It is easy to say, "oo, read 'Mere Christianity'". And I admit that for several weeks, I didn't see the problems with this book.
But up in chapter one it says, more or less, that because so many different world cultures have the same ethics, they must be be morals. (herein I refer to 'ethics' as philosophical, self-imposed, ways of living, and 'morals' as religious, outer-imposed ways of living).
I disagree, for the simple reason that cultures with _wildly_ different ethics (such as the allowance of random murder) would not survive very long. Even without a concept of 'cultural evolution,' it should be clear that a society whose members kill each other randomly will fairly rapidly kill itself to death (so to speak:)). So naturally most extant societies ban murder.
Similarly with other social issues -- since most of those quickly degenerate to "is it okay to kill someone because they...X...?". The ones that make sense for our survival end up as common elements of all societies. The ones that don't either appear randomly in some societies briefly before they kill each other off, or else did so long ago and we don't really have record of those societies.
So I believe Mr. Lewis was wrong to suggest that a commonality of ethics implies a common author of morality. Much of his 'logical' argument hinges on this assumption. Which is to say: if I can't get past chapter one without seeing the whole argument as flawed, the rest of the argument is moot.
Slashdot Mirror
It is easy to say, "oo, read 'Mere Christianity'". And I admit that for several weeks, I didn't see the problems with this book. But up in chapter one it says, more or less, that because so many different world cultures have the same ethics, they must be be morals. (herein I refer to 'ethics' as philosophical, self-imposed, ways of living, and 'morals' as religious, outer-imposed ways of living). I disagree, for the simple reason that cultures with _wildly_ different ethics (such as the allowance of random murder) would not survive very long. Even without a concept of 'cultural evolution,' it should be clear that a society whose members kill each other randomly will fairly rapidly kill itself to death (so to speak :)). So naturally most extant societies ban murder.
Similarly with other social issues -- since most of those quickly degenerate to "is it okay to kill someone because they ...X...?". The ones that make sense for our survival end up as common elements of all societies. The ones that don't either appear randomly in some societies briefly before they kill each other off, or else did so long ago and we don't really have record of those societies.
So I believe Mr. Lewis was wrong to suggest that a commonality of ethics implies a common author of morality. Much of his 'logical' argument hinges on this assumption. Which is to say: if I can't get past chapter one without seeing the whole argument as flawed, the rest of the argument is moot.