Another Look at Our First Signpost

After his discursion into answering some objectors, Lewis begins Chapter 3 by referring us back to our topic from the first chapter: the Law of Human Nature. He delves into an extended comparison between what we think of as Laws of Nature (gravity, for example) and the Law of Human Nature.

Jack begins by noting what he terms an "odd" thing; men everywhere are "haunted by the idea of a sort of behavior they ought to practice" but "they [do] not in fact do so" (16). We'll jump ahead to his conclusion and come back to his illustrations in a moment. Lewis concludes by saying it is odd for man to feel bound to some set of rules that he doesn't actually bother keeping most of the time. I think I agree with Lewis; we seem to be at least partly broken creatures if we go around thinking that we ought to behave a certain way, when in fact we do not actually bother sticking to that way when it gets hard or uncomfortable. What is wrong with us? Let's return to Lewis's argument and see how he illustrates this problem. Pretend for a moment you have a tree growing in your front yard. It's a little frustrating for you, because it doesn't seem to have branched out as much as you wanted, so it's not giving as much shade as it should. Would you blame the tree for not being shady enough? You know the tree is just a product of the soil it grew in and the weather and care it received, and it could hardly have turned out differently. A similar tree in your neighbor's yard, however, is growing spectacularly well. It has big branches with lots of leaves and healthy looking bark. That tree is also a product of its environment. In that sense, both the "bad" and the "good" tree are obeying the Laws of Nature. But in what sense can we call them laws, then, if obeying the Laws of Nature can lead to such different results?

Put another way, what we call the Laws of Nature are not so much prescriptive as they are descriptive. That is, they don't so much dictate what should happen as they tell us what does happen. Drop a pebble, and it falls. Shoot one pool ball at another and the total momentum will be conserved. Electrons will always move from the negative terminal to the positive terminal. However, the pebble and the pool balls and the electrons aren't exactly choosing to obey their respective laws. When we talk about the Laws of Nature, we just mean "what Nature, in fact, does" (17). The Law of Human Nature is very different though. We have already seen that it is not descriptive (since humans tend to be pretty terrible at keeping the Laws) but prescriptive. While the law of gravity tells us that rocks fall when you drop them, the Moral Law tells the way people should act (but don't).

Someone who doesn't believe in moral absolutes might interject "Well, you're just phrasing things badly. When you notice that men don't act the way they 'should', you just mean they don't act in a way that is pleasing to you." Certainly that's what we mean when we call the sickly tree a "bad" tree, and the healthy one a "good" tree. It's not pleasing or convenient for me to have a tree that doesn't provide shade. However, this idea doesn't hold up too well when we apply it to people. Take for example a crowded parking lot. If someone cuts in front of me as I'm about to pull into a spot, I'm really tempted to start questioning the legitimacy of his parentage, not to mention the legitimacy of his driver's license. However, if I'm in a line waiting to park, and that same guy takes the last available spot, I don't get mad at him at all. Both cases are equally inconvenient, but only one of them raises my blood pressure. Or take Lewis's example: if someone trips you accidentally, you don't get angry at him (at least not once you realize it's an accident). But if someone tries to trip you and fails, you'd be entirely justified to be angry. In that case, the thing that you would call "bad" is the one that didn't actually inconvenience you. So, it won't work to say that decent behavior in others is just the behavior that happens to be convenient to us.

Our Unbeliever-in-Moral-Absolutes will consider this for a moment, and reply "Aha! Yes, I agree, when we say men should act a certain way, we don't just mean they should act in a way convenient to us. Rather, we mean that men should act a certain way because it's good for the human race as a whole." Our Unbeliever has a point; after all, society won't function well if we all act like jerks to each other. The problem with this train of thought is that it chases its own caboose. Let's imagine the conversation:

Lewis: So, you claim men should be kind to each other because it's good for society, right?

Unbeliever: Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Altruism is good for the survival of the group.

Lewis: Let me see if I understand...why should I act unselfishly?

Unbeliever: Because it's good for society.

Lewis: Ok. But...but why should I care about society except when it affects me? 

Unbeliever: Well, because that is best for the survival of the group.

Lewis: But that's the whole definition "unselfish"!

And Lewis is right. Being unselfish just means setting aside your wants and desires and doing what is better for others ("society"). Our Unbeliever is saying that the reason we should behave decently is to benefit society, but all that means is that "decent behavior is decent behavior. [He] would have said as much if [he] had stopped at the statement, 'Men ought to be unselfish' " (20).

Lewis stops the chapter at this point by concluding that the Law of Human Nature is not an observation about the way people do, in fact, behave. Nor is it a description of how we wish people would behave, since what we call "bad" behavior is not always what we find inconvenient but sometimes the exact opposite. Thus, the Law of Human Nature must be something outside us altogether, or as Lewis puts it "a real thing - a thing that is really there...a real law, which none of us made, but which we find pressing on us" (20). We are perilously close to having to admit that something or maybe even someone (we won't yet say it is a Someone) out there is dictating how we should behave. Lewis will explore this idea a little more in the next chapter and will attempt to prove that there really is a someone behind the Law of Human Nature.