The Reality of the Moral Law by C.S. Lewis Doodle (BBC Talk 2, Mere Christianity Chapter 3) — Transcript

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1. 0:02Mere Christianity
2. 0:04by C.S. Lewis.
3. 0:07The reality of the moral law.
4. 0:11I now go back to what I said at the end
5. 0:13of the first talk, that there were two
6. 0:15odd things about the human race.
7. 0:18First, that they were haunted by the
8. 0:21idea of a sort of behavior they ought to
9. 0:23practice, what you might call fair play,
10. 0:26or decency, or morality, or the law of
11. 0:29nature.
12. 0:30Second, that they did not in fact do so.
13. 0:35Now, some of you may wonder why I call
14. 0:37this odd. It may seem to you the most
15. 0:39natural thing in the world.
16. 0:41In particular, you may have thought I
17. 0:43was rather hard on the human race.
18. 0:46After all, you may say, what I call
19. 0:49breaking the law of right and wrong, or
20. 0:51of nature, only means that people are
21. 0:54not perfect. And why on earth should I
22. 0:56expect them to be?
23. 0:59That would be a good answer if what I
24. 1:01was trying to do was to fix the exact
25. 1:04amount of blame which is due to us for
26. 1:06not behaving as we expect others to
27. 1:08behave.
28. 1:10But that is not my job at all.
29. 1:12I'm not concerned at present with blame.
30. 1:15I'm trying to find out truth.
31. 1:19And from that point of view, the very
32. 1:20idea of something being imperfect, of
33. 1:23it's not being what it ought to be,
34. 1:25has certain consequences.
35. 1:29If you take a thing like a stone or a
36. 1:32tree,
37. 1:33it is what it is, and there seems no
38. 1:35sense in saying it ought to have been
39. 1:37otherwise.
40. 1:38Of course, you may say a stone is the
41. 1:40wrong shape if you want to use it for a
42. 1:43rockery, or that a tree is a bad tree
43. 1:46because it does not give you as much
44. 1:47shade as you expected.
45. 1:49But all you mean is that the stone or
46. 1:51tree does not happen to be convenient
47. 1:54for some purpose of your own.
48. 1:56You are not, except as a joke, blaming
49. 1:58them for that. You really know that
50. 2:01given the weather and the soil, the tree
51. 2:03could not have been any different.
52. 2:05What we, from our point of view, call a
53. 2:07bad tree is obeying the laws of its
54. 2:10nature just as much as a good one.
55. 2:13Now, have you noticed what follows?
56. 2:16It follows that what we usually call the
57. 2:18laws of nature, the way weather works on
58. 2:21a tree, for example,
59. 2:23may not really be laws in the strict
60. 2:25sense, but only in a manner of speaking.
61. 2:29When you say that falling stones always
62. 2:31obey the law of gravitation,
63. 2:34is not this much the same as saying that
64. 2:36the law only means what stones always
65. 2:39do?
66. 2:40You do not really think that when a
67. 2:42stone is let go, it suddenly remembers
68. 2:45that it is under orders to fall to the
69. 2:47ground.
70. 2:48You only mean that in fact, it does
71. 2:51fall.
72. 2:52In other words, you cannot be sure that
73. 2:54there is anything over and above the
74. 2:56facts themselves, any law about what
75. 2:59ought to happen as distinct from what
76. 3:01does happen.
77. 3:03The laws of nature as applied to stones
78. 3:06or trees may only mean what nature in
79. 3:09fact does.
80. 3:13But if you turn to the law of human
81. 3:15nature, the law of decent behavior,
82. 3:18it is a different matter.
83. 3:20That law certainly does not mean what
84. 3:23human beings in fact do. For as I said
85. 3:26before, many of them do not obey this
86. 3:29law at all, and none of them obey it
87. 3:31completely.
88. 3:33The law of gravity tells you what stones
89. 3:35do if you drop them.
90. 3:37But the law of human nature tells you
91. 3:40what human beings ought to do and do
92. 3:43not.
93. 3:44In other words, when you are dealing
94. 3:46with humans, something else comes in
95. 3:48above and beyond the actual facts.
96. 3:52You have the
97. 3:53how men do behave, and you also have
98. 3:56something else, how they ought to
99. 3:58behave.
100. 4:00In the rest of the universe, there need
101. 4:01not be anything but the facts. Electrons
102. 4:05and molecules behave in a certain way,
103. 4:07and certain results follow, and that may
104. 4:09be the whole story.
105. 4:12As a footnote,
106. 4:13I do not think it is the whole story as
107. 4:15you will see later. I mean that as far
108. 4:18as the argument has gone up to date, it
109. 4:20may be.
110. 4:22But men behave in a certain way, and
111. 4:24that is not the whole story. For all the
112. 4:27time, you know that they ought to behave
113. 4:29differently.
114. 4:32Now, this is really so peculiar that one
115. 4:35is tempted to try to explain it away.
116. 4:38For instance, we might try to make out
117. 4:40that when you say a man ought not to act
118. 4:42as he does, you only mean the same as
119. 4:45when you say that a stone is the wrong
120. 4:46shape, namely that what he is doing
121. 4:49happens to be inconvenient to you.
122. 4:52But that is simply untrue.
123. 4:54A man occupying the corner seat in the
124. 4:56train because he got there first, and a
125. 4:59man who slipped into it while my back
126. 5:01was turned and removed my bag,
127. 5:04are both equally inconvenient,
128. 5:07but I blame the second man and do not
129. 5:09blame the first.
