Hi. Its never too late to post. Welcome.

I was never trying to show that there is no moral law. I think there is one, of sorts. You can call it ‘objective’ if you want. (A case could probably be made for a few other things too but I’m not much for quibbling over labels.) Its just that there are other ways to get there than the way Lewis proposes. That is, you don’t need God to get a moral law. And if you don’t need God to get a moral law you can’t infer God from the presence of a moral law. If God were the only explanation for the moral law, you could make that inference.

I wanted to make a couple points that I thought might be helpful. The first is that Lewis wrote a very short literary criticism called ‘The Abolition of Man’. In this book, he greatly expands on his arguments for an objective moral code. He does not go into great detail of this sort in Mere Christianity because it would be inappropriate in the context and far to lengthy. As anyone who tries to argue a point knows, you can write entire chapters on any one point and still not satisfy the depth of your critics objections. You have to draw the line somewhere. If I remember correctly, I believe he does make note of the Abolition of Man for those interested in reading further in Mere Christianity. I’m not sure if this was relative to specific publications or not, however.

I think a point that Lewis was making that seems to be overlooked here is that the objective moral law he was arguing for can be equated to objective truth. TheMaiden, you seem to concede this reality by agreeing with Lewis that there is profound similarity among cultures but your explanation doesn’t seem to show that there is no moral law. You’ve explained that there are factors for which we are funneled into submitting to the objective reality of our needs, but this doesn’t dismiss the moral law. In fact, it reasonably shows that there is an objective truth to our situation for which we all must oblige to in order to best live our lives. It doesn’t follow to me that because people need to live in community, that there is no objective moral law. This is a truth of our circumstances that help us to live better.

Truth and goodness, in Lewis’ arguments, are the same. The moral code gives us a distinction to help us know how to order our behaviours. If we are directing them towards truth, than we are directing them towards goodness. If we direct them towards a lie, than we are committing evil. He notes in ‘The Problem of Pain’ that nobody commits an evil act simply because they wanted to do something evil. They do so because their goal is for something good. For example, I need to eat and therefore finding food and nourishing myself would be an objective reality and truth of which I have to satisfy. Let’s say I have two options. One being to go and gather or hunt, the other being to bash my neighbour over the head with a rock and steel his food. The latter might seem easier especially if my neighbour thinks that we are living under peaceful terms. The necessity does not explain to me which is the better choice under these conditions and I being simple and selfish, may not be able to see far enough in advance that my actions of harming my neighbour may be detrimental to the stability of the society I live in (especially if it became acceptable behaviour). Very few of us base our decisions on such terms. We seem to be, more so, motivated by what we want and what (we think) is best for us. We can be persuaded into taking the right action for fear of public condemnation, but what we get away with in the private is a good example of how little each of us is concerned with the welfare of the common good of society so long as I flourish.

This example shows that my potential evil action of hurting my neighbour was done so not because I wanted to do something evil for it’s own sake, but rather I wanted something good for myself and bought the lie that I could cut the corner and simply take what I wanted without their being any negative effect. I say it is a lie because in being wrong, it is also a false action and not what’s best in consideration of the common good. Regardless of how you paint the picture, it’s impossible to argue that my necessity for food is greater than my neighbours welfare and that justifies my actions. There’s no way to show based on the information given that my life is more valuable than his and therefore, I perceived a falsehood as the motivator for my actions and the fact that I had to believe this lie in order to conduct my actions accordingly, means that my action was evil.

I realize how scattered this was and also way too long. I hope there was something worth reading in all of that.

Take care!

You are going to have to make your case more clear, but I’ll guess around a little in hopes of encouraging the conversation.

Moral options are like scales on a musical page?

Are they? I’m not sure about that. Assuming such actually seems to beg a lot of questions.

Why does the scale exist and why are some values greater than others? I’ve already answered that. Some behaviors help us survive. We favor those behaviors. The end. There is really no need for analogies to musical notation.

For information to be transfered there has to already exist a means for it to be transfered, a means not input by the transferors.

That one is pregnant with all kinds of issues. I’m not going to touch it until you clarify it. What exactly does that sentence mean?

well put!

I was focused more on the biology than the anthropology, but came to the same conclusion as you.

