No they were not at the time of the Constitution's creation. Indians in US territory were not sovereign, nor did the Constitution apply to them regardless of how they were born. And they were a race referred to by the Constitution. Just admit that you are flat wrong.
Note the language: To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes If they were sovereign nations there would be no need for the last part of that sentence. They would have just been covered under foreign nations.
This should have been posted here. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. ~Frederic Bastiat The 'need, for human Law is a reflection, imo, of the REALITY of a universal moral code. We recognize, collectively, a moral consciousness, define it as 'conscience', and label those who violate it as criminals or sociopaths. Because human beings do NOT always observe this inner code, we use the force of a collective action to compel observance, or suffer punishment. We believe they know better, and know their antisocial behavior is a violation of conscience, and thus can enforce law as being 'self evident.' Most 'Law' is merely morality, codified. Some are logistical, for expediency, but the Important ones relate to Conscience. Most of the core laws are directly related to what the Enlightenment philosophers called 'Natural Law'.. a universal, God given set of rights that no man can morally take. Life, Liberty, Property. The 3 basic rights, from the Enlightenment. This covers laws of theft, murder, assault, fraud, extortion, and many others. These are the universal, core Standards, that we see in every era, region and culture of human society. The Declaration of Independence reflected those Enlightenment values, with this simple declaration: 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. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolishit, and to institute new Government.. So, the purpose of Government, from the American perspective, is to secure the basic rights of the citizens.. to enact LAWS, that preserve, inviolate, our Natural Rights. All of this is based on the ASSUMPTION of a God Ordered universe. A God Who created all men equal, and ENDOWED them with unalienable rights. Make the assumption of a godless universe, and there is no equality, nor inalienable rights. All is based on relativity, expediency, and the whims of those in power. It would be a massive delusion, to believe in Natural Law, and Absolute morality, (and many other things), in a godless universe. "Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. . . . Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other." ~James Wilson, Signer of the Constitution, Supreme Court Justice
Some of the founding fathers believed these rights came from God. Some, like Jefferson, said these rights would exist with God or without. If they come from God, then they aren't actually natural, inherent, and inalienable. God would be able to revoke them whenever he wished.
Source? Here is Jefferson, in the DOI: 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. ..sounds like he credits God as the source of 'inalienable rights', aka, Natural Law. Why? He wasn't stupid. He saw that the ONLY SOURCE of Natural Law is a Creator/God. What other possible source of inherent rights, absolute morality, or human equality is there? It is an absurd platitude, in a godless universe. In a godless universe, there is only power. Might makes right. There is no 'a priori' good and evil, just however the powerful wish to define it. Seriously. This is not hard to understand.
I'm fairly certain those weren't Jefferson's original words, and he wrote elsewhere about how these natural rights can be derived from natural law. Congrats, an actual ad hominem! Yeah, anyone who disagrees with you must be stupid, that's the ticket! Source? Human nature. Empathy and cognitive dissonance. Argument from incredulity. 1) This aspect of your philosophy has already been disproven with empirical examples. This is not how nature universally operates, no matter how much you think it should be so. Social animals have other, pro-social instincts beyond "might makes right." 2) You've said yourself that you agree with "might makes right." Then it shouldn't be difficult to argue for it beyond fallacies and just-so "arguments."
