States Constitution in Article 5 mandates that due process always be exercised before anyone is deprived of life or liberty.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or navel forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service time of War of public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
– The United States Constitution, Amendment 5
Due process of law exists to ensure rule of law and the natural rights of each member of society. These are critical concepts to preserving individual liberty.
Anyone could slander another or falsely accuse someone of a crime. This could be done intentionally as a form of attack or unintentionally by jumping to conclusions in the heat of passion and inadvertently overlooking critical game changing information. To safeguard individuals from unfair treatment, it is essential that we presume innocence and work to produce a verifiable conclusion to an impartial, less impassioned and therefore more reasonable and unbiased, third party.
We have learned that we must each value our own lives and liberty. As such, we always retain a right to our defense. If an accusation is brought against someone, they must be given a reasonable chance to defend and explain their position. They may be innocent of the matter entirely and can offer proof, or they may have had just reason to act as they did. It is not rare that the accuser frequently omits half the truth to his own benefit.
When a person is believed to have committed a crime, it can place a heavy burden on that person. They may be ostracized from family, friends and their community at large and experience a heavy emotional toll under the weight of being labeled a particular kind of person. At times they may be arrested or locked up for their own protection from “do-gooders” taking the law into their own hands. Even though the individual remains innocent in legal terms until they are tried and proven to be guilty, the passions of many people begin to excite, and the accused are often treated as guilty before validation of the fact. To minimize unfair treatment, particularly when accusations are incorrect, or to expedite justice when found guilty, trials must happen quickly and in a fair and unbiased manner. Injustice abounds when trials are delayed and dragged on while the accused must continue to pay for his defense, often in multiple ways.
When the heat of vengeance overtakes a person, they can overreact and in retribution, commit a far greater atrocity than the crime originally committed by the offender. In a civilized society, we must never lose our respect for human life and dignity. When we consent to the rule of law, we consent to a system of fairness and equal standing under the law. For this reason, the punishments must fit the crime and cannot be overly cruel and inhumane; although it must be adequate to convince the offender not to repeat the action and deter others from committing similar transgressions. If punishments are too weak or too cruel, we will loose our respect for the rule of law and search for alternatives.
The contrary doctrine to rule of law and due process of law, is often known as the divine right of kings, sometimes called rule by edict. In this system, laws are decreed by a ruler(s). When the law comes from the edicts of rulers, those rulers naturally exist above the law for they have created it and are in control of it. They retain the ability to change laws with relative ease as suits their prerogative. The sovereign, if his power is unchecked, may act outside of the laws that he sets forth for others to abide by. Favors of the law can also be extended to particular people or positions if it suits the ruler’s interest.
This system is archaic and becomes difficult for members of society to predict outcomes for a given action or to feel safe and secure in knowing what legal right and wrong are. Clearly, the interests of the ruling elite come before the citizenry. The citizen has little to no influence in the setting of laws. Without rule of law, due process of law cannot be established. When these concepts are not established, there is no guaranteed protection of natural rights and without that, there is no freedom.