As I see it, the evolution of any social animal would call for certain these universal “Godlike” traits to be selected for. A double-crosser or coward might survive better in the short term, but then will probably be outcast by the group and not reproduce.

Some studies have shown that altriusm is present in other animals. It makes sense since natural selection is about passing on genes, and so altriusm is probably selected for in nature since by saving the life of others in your group, who are probably related to you and share many of your genes, you are ensuring survival of your genes.

Believing doesn’t make it true. Pity more god believers don’t acknowledge this fact.

I deleted a couple of your comments, which were almost identical to this one. I kept what looked like the most inclusive of the set. I suspect you reposted because your comment did not appear on the site immediately. I have to hold comments for approval or I’d have fifty “online casino” or “CHEAP viagra” comments per one real comment.

As behavior goes, ‘patriotism’– usually– is hardly one of the more complicated. It is the same thing that keeps cows huddled together. There is little sophistication to it, and it might actually be one of the few true, though very weak, biological instincts we’ve retained, like suckling– this one is arguably a tiny bit of the “precious little” I mentioned in an earlier comment to the ironically named Red Herring. But perhaps watching the last six years of US politics has made me cynical about it. At any rate, Lewis doesn’t use the idea to any effect. He does no more with ‘patriotism’ than mention the word.

It is true that Lewis makes comments that intended to address objections like the ones I’ve made. If you read just past the part you quoted though, you’ll see that Lewis reuses the same arguments he uses in chapter one. He even admits as much, so I don’t feel terribly bad about not covering it a second time. Curious that you cut your quote where you did.

“There are two reasons for saying it belongs to the same class as mathematics. The first is, as I said in the first chapter, that though there are differences between the moral ideas of one time or country and those of another, the differences are not really very great–” His second reason strays from chapter one a bit but appeals, in a round-about way, to the same principle he tries, and fails, to establish there.

Thanks for the comments.

You\’ll have to defend your statement that \”exceptions … on this scale and intensity\”. I\’ll argue that there aren\’t. For example, how many of your neighbors are truly disruptive to society? How many are truly harmful to themselves and others? Sure, the bad ones make the nightly news, but what percentage of the population does that represent? two to five hundred people per hundred thousand make it into the criminal justice system., roughly, by one chart, five murders per hundred thousand by another chart. These are not big numbers. Even multiplied by ten those numbers are not large relative to the population.

Really, I don\’t have to explain the exceptions at an individual level. Things go wrong. As long as things work in general, all is well. People make mistakes. These are actually easier to fit into a secular system than to fit into Lewis\’ Moral Law system. Moral failure impacts a system where morality is derived from God more than where it derives from experience.

Now, your statement that there is no relationship between why we behave as we do and our survival– other than denying common sense–, is not a case you can make for any other animal without attributing to those animals some kind of moral agency as well. Yet animals do survive and quite clearly behavior is involved. I don\’t see how you can have it both ways.

It is really pretty irrelevant that Lewis posits to a GOOD God. He could have posited any kind of god at all. It doesn\’t change his argument.

\”If as he suggests, morality on our part is a pointer to gods character\” is precisely the point in contention. You can\’t turn around and use the idea to defend itself. That is circular.

\”By the way, one way to discredit Lewis is to show that cruel, psychopathic behavior is desirable, or leads to his god.\” I\’m sorry, but that suggestion makes no sense. I don\’t even see the connection to Lewis\’ argument.

It is a mistake to think that some of our impulses - say mother love or patriotism - are good, and others, like sex or the fighting instinct, are bad. All we mean is that the occasions on which the fighting instinct or the sexual desire need to be restrained are rather more frequent than those for restraining mother love of patriotism.

It’s absurd to dismiss “patriotism” as an instinct. It’s a highly sophisticated and learned behavior. This is only one example, Lewis addresses this level of human behavior very explicitly throughout Chapter 2.

I fully agree that we learn the Rule of Decent Behavior from parents and teachers, and friends and books, as we learn everything else. But some of the things we learn are mere conventions which might have been different - we learn to keep to the left side of the road, but it might just as well have been the rule to keep to the right - and others of them, like mathematics, are real truths. The real question is to which class the Law of Human Nature belongs.

There are two reasons for saying it belongs to the same class as mathematics.

