MATH: "What about Justice, and Law?"
What about it? As I say, all those things we now find reprehensible were enshrined in law in societies no less complex and intelligent as ours.
"If it's up to the individual alone to figure out their own reaction to the mores and graces of the world as they see it, what is the role of law, and where does out concept of justice come from?"
Law is the imposition of agreed (between who depends on the dominant power at the time) rules; it has absolutely no connection with any concept of inarguable, instinctive moral right or wrong. After all, abortion's legal in this country, but Freddo disagrees. That's her take on the mores and practice of modern-day Great Britain. Yes?
Or are you saying because something is the law it's, in and of itself, morally correct? That is, with the greatest (ahem) respect, bullshit.
"Someone should now inform Socrates and hundreds of subsequent great philosophers that they were wasting their time on the theory of natural law, and should probably have taken up some useful occupation like goat-herding instead."
Socrates was against democracy so, y'know, the man wasn't infallible. Us rationalists are able to process things like that, y'see. Of course, it's almost imposssible to know what Socrates really thought about anything as virtually everything we know about him is filtered through Plato.
The greatest argument against the concept is that, throughout history and across the globe, those who have espoused natural law have, when driven to define it, come up with wildly different concepts as being inimical to mankind! It's a paradox that writes itself: classic lulz right there.
I know yer catholics have been welded to the idea of natural law since Tommy Aquinas dipped his wick but there is no useable, verifyable evidence that it's any more than just an opinion (in fact, as noted above, it appears to entirely depend on geography and chronology). Of course, even he surmised that the cardinal virtues could only be achieved by applying reason to nature, althoughj this, sadly, has been taken by some (extreme libertarians in the main) as some kind of proof that his approach meant god could be removed from his equation (including Rothbard himself) which is fairly clearly not the case.
FREDDO: "I can see what you are saying Heracles, but I disagree completely"
Which bits, Freddo? Do you disagree that these acts you declare as "against nature" have been seen as perfectly normal in different places and at different times through our long, long history?