>This reminded me of something I've been thinking about the last
>few days. C.S. Lewis has been mentioned by many as a kind of
>model for this Moral Law business (the Law of Human Nature,
>or Natural Law to use Lewis' terminology). But Lewis approach
>is really quite different than that being used by most people
>here. Lewis does not start with the premise "God exists" and then
>apply logical consistency or whatever. Instead he begins at the
>level of observation and personal experience and tries to work
>his way up (an approach also used by Pascal). But your argument
>above seems to undo Lewis. Unless one finds at the observational,
>experiential level a universal sense and agreement on what is
>right and wrong (broadly anyway) then Lewis's argument fails.
Interestingly, I remember thinking the same thing as I hurriedly typed my
post this morning - that it did not square with Lewis' approach. The
reason to me is clear - Lewis actually makes progress <g>. What I mean is,
Lewis is building an argument in traditional philosophical/apologetic
style, yet we are (at least I am) only trying to make one point. A point
that in the final analysis is so elementary I begin to question the
intellectual integrity of some - if both sides were actually talking about
the same thing they would doubtless agree, IMO.
Here's the portion of what I wrote that you may have felt conflicted with
Lewis:
<< You're speaking about an inner sense of morality which we do indeed
have, a sense of right and wrong, of fairness - conscience if you will.
But it's intangible. We can't agree on everything - things such as capital
punishment, abortion, euthenasia and human cloning to name just a few. So
it *works* inwardly for the individual sure enough, at least to our
satisfaction. Yet we find disagreement when we compare our moral standard
to that of others, as I've pointed out. I might feel empathy towards a
family whose pet cat had just been run over and killed, but another person
might think it humorous. The empathy-based system is subjective because
the standard comes from within the individual. >>
C.S. Lewis begins by pointing out the existence of what he calls "Natural
Law," or the "Law of Human Nature," as you say. As I understand it (it's
been a while since I've read Lewis) this Law is completely transcendent,
objective, external. When we cry out "that's not fair!" we appeal to some
undefined standard we expect everyone else to be familiar with. Do we
expect all others to read our mind? No, of course not. We expect them to
be aware of this external thing called "fair" - so much so that we are
prepared to offer death even to those who do not abide by it, even though
some are genuinely not too familiar with it.
Atheist and Christian theist alike have a sense of this morality. Innately
we are aware of its presence. It's outside of us (we don't define it) -
it's a genuine objective moral standard. We all agree it's there, BUT (and
this is the point where my commentary joins Lewis' argument)... we cannot
agree universally in our interpretations. The subjectivity is at the human
level, where we try to define and grasp the objective standard we often
appeal to (one of Lewis' most intereting points is that our language
betrays this fact). Several weeks after Ted Bundy had gone to prison, I
doubt there would have been too many people thinking to themselves, "OK,
fair is fair... he's paid the price, we should let him out now." At one
end of the spectrum we all agree, but at the other end (should we
electrocute him? or should we torture him first and then kill him? parole?
life without parole?) we are divided. It would almost seem as though the
standard is pure and good, whereas we are not presently capable of grasping
it entirely (evidenced by the fact that we don't agree universally).
The objective moral standard does not depend on how it is interpreted.
>But, if one does find this universal Law of Human Nature at
>the observational level of experience then your argument is
>undone since this law is obviously both objective and transcendent
>wrt the individual. So the question is, does the knowledge of
>this Law of Human Nature [without knowing the source, i.e.
>having the "fact" without understanding the "theory"] provide
>sufficient grounds for judging whether another persons behavior
>is moral or immoral?
Since the *knowledge* or interpretation of this Law of Human Nature is a
spectrum of clear-cut to hazy (whereas the Law itself is a transcendent
objective standard), our judgements are not always going to be absolutely
just. From the Christian perspective of course, this is because of sin,
which I believe is supported by Lewis' second main observation - while we
are fully aware of this Law, our language and behavior demonstrate that we
do not fully keep it all of the time.
I expect very shortly to post the first chapter of Lewis' "Mere
Christianity" so that reflectorites who haven't read it can better
understand his starting point.
>Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately ;-), I'll be going out of
>town tommorrow evening and won't be back until June 23rd or
>thereabouts. Please cc: any replies you want me to see.
Unfortunately for me, I have just come back from out of town to face the
discussion lists once again. Do you guys actually get paid to do this? ;-)
All the best,
Peter Grice