130. 5:11I am not angry, except perhaps for a
131. 5:13moment before I come to my senses,
132. 5:16with a man who trips me up by accident.
133. 5:19I am angry with a man who tries to trip
134. 5:21me up even if he does not succeed.
135. 5:24Yet the first has hurt me, and the
136. 5:26second has not.
137. 5:28Sometimes the behavior which I call bad
138. 5:31is not inconvenient to me at all, but
139. 5:33the very opposite.
140. 5:36In war, each side may find a traitor on
141. 5:39the other side very useful.
142. 5:42But though they use him and pay him,
143. 5:44they regard him as human vermin.
144. 5:47So, you cannot that what we call decent
145. 5:49behavior in others is simply the
146. 5:52behavior that happens to be useful to
147. 5:54us.
148. 5:56And as for decent behavior in ourselves,
149. 5:58I suppose it is pretty obvious that it
150. 6:00does not mean the behavior that pays.
151. 6:03It means things like being content with
152. 6:0630 shillings when you might have got £3,
153. 6:09doing school work honestly when it would
154. 6:11be easy to cheat,
155. 6:13leaving a girl alone when you would like
156. 6:14to make love to her,
157. 6:16staying in dangerous places when you
158. 6:18could go somewhere safer, keeping
159. 6:20promises you would rather not keep, and
160. 6:23telling the truth
161. 6:25even when it makes you look a fool.
162. 6:29Some people say that though decent
163. 6:31conduct does not mean what pays each
164. 6:33particular person at a particular
165. 6:35moment, still it means what pays the
166. 6:38human race as a whole, and that
167. 6:41consequently there is no mystery about
168. 6:43it.
169. 6:44Human beings, after all, have some
170. 6:46sense. They see that you cannot have any
171. 6:48real safety or happiness except in a
172. 6:51society where everyone plays fair,
173. 6:53and it is because they see this that
174. 6:55they try to behave decently.
175. 6:58Now, of course, it is perfectly true
176. 7:01that safety and happiness can only come
177. 7:03from individuals, classes, and nations
178. 7:06being honest and fair and kind to each
179. 7:08other.
180. 7:09It is one of the most important truths
181. 7:11in the world.
182. 7:13But as an explanation of why we feel as
183. 7:16we do about right and wrong, it just
184. 7:19misses the point.
185. 7:21If we ask,
186. 7:22"Why ought I to be unselfish?" and you
187. 7:25reply,
188. 7:26"Because it is good for society."
189. 7:29We may then ask,
190. 7:31"Why should I care what's good for
191. 7:32society except when it happens to pay me
192. 7:35personally?"
193. 7:36And then you will have to say,
194. 7:38"Because you ought to be unselfish."
195. 7:41Which simply brings us back to where we
196. 7:42started.
197. 7:44You are saying what is true, but you are
198. 7:46not getting any further.
199. 7:48If a man asked what was the point of
200. 7:50playing football, it would not be much
201. 7:52good saying in order to score goals, for
202. 7:55trying to score goals is the game
203. 7:57itself, not the reason for the game. And
204. 8:00you would really only be saying that
205. 8:02football was football, which is true,
206. 8:05but not worth saying.
207. 8:07In the same way, if a man asks what is
208. 8:10the point of behaving decently, it is no
209. 8:13good replying in order to benefit
210. 8:15society.
211. 8:17For trying to benefit society, in other
212. 8:19words, being unselfish, for society
213. 8:22after all only means other people,
214. 8:25is one of the things decent behavior
215. 8:27consists in.
216. 8:28All you are really saying is that decent
217. 8:31behavior is decent behavior.
218. 8:34You would have said just as much if you
219. 8:36had stopped at the statement men ought
220. 8:38to be unselfish.
221. 8:41And that is where I do stop.
222. 8:44Men ought to be unselfish. Ought to be
223. 8:47fair.
224. 8:49Not that men are unselfish, nor that
225. 8:51they like being unselfish, but that they
226. 8:54ought to be.
227. 8:56The moral law, or law of human nature,
228. 8:59is not simply a fact about human
229. 9:01behavior in the same way as the law of
230. 9:03gravitation is, or may be simply a fact
231. 9:07about how heavy objects behave.
232. 9:10On the other hand, it is not a mere
233. 9:12fancy, for we cannot get rid of the
234. 9:15idea, and most of the things we say and
235. 9:17think about men would be reduced to
236. 9:19nonsense if we did.
237. 9:22And it is not simply a statement about
238. 9:24how we should like men to behave for our
239. 9:27own convenience.
240. 9:29For the behavior we call bad or unfair
241. 9:32is not exactly the same as the behavior
242. 9:34we find inconvenient, and may even be
243. 9:38the opposite.
244. 9:40Consequently, this rule of right and
245. 9:43wrong, or law of human nature, or
246. 9:46whatever you call it,
247. 9:47must, somehow or other, be a real thing.
248. 9:52A thing that is really there, not made
249. 9:54up by ourselves.
250. 9:57And yet, it is not a fact in the
251. 9:59ordinary sense, in the same way as our
252. 10:01actual behavior is a fact.
253. 10:05It begins to look as if we shall have to
254. 10:07admit that there is more than one kind
255. 10:10of reality. That in this particular
256. 10:12case, there is something above and
257. 10:15beyond the ordinary facts of men's
258. 10:18behavior, and yet quite definitely real.
259. 10:22A real law, which none of us made, but
260. 10:26which we find pressing on us.