Lewis is directly addressing the complexity of “primate behavior”. He is hardly “missing the obvious alternative”, he’s dealing with it explicitly.

I have met people who exaggerate the differences [in group behaviors of separate "primate" groups], because they have not distinguished between differences of morality and differences of belief about facts.

I think this is the essence of your dismissal. Lewis is not arguing about the factual nature of physical reality. He’s arguing about the truth of intangibles like morality and spirituality - about the way our psyches work with our percieved reality. “Primate” studies in these areas are necessarily rare and difficult.

If your real argument is that you don’t believe in anything which our current science cannot physically verify, that’s certainly understandable. But that’s something much more basic (a “faith” decision) than simply pretending that Chapter 2 of Mere Christianity doesn’t exist.

From what you wrote, I gather that Lewis is wrong because he failed to account for alternatives to his explanation, or the holes in his analogy. In other words, in a situation where we have multiple explanations for something, pointing out only one of the ( possible) explanations does not make it true. (though you subsequently go on to cast your own explanation as “fact” without demnostrating how it is the true or correct one).

If this assesment is accurate, I think you fall into the same “transparencies” that you accuse Lewis of.

You say that what Lewis calls morality are really “behaviors” that
(1) help us survive and (2) enable us to get along with others.
And that most importantly, we learnt them all by ourselves. We dont need no “god” for that.

Here is my problem with this idea. A lot of people continually (and some against their will if we are to believe the confessions) engage in behavior (or a morality is you will) that is harmful to themselves and others. How do you explain these exceptions? My point here being - exceptions to your theory on this scale and intensity mean there is no tight, causal relationship between WHY we behave the way we do, and our survival or social harmony.

Furthermore, even though I find both explanations somewhat lacking,
Lewis theory seems more comprehensive. It can be used to explain both his and your ideas.

I read Lewis “Mere Christianity” many years ago, but I recall that the god he posited was a GOOD god.
Therefore, if as he suggests, morality on our part is a pointer to gods character, that behavior (morality) must necessarily consist of doing good things. Behavior that unsures our survival and promotes good neighborliness points TO, not AWAY from the god that Lewis proposes.

It can be said therefore, that yours is not an alternative explanation, but a corollary. It flows from, is a result, can be inferred from Lewis theory.
By the way, one way to discredit Lewis is to show that cruel, psychopathic behavior is desirable, or leads to his god. That would knock his explanation out of the race and leave only yours (assuming a new doesnt pop up to spoil your day!)

In closing, let me say that rather than a demonstration of reliance on pure logic, let alone refuting Lewis suggestion, dont you think your essay can be used to testify to “the human ability to accept uncritically any justification for what we already believe.”?

First off, big scary Latin words aren’t really all that scary.

Second, that bit about ‘definitive’ proof is nothing but semantic quibble. “Proof”? “Definitive proof”? “Fundamental point from which the rest follows”? It’s all the bloody same thing.

Third, while there is a lot more in Mere Christianity than a proof of God, if you’d browse the literature, you’ll find that it is widely accepted that there is in fact a proof of God in there, in the first chapter, and it is widely considered to be a bad one, even by some Christians. And what is more important for my purposes, to be honest, is that Lewis’ moral argument is often cited as a proof of God by people apologizing for the faith.

Fourthly, Lewis does discuss instincts in Book 1, Chapter II. That is true, but this is hardly “precisely that arguement”. Instinct per se plays precious little role in primate behavior, and I didn’t mention them. Lewis’ is a profoundly ridiculous oversimplification of human nature, on par with treating humans as if we were driven by a handful of toggle switches. Lewis still missed the obvious alternative, but did present and pound a straw man. Point noted. I should perhaps deal with that in more depth.

Nothing like a good Straw Man

Where does Lewis present the arguement as a definitive proof for God like you present him? He’s ‘merely’ showing a possibility not a proof.

Context buddy, context. Proofs usually don’t stem from the first chapter of a book either, IF you could even call ‘Mere Christianity’ a proof book, which it isn’t.

OH, on that last paragraph, way to setup your own ‘ignoratio_elench’

‘failing to note a very obvious alternative’ … there’s a good laugh … perhaps you forgot to read past chapter one or any of the other works in which Lewis addressed precisely that arguement?

At least get to know the author before posting Part II.