"It's sometimes easy to lose context and run judgmentally-amok with a floating abstraction like "rational self-interest" but, without context, all meaning is lost." -Ed

Without a context such as your own knowledge of your own individual biologically given nature?

:)

Questions of crime arise within an existent and otherwise stable political society.

When that society itself is threatened to its core, actions meant to preserve it are not matters for armchair second-guessing. Any man with testicles and a modicum of knowled[g]e would act based on pre-existing premises and let himself be judged afterwards.

Natural law and natural rights follow from the nature of man and the world. We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

Natural law has objective, external existence. It follows from the ESS (evolutionary stable strategy) for the use of force that is natural for humans and similar animals. The ability to make moral judgments, the capacity to know good and evil, has immediate evolutionary benefits: just as the capacity to perceive three dimensionally tells me when I am standing on the edge of a cliff, so the capacity to know good and evil tells me if my companions are liable to cut my throat. It evolved in the same way, for the same straightforward and uncomplicated reasons, as our ability to throw rocks accurately.

Natural law is not some far away and long ago golden age myth imagined by Locke three hundred years ago, but a real and potent force in today's world, which still today forcibly constrains the lawless arrogance of government officials, as it did in Dade county very recently.

The scientific/ sociobiological/ game theoretic/ evolutionary definition: Natural law is, or follows from, an ESS for the use of force: Conduct which violates natural law is conduct such that, if a man were to use individual unorganized violence to prevent such conduct, or, in the absence of orderly society, use individual unorganized violence to punish such conduct, then such violence would not indicate that the person using such violence, (violence in accord with natural law) is a danger to a reasonable man. This definition is equivalent to the definition that comes from the game theory of iterated three or more player non zero sum games, applied to evolutionary theory. The idea of law, of actions being lawful or unlawful, has the emotional significance that it does have, because this ESS for the use of force is part of our nature.

Utilitarian and relativist philosophers demand that advocates of natural law produce a definition of natural law that is independent of the nature of man and the nature of the world. Since it is the very essence of natural law to reason from the nature of man and the nature of the world, to deduce “should” from “is”, we unsurprisingly fail to meet this standard.

The socialists attempted to remold human nature. Their failure is further evidence that the nature of man is universal and unchanging. Man is a rational animal, a social animal, a property owning animal, and a maker of things. He is social in the way that wolves and penguins are social, not social in the way that bees are social. The kind of society that is right for bees, a totalitarian society, is not right for people. In the language of sociobiology, humans are social, but not eusocial. Natural law follows from the nature of men, from the kind of animal that we are. We have the right to life, liberty and property, the right to defend ourselves against those who would rob, enslave, or kill us, because of the kind of animal that we are.

Law derives from our right to defend ourselves and our property, not from the power of the state. If law was merely whatever the state decreed, then the concepts of the rule of law and of legitimacy could not have the meaning that they plainly do have, the idea of actions being lawful and unlawful would not have the emotional significance that it does have. As Alkibiades argued, (Xenophon) if the Athenian assembly could decree whatever law it chose, then such laws were “not law, but merely force”. The Athenian assembly promptly proceeded to prove him right by issuing decrees that were clearly unlawful, and with the passage of time its decrees became more and more lawless.

Should someone ever threaten Erica, would you act first?

http://www.jim.com/moralfac.htm

A proof that moral judgments, when done correctly, are judgments of objective fact

Suppose we wish to enter into a contract with one of two men, either Bob or Dave. Both Bob and Dave have in the past broken a major promise, though under very different circumstances, both Bob and Dave have killed a man, though under very different circumstances. We need to decide which one is most likely to keep his word and least likely to harm us.

Bob promised to do certain things in return for a large sum of money. He failed to do the things he promised, and he later killed the person who gave him the money in a surprise attack.

Dave promised to do certain things, in return for not having his arms and legs broken. He failed to do the things he promised, and he later killed the person who threatened him in a surprise attack.

Obviously we should contract with Dave, not with Bob. But why is it obvious? How do we know this? How can we know it? How are we capable of knowing it?

Dave's actions were different from Bob's actions because Dave's actions were morally different from Bob's actions.

Consciously or unconsciously we evaluated the actions of Bob and Dave, and concluded that Bob's actions were gravely evil, and therefore were a sign that he was likely to do similarly evil things in future. Dave's actions were not gravely evil. The issue was not killing or breaking promises, but wrongful killing and breaking of promises. We concluded that Dave's actions were different from Bob's actions because they were morally different.

In correctly concluding that Bob's actions were morally different from Dave's actions and that therefore we should contract with Dave, we consciously or unconsciously used various principles of natural law

(I am using the phrase “natural law” in the sense that Thomas Aquinas and John Locke used it natural rights and obligations — that law which is rightly enforceable in a state of nature, not in the sense of physical law ...

Among the principles of natural law that we used, consciously or unconsciously, were that contracts should be honored, but that a contract should be for value or it is no contract - that coercion is wrong, but that self defense is right. If someone arbitrarily assumed different principles of natural law, he would make incorrect predictions about people's behavior; he would be less accurate when he attempted to predict the future behavior of Bob and Dave. If someone arbitrarily assumed incorrect principles of natural law, he would be making incorrect assumptions about the nature of man.

We can easily and correctly infer moral truths from facts about the world, and can easily and correctly infer facts about the world from moral truths. Everyone does this all the time, and those who claim it is impossible to do this, do it as much as anyone else.

To predict the behavior of inanimate objects we use, consciously or subconsciously, a theory of such objects. To predict the behavior of other men, we use, consciously or subconsciously, a theory of mind.

Such a theory must contain the categories of good and evil. A theory without these categories will fail to predict other people's behavior in precisely those cases where it is most important to us to predict their behavior.

Because any reasonably accurate theory of mind needs to employ these categories, and because deeds need to be attributed to these categories reasonably accurately, good and evil are true universals, just as “man” or “tiger” are true universals. It is possible to be wrong in our judgments. We need to make our judgments objectively correct. We can achieve judgments that are mostly accurate, though there is no simple mechanical rule for doing so. The fact that it is sometimes difficult to determine what is the true judgment is no reason to think that such judgments cannot be true or false.

To predict men's future conduct from their past conduct, we need to categorize their deeds, in order to say that one deed is like another and one deed is unlike another, to say that one person is like another and one person is unlike another. The most important category is moral.

In order to predict that conduct that is most important and most difficult to predict, we need to judge men and deeds as just or unjust, fair or unfair, good or bad.

Plainly therefore there exist correct and incorrect categorizations. The categories are not arbitrary. Arbitrary categories are not useful in predicting conduct. Correct categories are plainly useful in predicting conduct, and must be based on sound theories of men and the world, rather than arbitrarily created from nothing.

I think we can drop this one, assuming you have no criticisms of my definitions.

Because any reasonably accurate theory of mind needs to employ these categories, and because deeds need to be attributed to these categories reasonably accurately, good and evil are true universals, just as “man” or “tiger” are true universals.

I did indeed criticize what you said, rather than what you meant.

But I was told by someone that what you had "clobbered" me.

You said "necessary and sufficient" in regards to violator and victim (and here I am quoting you) and I "clobbered" you with a counterexample. Now you retreat to possible solely - i.e., only necessary.