What is the scope of negation (again)?

It seems to me that with sufficient framing, all three readings are possible (if not perhaps always straightforward):

Arthur explains things to his children kindly because he loves them. But discipline his children because he loves them, Arthur does not.

You should discipline your children out of love. Arthur beats his children out of frustration. But discipline his children because he loves them, Arthur does not.

In this culture, you must discipline your children if you love them. Arthur coddles his children because he loves them. But discipline his children because he loves them, Arthur does not.

But as fun as it is to ponder these things, I think it underscores a problem with the kind of linguistics that generates hypotheses that can be decided by acceptability of different sentences or their readings.

The Chomskean thesis that simply the views of competent native speakers are enough to adjudicate any sentence is problematic. For one, it makes the whole edifice of linguistics rest on a good night's sleep or a chance overhearing of a conversation. But more importantly it generates law-like hypotheses that impose order - similarly to physics - making language seem like an impersonal force (UG) within which we operate. But linguistics (if it must be like a science, at all) should be more like biology. Starting with a description of what is. It will establish some useful classifications but will ultimately focus on observation and documentation. What principles, it will find, it will formulate to assist itself and not the dictates of some external discipline (such as logic or computer programming).

What do we learn about language (as it is used by people) by either rejecting or supporting your hypothesis? I would much rather start with a question that asks: "What are the ways in which people negate things and what ambiguities arise in the process? How do different people deal with such ambiguities in different contexts? Are different people attuned differently to such ambiguities at different times? etc."

Examples like these might come up given an exhaustive survey but they would not necessarily deal with these examples from the perspective of scope or directionality of negation but rather from the perspective of meaning construction and context. Native speaker intuitions (and introspection) would necessarily have to play a role but they would not be the primary driving force behind the creation of knowledge.