Colorblind or Tonedeaf Consciences?

I am re-reading Mere Christianity again... and as always I love
Lewis's avuncular style and amazing insights. But I was struck by the
following passage in the first chapter:

"This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that
every one knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it. They did
not mean, of course, that you might not find an odd individual here
and there who did not know it, just as you find a few people who are
colour-blind or have no ear for a tune."

Well, let us suppose for a moment that God does imbue people with a
conscience and an innate moral guide (which of course is highly
debatable) what could be the cause of someone being 'colorblind' or
'tone deaf' to this Law of Nature? Are we to assume that in every
instance where someone who is amoral, who seems to be genuinely
unaware of any sense of right or wrong, has somehow gone horribly
wrong? Has their conscience been 'seared' perhaps, by too much
immorality? Did they have the 'normal' conscience that everyone else
has (as Lewis seems to be asserting here) only to gradually or
suddenly go wrong?

My own ideas about this is that what we call 'conscience' and what
Lewis called 'the Law of Nature' is a combination of innate and
socially ingrained feelings. In the normal conscience, one feels an
action is right or wrong based on social approval; but in some cases
there is an innate sense. I will try to provide two examples.

One day when my sister and I were playing on the monkey bars, I took
of my shirt. My sister, seeing nothing at all wrong with it, took her
shirt off too. My mother caught her and yelled at her to put her
shirt on because, of course, it was socially unacceptable. At the
time, being kids, it was no big deal. But of course it's socially
unacceptable (except in nudist colonies) for a girl to run around with
no top on. My sister's conscience was thereby 'formed' by my mother's
scolding.

In another instance, let's say a man contemplates murder, such as
Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. Immediately there seems to be a
sense that something is wrong. Raskolnikov becomes practically ill
over the idea of killing the merchant woman. There seem to be some
things which do not really need to be taught. Here, I think, Lewis
may be right when he talks about Natural Law. But are there the odd
individuals who don't have this sense that killing is wrong?

What I'm getting at is if the Natural Law is really God-given, then it
makes no sense for anyone not to be aware of it. I watch shows like
American Justice, and City Confidential and occassionally read about
remorseless killers... people who kill with no compunction, with no
remorse, and seemingly with no sense that they have even done wrong.
I'm not talking about insane people... just cold-blooded.

Maybe I am being too extreme or too simplistic in my examples here.
But essentially I am asking "what could account for colorblindness or
tonedeafness toward the natural law; what could account for a dead
conscience?"

Sam

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 19:07:56 GMT, fakemail RemoveThis @fakemail.com (Slyfoot) wrote:

 >I am re-reading Mere Christianity again... and as always I love
 >Lewis's avuncular style and amazing insights. But I was struck by the
 >following passage in the first chapter:
 >
 >"This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that
 >every one knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it. They did
 >not mean, of course, that you might not find an odd individual here
 >and there who did not know it, just as you find a few people who are
 >colour-blind or have no ear for a tune."
That's page 18.

L's whole point in ABOLITION OF MAN is that people do need to be taught
it. L thinks the whole thing could be lost by one bad generation of
'conditioning'. Elsewhere in MC he compares it to the multiplication
table, which someone wouldn't know if brought up on a desert island: MC
p 24.

So I think L muddled the page 18 paragraph, or does not agree with the
people who " thought that every one knew it by nature and did not need
to be taught it."

Note that in ABOLITION early, quotign Plato etc, he refers to being
'taught by the poets', trained in the right emotional responses. So it's
not taugth the same way as the mulitplication table is. We'd call it
'being conditioned by popular literature.' The Green Book can say
anything it likes, but the child watching STAR WARS or reading HARRY
POTTER is going to 'learn' it anyway. (Don't the Anime stories follow
the old standards too?)

/snip/

 >My own ideas about this is that what we call 'conscience' and what
 >Lewis called 'the Law of Nature' is a combination of innate and
 >socially ingrained feelings.

I'd probably agree, and a lot of what L says might agree with that also.

 > In the normal conscience, one feels an
 >action is right or wrong based on social approval; but in some cases
 >there is an innate sense.

In most cases, they two would coincide. It gets social approval because
it fits the majority's innate sense. If any. If it's not all just
socially ingrained (what Lewis called 'taught').

It might kind of work on two levels. Societies whose customs include
caring for children and elders, are more likely to survive, whether the
customs come straight from instinct or just happened to arise as
fashions.


 > I will try to provide two examples.
 >
 >One day when my sister and I were playing on the monkey bars, I took
 >of my shirt. My sister, seeing nothing at all wrong with it, took her
 >shirt off too. My mother caught her and yelled at her to put her
 >shirt on because, of course, it was socially unacceptable. At the
 >time, being kids, it was no big deal. But of course it's socially
 >unacceptable (except in nudist colonies) for a girl to run around with
 >no top on. My sister's conscience was thereby 'formed' by my mother's
 >scolding.

Very good example. See STUDIES IN WORDS re 'conscience/conscious'. Also
see MIRACLES ch 5.

 >In another instance, let's say a man contemplates murder, such as
 >Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. Immediately there seems to be a
 >sense that something is wrong. Raskolnikov becomes practically ill
 >over the idea of killing the merchant woman.

He was crazy. Could you find a better example?

 >There seem to be some
 >things which do not really need to be taught. Here, I think, Lewis
 >may be right when he talks about Natural Law. But are there the odd
 >individuals who don't have this sense that killing is wrong?

Many people don't have a sense that killing animals is wrong. Some will
even kill an animal that has been part of their family. Other people
have a sense that killing any living creature is at least something that
should be rare, needs justification. This would be what Lewis would call
a difference re knowledge/fact, not re principle.

The principle (and/or innate sense) is 'killing a member of the ingroup
needs justification.' Where to draw the line between ingroup and
outgroup is a matter of knowledge, education, etc. I think there are old
wild west novels in which the line is drawn such that "the only good
Indian is a dead Indian."


 >What I'm getting at is if the Natural Law is really God-given, then it
 >makes no sense for anyone not to be aware of it. I watch shows like
 >American Justice, and City Confidential and occassionally read about
 >remorseless killers... people who kill with no compunction, with no
 >remorse, and seemingly with no sense that they have even done wrong.
 >I'm not talking about insane people... just cold-blooded.

I wouldnt' trust sources like that. But do any of them apply this to
their ingroup? If there is any person they do share love and trust with,
would they kill that person too? Thier own dog? We'd have to eliminate
the factor of just drawing the in/out group line differently. There
might be an example in Chekov's "The Horse Stealers." But again that's
fiction (and gloomy Russian fiction at that . And we'd have to
eliminate the factor of someone deliberately reversing the standard;
reversing it means you do see it.

Also, are these people otherwise sane?

Anyway, I'd think Lewis's answer might be around page 84-85 in MC.


Mary<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->