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6-8 Ethics & Social Responsibility [CH 6

always in agreement with the Rule of Right Behavior. But you cannot. There is none of
our impulses which the Moral Law may not sometimes tell us to suppress, and none
which it may not sometimes tell us to encourage. It is a mistake to think that some of our
impulses—such as a mother’s love or patriotism—are good, and others like the fighting
instinct on any provocation, are bad. All that is meant is that the occasions on which the
fighting instinct need be restrained are rather more frequent than those for restraining
mother’s love or patriotism. Strictly speaking, there are no such things as good and bad
impulses. Think of the notes on the piano. The piano does not have two kinds of notes,
the right ones and the wrong ones. Every single note is right at one time and wrong at
another. The Moral Law is not any one instinct or set of instincts: it is something which
makes a kind of tune (the tune we can call goodness or right conduct) by directing the
instincts.
This point has a great practical consequence. The most dangerous thing you can do
is to take any one impulse of your own nature and set it up as the thing you should
follow at all costs. There is not one of them which will not make us into devils if we set
it up as an absolute guide. You might think the love of humanity in general is safe, but it
is not. If you leave one out just as you could find yourself breaking agreements, or
coming to a wrong verdict in a trial “for the sake of humanity” or put the mob at bay,
resulting in becoming, in the end a cruel and treacherous person.
Other people may challenge these with “Isn’t what you call the Moral Law just a
social convention, something that is put into us by education?” There is probably a
misunderstanding here. The people who ask that question are usually taking for granted
that if we have learned a thing from parents and teachers, then that thing must be merely
a human invention. The reality is that that is not a valid conclusion. We all learned the
multiplication tables at school. A child who grows up alone on a desert island without
instruction would not know his multiplications. Assuredly it does not follow that the
multiplication table is simply a human convention, something human beings have made
up for themselves, and might have been made different if they had liked? We can agree
that we can learn about those Rules of Decent Behavior from parents and teachers, and
friends and books, just as we can learn about everything else.
However, are we ‘learning’ something new or are our teachers bringing to mind
and reinforcing that which we inherently know? Some things we learn are mere
conventions which might have been different—we learn to drive on the right side of the
road, but it might have been the rule to drive on the left side of the road as in England—
and others of them, like mathematics, are real truths. The question is to which class the
Law of Human Nature belongs.
You have probably heard it said that people are basically good. This Pollyanna
thought does not take into account the extent to which people will grasp for themselves
and thus expose their own wickedness.
There are two odd things about the human race. First, that people are haunted by the
idea of the sort of behavior they should practice, what we could call fair play, decency,
morality, integrity, or the Law of Nature. Second, that people in fact do not do so, and

rationalize their actions for their deviancy. Some may wonder why this is odd. There are
those who will think that this dichotomy is being hard on the human race, when after all
violating the Law of Nature only means that people are not perfect. Why should we
expect them to be ‘perfect’, possess and express integrity? The point of this discussion
at this time is not to establish blame but rather affix the exact line which is required for
us to not behave as we expect others to behave. Further, this line delineates the very idea
of imperfection and that there are consequences to our actions when we choose to
adhere or abandon our innate Law.
Have you noticed that when dealing with people something else comes into the
A lie does not become mixture that is above and beyond the actual facts? We have the facts of how men do
truth, Wrong doesn’t behave, and something else; how they should behave. In the natural universe there need
become right, and Evil only be the facts. Electrons and molecules behave in a certain way, with certain results
doesn’t become good, following; the genetics of an individual determine what their physical appearance
just because it’s
accepted by a majority. (phenotype) is regardless of any hormonal therapies or surgeries applied which will alter
—Rick Warren their outward (phenotype) appearance, and cannot nor does not alter their genetic
structure; facts being the whole story. When men behave in a certain way, that is not the
whole story—for all that you know they could, or should behave differently.

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