I do not agree that morality is anything but originating in the human brain, and it arose because it was essential for order to be maintained in the tribe, the group, the civilization. Once it arose, and its benefits becoming self evident, it was conditioned into the newly born humans, taught, from a very early age. There is a universal common morality because the human condition is common, across cultures. This in no way negates the idea of a Creator, it is just that necessity is the mother of invention. Morality was necessary and so the brain of man created it. Sin, according to jewish thought is when man breaks the covenant established between man and his Creator. It requires free will in order to maintain it, for it to be sustained. So, it is a conscious choice of man, to keep the covenant with God, to obey his rules, which can be called morality. I don't think God made man to be innately moral, but offered it up as a choice to be made by man. Indeed, it doesn't seem to be a natural thing, given the selfishness created by the desires for gratification, of the body, and the mind. The pang of guilt, for being immoral comes, IMO, from being conditioned deeply to obey certain moral rules of conduct, and then breaking those rules. Someone once supposedly said, if you give him a person until the age of 5, he would create a communist for life. Conditioning is very powerful, when it begins in the crib. So morality is a conditioned thing, it is taught, and what caused disorder over order in a human society is fixed or addressed by a moral code. After all, if we are as a tribe struggling to survive, by not literally starving to death, including your kids, and someone comes and steals your food, killing your family, we can see the great need for a rule, called morality, that rejects stealing. So, you can condition this into the very young, teach them not to steal, that it is wrong, and you have a better chance of insuring stealing is minimized, thereby creating order over disorder, which helps to insure the survival of the group, that in turn maximized the survival of the individual, the family.
If by that you mean all 56 of the signers of the DoI, you are correct. Something tells me substantiation of this claim will not be forthcoming. Maybe He "could", but the Founders believed He never would - and they staked absolutely everything they had in this world on it. Which is of no moment, obviously, given that he affirmed the truth of everything in the document with his signature. Which might be interesting, if he ever opined that that could exist without God. More accurately, the insane myth that morality is subjective logically justifies every atrocity ever committed.
Of course it is. You think otherwise because you don't understand what morality is to begin with. If you rectify the problem above, maybe you'll be able to ask an intelligent question.
Perhaps you and I have different concepts of morality. Mine is based on ethical values that direct life decisions....what is yours?
Good thoughtful reply.. lots of good things, here. I do see a conflict. First you state, morality.. originates in the human brain Implying it is a human construct, not of Divine origin. IOW, it is arbitrary and subjective, with nothing compelling an Absolute perception of conscience. If you are agreeing with the Enlightenment philosophers of a 'Natural Law', then there must be an Embedder. These morals could not have been endowed, otherwise. If something is embedded in the human brain, or psyche, or soul, or whatever location is offered as the seat of morality and reason, then something or Someone had to put it there. In a godless universe, those things are delusions, believing there is some kind of 'Higher Calling!' for behavior, when anything goes. There cannot be anything higher than the individual's personal choice. There is a universal common morality because the human condition is common, across cultures. In a godless universe, 'morality' is a human construct, to manipulate people. It is not a Real Thing, but a delusion. The only 'universal' perception would be coincidental. Morality is not real, in a godless universe. There are 2 possibilities, regarding morality: 1. It is a God embedded sense, placed in the conscience, to guide behavioral decisions. 2. It is a human or natural construct, with no significance. It is used to control & manipulate others for some agenda. IOW, it is Real, or it is not. ANY godless explanation of human morality MUST CONCLUDE it to be a delusion or subjective construct, for situational purposes. ONLY in a God ordered universe is it even POSSIBLE for morality to be Real. It is different from instinct, as it is a reasoned response, based on external factors. In a godless universe, it cannot be Real.. it is a delusion. Even in a God ordered universe, it might still be a human construct. But, if it is a Real Thing, it can only come from God.
That would imply that I have one. More to the point, it's based on values you can modify or dispense with according to your own convenience. Morality is obedience to the dictates of conscience*, which brooks no objections from mortals. *Of course you don't get what that is either.
