C.S. Lewis and the Argument From Morality
August 1, 2015 at 5:41 pm
(This post was last modified: August 1, 2015 at 6:40 pm by Jenny A.)
In book one of Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis presents his own version of the argument from morality which originated with Immanuel Kant. Lewis' version goes like this:
1. There is a universal human nature that reflects a universal moral law. And what he means by this is not that there are a universal set of moral standards deciding all moral behavior but rather that all humans appear to have a conscience and that while that conscience might be influenced by culture, it's basic principles are universal to humans. And when arguing about right and wrong, people appeal to a basic sense of fairness that they assume everyone has, or as Lewis puts it, a sense of "oughtness." And people rarely argue that the fairness is an unjust standard, instead they argue that what they have done is fair. He adds that cultures may differ as to who you must be fair to, but not that there are people to whom you must be fair.
In a broad general sense I accept this premise. People do appear to have some very basic, and I do mean extremely basic common ideas about morality. Lewis mentions that there are no countries where double crossing those closest to you or running away in battle is considered good. But cultural differences kick in very shortly. People do double cross each other. It's only double crossing your close friends and immediate relatives that's universally condemned. Pacifists find never agreeing to battle at all more moral and argue to that effect. Norms vary widely especially considering: sexual mores (gay sex, multiple wives, showing a ankle, recreational sex, sex even when married to persons more than ten years younger, all are allowed and condemned variously); sex based roles (property rights of women, who should do various tasks, wear various clothing); when killing is appropriate as to who (foreigners, servants, slaves, children, women) and why (crimes, battle, status); when stealing is appropriate (usually only allowed with regard to outsiders but how outside and under what circumstances differs widely); appropriate compensation (some cultures have absolute amounts, or think scarcity is not a valid reason for higher prices). I would suggest that the variation is too great to suggest that that people share much morality. What we share is merely the sense that there should be morality based in part on fairness though we differ about what is fair. But most of morality is not based on the idea of fairness.
2. Moral law is more than just human instinct because when it conflicts with another instinct such as survival, we work our way to doing the more uncomfortable but right thing because of an inner voice rather than a blind inner instinct. If we fail to do the right think our conscience bothers us afterword. Essentially what he is saying is that moral instinct is not an instinct but an outside law.
I don't see how this suggests it is not an instinct. Our instincts conflict all the time. Survival and sex conflict. Morality and sex conflict. Immediate comfort/food gratification and long term survival conflict. We reason it out. Or we don't. Sometimes we just act. Lewis suggests we weight morality against risking our lives to save someone else. Most heroes, say then didn't think about the risk until it was too late to do anything but rescue.
3. We do not always follow The Moral Law, therefore it is not merely a description of the way things work, the way gravity is a description of what happens when a rock falls.
Yep we fail at morality. We fail a survival too be not paying the pain, risk, or immediate gratification price necessary to survive. Does that make survival an outside law?
4. The voice that tells us what we ought to do, is not part of the material world.
This I don't see at all. It's a god of the gaps argument and not a good one since evolutionary development explains morality just fine. Apes and chimps have some morality. So do bears. How much has to do with how much the species social structures allow the species to survive. We are extraordinarily dependent on our fellows, though not as much as bees and ants, and our morals reflect that. They also reflect the time necessary to raise our young.
5. Therefore moral law must come from outside the material world.
If four were true maybe, but four isn't.
6. Therefore there must be a law giver outside the material world.
If all of the rest followed possibly. But this law giver must both be outside the material world and materially affect the the material world. Odd and unlikely. And there's no reason such law giver must be sentient, or powerful in any other way or that is couldn't just be a law of the universe.
The whole proof fails at all levels. Frankly it's a classic demonstration of why the god-of-the-gaps is a fallacy. Morality wasn't explicable, now evolution explains it.
1. There is a universal human nature that reflects a universal moral law. And what he means by this is not that there are a universal set of moral standards deciding all moral behavior but rather that all humans appear to have a conscience and that while that conscience might be influenced by culture, it's basic principles are universal to humans. And when arguing about right and wrong, people appeal to a basic sense of fairness that they assume everyone has, or as Lewis puts it, a sense of "oughtness." And people rarely argue that the fairness is an unjust standard, instead they argue that what they have done is fair. He adds that cultures may differ as to who you must be fair to, but not that there are people to whom you must be fair.
In a broad general sense I accept this premise. People do appear to have some very basic, and I do mean extremely basic common ideas about morality. Lewis mentions that there are no countries where double crossing those closest to you or running away in battle is considered good. But cultural differences kick in very shortly. People do double cross each other. It's only double crossing your close friends and immediate relatives that's universally condemned. Pacifists find never agreeing to battle at all more moral and argue to that effect. Norms vary widely especially considering: sexual mores (gay sex, multiple wives, showing a ankle, recreational sex, sex even when married to persons more than ten years younger, all are allowed and condemned variously); sex based roles (property rights of women, who should do various tasks, wear various clothing); when killing is appropriate as to who (foreigners, servants, slaves, children, women) and why (crimes, battle, status); when stealing is appropriate (usually only allowed with regard to outsiders but how outside and under what circumstances differs widely); appropriate compensation (some cultures have absolute amounts, or think scarcity is not a valid reason for higher prices). I would suggest that the variation is too great to suggest that that people share much morality. What we share is merely the sense that there should be morality based in part on fairness though we differ about what is fair. But most of morality is not based on the idea of fairness.
2. Moral law is more than just human instinct because when it conflicts with another instinct such as survival, we work our way to doing the more uncomfortable but right thing because of an inner voice rather than a blind inner instinct. If we fail to do the right think our conscience bothers us afterword. Essentially what he is saying is that moral instinct is not an instinct but an outside law.
I don't see how this suggests it is not an instinct. Our instincts conflict all the time. Survival and sex conflict. Morality and sex conflict. Immediate comfort/food gratification and long term survival conflict. We reason it out. Or we don't. Sometimes we just act. Lewis suggests we weight morality against risking our lives to save someone else. Most heroes, say then didn't think about the risk until it was too late to do anything but rescue.
3. We do not always follow The Moral Law, therefore it is not merely a description of the way things work, the way gravity is a description of what happens when a rock falls.
Yep we fail at morality. We fail a survival too be not paying the pain, risk, or immediate gratification price necessary to survive. Does that make survival an outside law?
4. The voice that tells us what we ought to do, is not part of the material world.
This I don't see at all. It's a god of the gaps argument and not a good one since evolutionary development explains morality just fine. Apes and chimps have some morality. So do bears. How much has to do with how much the species social structures allow the species to survive. We are extraordinarily dependent on our fellows, though not as much as bees and ants, and our morals reflect that. They also reflect the time necessary to raise our young.
5. Therefore moral law must come from outside the material world.
If four were true maybe, but four isn't.
6. Therefore there must be a law giver outside the material world.
If all of the rest followed possibly. But this law giver must both be outside the material world and materially affect the the material world. Odd and unlikely. And there's no reason such law giver must be sentient, or powerful in any other way or that is couldn't just be a law of the universe.
The whole proof fails at all levels. Frankly it's a classic demonstration of why the god-of-the-gaps is a fallacy. Morality wasn't explicable, now evolution explains it.
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.
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