Since I’ve been home, I’ve slept a lot. I think that this past semester I’ve been the most sleep deprived as I have ever been. I didn’t pull any all-nighters, but I definitely pulled late-nighters 4/5 days in the week. Hopefully next semester will be a little less stressful (if applying to graduate school can be considered non-stressful).
I read The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis over the past day. It was a fascinating read. I find it hard to believe that it was written in 1944, as it applies even more to the modern world. It details the dangers of moral relativism, which is the belief that moral principles have no objective standards (ie, nothing is inherently right or wrong, good or bad). He states that when humans are stripped of a concept of right and wrong, they’re also stripped of their humanity. An attempt to control how man should or shouldn’t view concepts of right and wrong takes away the very thing that makes us human: our chests. We lose our chests, that which connects our intellect and ability to reason (mere spirit, or spiritual awareness, for lack of a better word) with our savage appetites (bellies). The second chapter states that there is a universal moral code that applies to all people, all cultures, and further, is the root of all so-called “novel” moral codes that we try to develop on our own, as well as the moral codes of our religions. In the absence of this universal moral code (the Tao). The Tao offers us a lens through which we are able to experience this world. Those who try to step outside the Tao to criticize it are simply destroying the basis of their own beliefs.
The final section of the book states that mankind’s conquest of Nature is really only the conquest of some men by other men. What we think is controlling nature is simply controlling things that we have designated as “nature.” We believe we are progressing, becoming more powerful, improving the race, but we are not. We fail to factor in time to our equations, and fail to forsee its consequences. We may think that we’re able to control posterity by means of contraceptives, abortion, IVF, cloning, things that man has been unable to do in all of early history. We think that we’re opening the doors for our prosperity to have more choices and freedom, when in actuality, we’re limiting their freedom and values. We fail to recognize our own limits. When we build too high on too shallow of a foundation, the only possible result is a total collapse, the abolition of man.
Is there really no plurality in morality? What are the absolute morals? Where did things go wrong? Is moral relativism always wrong?