Let me begin with this one, since it is an important part... I would not say it is arbitrary nor subjective, but arose from an intelligence driven awareness of how particular behaviors of the individual created problems for the tribe, affecting social cohesion and health of the tribe, necessary for survival of the individual. Necessity really is the mother of invention. Human society evolved, and did not appear suddenly in its full form. In the process of that evolution, and out of necessity morality arose. Attributing it to a God only helps to make it stronger, especially when God demands it and punishes those who do not obey the code. I think that is where religion got involved in morality. And this would be the view of those who don't have the traditional image of God, and of those who are atheists. I am not an atheist, but don't have the traditional image of the Creator either. Perhaps the Creator is such that Its creation can live in harmony with It, and the rest of Its creation if one acts on one particular manner over another course of action. One way leads to order, the other to disorder and all which that entails. So from this perspective one could say that morality is from God and is divine in origin, but it took the mind of man to discover it. To discover it and be driven by necessity to use it. Yet intelligence and and awareness of a world separate from us, would have given us morality without God giving it to us via a human messenger. The very survival of our species that evolved in tribes naturally demanded morality. From my point of view, what is divine is order itself. Morality helps to move towards order, not only outward order but inward order, a consciousness of order over disorder. That may be the purpose of human existence. To evolve from disorder into total order. It is all about evolution, from complete and total disorder into perfect order. It seems it might be turtles all the way down, with everything evolving, from the universe in the macro, to life in the micro. At the highest level, the ground of reality, consciousness is evolving too, from disorder into order. I find that much more believable than the anthropomorphic images christianity has developed of their God. He appears much more human, with even our flaws incorporated into his character, to ever qualify as a seriously taken image of the Creator of this Universe. I don't think we do the Creator any justice at all, with this image we have created of him, and the characteristics we say that he has. So much so, I cannot imagine this creator existing at all. If there is a Creator, you can bet your arse it isn't the one depicted in our bible. And I think man has insulted that Creator by this infantile image we have given the world and continue to do so. This figures into my opinion that God did not give man a moral code, in the manner christians believe.
Bald assertion fallacy and false dichotomy . You have provided zero evidence to support it anything you’ve said.
The obvious question being, if morality is subjective, what the hell that even means. If nothing else, we can reasonably assume there's no conflict between passive aggression and whatever passes for morality in your little slice of the universe.
Many times in human history, manipulators and controllers have attempted to 'condition' their own moral code, only to have the people rebel and demand the True One, that is universally felt by all. The USSR tried to create a 'New Soviet Man!', that would altruistically and selflessly serve the State, the Party, and the collective. But self interest, it seems, is a more powerful instinct than socially engineered Indoctrination. I do not see a conditioned, or indoctrinated morality, (which would be just a delusion), but a Real, common, universal sense of conscience coursing through the psyche of humanity. If some manipulator is imposing his morality on others, it is arbitrary. It is a human construct, not a Real Sense, in human beings. Demanding homogeneity of belief or opinion is a dark ages, or progressive tactic for artificial unity. Freedom.. of conscience, expression, belief, and other Enlightenment principles, are the basis for the American Experiment, and worked well, until Progressivism took over. Mandated belief and homogeneity is not as effective as some believe. Humans have a 'sense' of liberty and self rule, that casts off the mandates of oppressors. IOW, the history of America is an example of the superiority of freedom of conscience, and voluntary respect of a common moral sense, than any arbitrary values imposed by manipulators and oppressors. Why would mandated homogeneity evolve over the longing for freedom?
Sometimes we get off track.. and forget the definitions and premise of a thread, and go on tangents, addressing things that are not the topic. A refresher from the OP, on the definition of morality as used in this thread: "Morality is an embedded sense, classically considered to be 'endowed' by a Creator, as in the American declaration of independence, "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" Merriam's: conformity to ideals of right human conduct Morality is a 'self evident' standard that humans in every region, time, and culture have appealed to. It is equivalent to 'natural law', from reformation and Enlightenment philosophers. It is something internal, embedded, and universal in humanity." Changing the definition of morality, to be the same as 'instinct', or 'human decree' is a disservice to the language, as we already have terms for those concepts. The only argument against 'morality', is that it does not exist.. it is not real, but a delusion or human construct for manipulation. But morality is not the same as instinct and/or law. They interrelate, and commingle, but they are different concepts. Morality, to be real, DEPENDS upon an Embedder.. a God to instill these moral values in the conscience. In a godless universe, morality can only be a delusion.
