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CH 6] Business 101 6-9

The peculiarity of this may tempt us to explain it away. We may try to make out
that when a man should not act as he does, what we are saying is that his actions are
inconvenient for us, and think that he should behave differently. Yet, this is simply not
true. A fellow student occupies a classroom seat because it is vacant and he got there
first. Another student takes the seat, removing the firsts books and materials while the
first is speaking with the instructor in the front of the classroom; and usurping the firsts
seat because he, the second, had occupied that seat from the beginning of the class.
Both may be equally inconvenient, but we would attach ill behavior to the second
student and not the first.
Some will say that though decent behavior does not mean what rewards each
person receives at a particular moment, it does mean what rewards society (humanity)
as a whole receives—social responsibility; and there is no mystery about that. People
recognize that they cannot have any real safety or happiness except in a society where
everyone “plays fair” (by the same rules with equity), and because they recognize this
they endeavor to behave decently. It is perfectly valid that safety and happiness is only
derived from individuals, classes, and nations being honest, fair and kind toward each
other. As an explanation of why we feel as we do about Right and Wrong misses the
point. If we ask: “Why should I be unselfish?” and your reply is ‘Because being
unselfish benefits society as a whole,’ and then you add, ‘Because you should be
unselfish’—which simply brings us back to where we started without conclusion.
Should we be unselfish? Should we be fair in all our dealings? Yes, we should be
unselfish; and yes, we should be fair in all of our dealings. It is not that we are
unselfish, not that we like being unselfish, but that we should be unselfish. The Moral Do unto others as you
Law, this Law of Human Nature, is not simply a fact about human behavior in the would have them do unto
same way as the Law of Gravitation is, or may be, simply a fact about how heavy you.
objects behave when they fall. On the other hand, it is not simply a statement about — Matthew 7:12
how we should like men to behave for our own convenience; for the behavior we call
bad or unfair is not exactly the same as the behavior we find inconvenient.
Consequently, this Law of Human Nature, must somehow be a real thing—a thing that
is really there, not made up by ourselves. That is to say, this Law is not a subject of us,
as is our multiplication tables, rather we are a subject to the law that obligates us at
judgment. And yet, as real as the Law of Human Nature is, it is not a fact in the 6
ordinary sense, that is in the same way as our actual behavior is a fact.
It begins to look as if we shall have to admit that there is more than one kind of
phenomenon; that, in this particular case, there is something above and beyond the
ordinary facts of men’s behavior, and yet quite definitely real—a real law, which none
of us made or invented, we are born with it, which we find pressing on us, and we
know that we should obey. This real law, Law of Human Nature, is the foundation of
morality that expresses itself as ethics and ethical behavior.

Foundation for morality in the United States—a Judeo-Christian Morality
The foundation of morality in the United States and Western Civilization is rooted
in Judeo-Christian ethics. Let us first be agreed on morality that The Golden Rule of
the New Testament (“Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Luke 6:31
NIV) is a summing up of what everyone, fundamentally, has always known to be right.
Really great moral teachers never do introduce new moralities: it is the quacks, the
cranks, and false teachers who introduce new moralities. As C.S. Lewis pointed out:
“People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.” The real job
of every moral teacher is to keep on bringing us back, time after time, to the old simple
principles which we are all so anxious not to see; like bringing a horse back, and back
again, to the fence it has refused to jump, or bringing a child back, and back again, to
that part of a lesson they want to shirk, or the coach that says “remember the
fundamentals to the game.”
The second thing to have clear is that morality does not profess to have, a detailed
political program for applying ‘...do as you would be done by’ to a particular society at
a particular moment. It could not have. It is meant for ALL men at ALL times and the
particular program which suited one place or time would not benefit another.
When it tells you to feed the hungry it does not give you lessons in cooking.
Rather it is a director which will set them all to the right jobs, and a source of energy

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