Post by Josh on Feb 19, 2007 7:39:27 GMT -8
6/2/06:
UNIVERSAL MORALITY? (THINKING WITH CS LEWIS)
What follows is an excerpt from some email correspondance I had with a friend. We began a discussion about whether morality was Absolute or Relative, Innate, or Learned, or some combination of all of these factors. We'll just pick up in the thick of it with some thoughts I had on Morality:
"Your responses to my comments on universal values left me with the feeling that I had not been thorough enough, so I’d like to start back at near square one and rebuild my case more solidly.
I believe I gave you a false impression about what I believe regarding universal values: I DO believe values are learned, though I do believe that there are certain universal values which can be found in all cultures. Your example of the case involving the children raised by wolves is a good one: humans do not develop a strong sense of values unless it is somehow learned at a relatively early age. But my argument about universal values goes like this: universal values are like math. Math is absolute, 2 + 2 always equals four no matter what culture you’re in. Yet we all must learn math; it doesn’t come naturally to us. However, you could argue that we are built to understand math; it’s only a matter of time and favorable learning circumstances until man on his own discovers math. I think it’s the same for right and wrong; we aren’t born with a very articulate sense of what is right and wrong, but over time and with careful thought, we discover what are indeed universal values. Just like some times we get our sums wrong (to borrow a phrase from CS Lewis), it is possible to get some of our morality wrong, but overall, world cultures pretty much agree on the same universal values.
Yes, there are some aberrations, but that is expected in imperfect beings. But overall, the testimony of history is that humans have a strong sense of right and wrong and general agreement on values: Bravery is good, cowardice is bad. Truth is good, falsehood bad, etc… And as I’ve said, one culture might define bravery somewhat differently than another, but still they shun cowardice. Arabs and Americans both value bravery.
“Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to- whether it was only your own family, or your fellow countrymen, or everyone. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired. Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or four, but they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked.” CS Lewis
Now, for some more arguments from CS Lewis:
"When people argue and say things like, “Come on, you promised…” or “it’s not fair for you to take cuts in line”, the person saying them “ is not merely saying that the other man’s behavior does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behavior which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies: “To hell with your standard”. Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse. It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behavior or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals, but the could not quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarrelling means trying to show the other man is in the wrong.”
The second interesting thing about morality is that although all around the world humans have a sense of how they should behave, interestingly, they also have a sense of their inability to consistently behave the way they believe they should.
“These two thoughts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in” -Lewis.
They are in fact, the teaching of scripture:
Romans 3:23:
for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God
So there’s my model of universal values in a nutshell. Most alternative models are based on one or a combination of these four models (which I'll discuss next in a series of threads entitled UM#1- 8):
UNIVERSAL MORALITY? (THINKING WITH CS LEWIS)
What follows is an excerpt from some email correspondance I had with a friend. We began a discussion about whether morality was Absolute or Relative, Innate, or Learned, or some combination of all of these factors. We'll just pick up in the thick of it with some thoughts I had on Morality:
"Your responses to my comments on universal values left me with the feeling that I had not been thorough enough, so I’d like to start back at near square one and rebuild my case more solidly.
I believe I gave you a false impression about what I believe regarding universal values: I DO believe values are learned, though I do believe that there are certain universal values which can be found in all cultures. Your example of the case involving the children raised by wolves is a good one: humans do not develop a strong sense of values unless it is somehow learned at a relatively early age. But my argument about universal values goes like this: universal values are like math. Math is absolute, 2 + 2 always equals four no matter what culture you’re in. Yet we all must learn math; it doesn’t come naturally to us. However, you could argue that we are built to understand math; it’s only a matter of time and favorable learning circumstances until man on his own discovers math. I think it’s the same for right and wrong; we aren’t born with a very articulate sense of what is right and wrong, but over time and with careful thought, we discover what are indeed universal values. Just like some times we get our sums wrong (to borrow a phrase from CS Lewis), it is possible to get some of our morality wrong, but overall, world cultures pretty much agree on the same universal values.
Yes, there are some aberrations, but that is expected in imperfect beings. But overall, the testimony of history is that humans have a strong sense of right and wrong and general agreement on values: Bravery is good, cowardice is bad. Truth is good, falsehood bad, etc… And as I’ve said, one culture might define bravery somewhat differently than another, but still they shun cowardice. Arabs and Americans both value bravery.
“Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to- whether it was only your own family, or your fellow countrymen, or everyone. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired. Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or four, but they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked.” CS Lewis
Now, for some more arguments from CS Lewis:
"When people argue and say things like, “Come on, you promised…” or “it’s not fair for you to take cuts in line”, the person saying them “ is not merely saying that the other man’s behavior does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behavior which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies: “To hell with your standard”. Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse. It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behavior or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals, but the could not quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarrelling means trying to show the other man is in the wrong.”
The second interesting thing about morality is that although all around the world humans have a sense of how they should behave, interestingly, they also have a sense of their inability to consistently behave the way they believe they should.
“These two thoughts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in” -Lewis.
They are in fact, the teaching of scripture:
Romans 3:23:
for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God
So there’s my model of universal values in a nutshell. Most alternative models are based on one or a combination of these four models (which I'll discuss next in a series of threads entitled UM#1- 8):
- morality as herd instinct
- morality as social convention/ construct
- morality as what works/ pragmatism
- morality as an instrument of power
