The struggle of the individual against coercion and outright violence is as old as humanity itself. The human is a social being. It is part of it's nature to seek affiliation with other human beings. This desire not to lead a solitary life, but one in the midst of other human beings, has always been the Achilles heel, at which individuals striving to dominate, extort and abuse affiliated groups of human beings have struck.
A number of individuals who consider each other members of a group, be it the immediate family, the tribe or more abstract concepts like the nation or the state, require a set of rules for their engagements, with a perspective on minimizing destructive conflict among members. This set of rules is known as morality, a code of conduct to which affiliates of a group are expected to adhere.
Defining these rules, which in large groups soon were "laid (written) down", codified in writings known as law, is the perfect process to inject ideas for the purpose of dominating, extorting and abusing all or many affiliates of a group, without having to perpetrate any violence personally. By setting the rules, villains manage to turn group member against group member, and the alleged argument is that of immorality, which in groups using law, is called "illegality". It is the same beast.
The code of conduct of morality and the code of conduct of legality are both under no standing-defining requirement to be rational, let alone rational based on objective premises. Consequently morality and legality are matters of opinion, they express preferences and value judgements. Less abstractly expressed: "I like it like this, rather than that".
In morality as well as in law, there are always excpetions to the rules, and even people or whole groups of people exempt from portions or the whole of the rules. Examples would be soldiers and policemen, but also shamans and chieftains come to mind. A rule included in almost all sets of morality and law is "do not murder people", but that is what soldiers do when they engage in wars of aggression. Another rule would be "do not abduct people", but that is what police do, when they arrest a person. Also almost universally shunned is stealing and extortion, yet that is what those people manifesting the state, which is based on law, do for a living, calling it "taxation".
The desire to minimize destructive conflict among individuals though, persists, and the questions to be answered really are: to what extent can this be achieved, when the standards are based on opinion? Can it be achieved at all, when the standards are opinions, and the argument made to adhere to them is based on morality (opinion)?
The answer to those questions is, to a small extent, and no.
Of course, some rules are defined more rationally, than others. For instance, the non-aggression principle, a set of rules popular with contemporary anarchists and voluntarists, is defined rationally. Building on the truth, that each and every individual on this planet is only identical with him or herself, and is the only individual in immediate control of one's body, thus (and for a number of other reasons) is the only possible owner of said self, present as an existing object (the body of the human being), it states that no individual should initiate force against other individuals or violate their property, and that no individual should tolerate the intiation of force against self or self's property.
The advantage of the NAP (non-aggression principle) lies in it's rationality, that is, it can be generalized, a quality no opinion ("I prefer this") has to offer. The NAP's real world power lies in it's objective premises. The self is identified by and as the body of a human being, and it's property consists only of existing objects. Any violation (violence) thus can be verfied objectively by answering the question: "has the object (body) been damaged, stolen or destroyed?" ** Regardless of a person's cultural background, these conditions can be checked upon, and they remain objectively true, regardless of any individual's inclination to accept truth.**
So isn't the NAP then the perfect morality and the perfect law? No. Morality and law are sets of rules not only applying to self but being projected onto others, where law simply marks the transition from informal to formal institution, they are the same beast. With law the outcry when a violation occurs is: "this is illegal", with morality the outcry is "this is immoral". Even when the actual content of a rule is rational, based on objective premises, the problem with violence is not that it is "illegal" or "immoral", spell "against the preferences", read "against the opinion", but that the action can not be justified using an actual argument, that is rationality based on objective premises.
Arguing truth under the banner of opinion, weakens the persuasive power of truth, because everybody's simple response, to equal out the "argument" is: "that's your opinion". An actual argument, can only be refuted by an actual argument. Therfore I recommend standing on arguments alone, rather than arguments draped with an opnion flavored wrapper, or outright opinions.
Harry Rose, Aug. 6th 2016