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Some Objections | C. S. Lewis · Reformed Thinking

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Reformed thinking. Welcome to the deep dive.
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Today, we have a really big task ahead of us.
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We're tackling a stack of source material that cuts straight to
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the root of, you know, our whole moral experience as human
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beings. We aren't really getting into
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what is right or wrong today, but something much more
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fundamental. Where does the whole idea of
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right and wrong even come from? That's right.
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Our listeners sent in sources that draw heavily on CS Lewis's
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work, specifically his his very clear, very accessible
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discussion on what he calls the moral law.
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He's really focused on setting a foundation here.
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You have to remember Lewis and his day was dealing with a world
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that was pretty confident that this whole concept of a natural
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law, of a real right and wrong could be easily explained away.
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And it seems like not much has changed.
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So our mission today is really to solidify that foundation for
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you, the listener. We're going to do a deep dive
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into two of the classic objections that honestly, if
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they hold up, they kind of dismantle any claim to an
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objective morality. The first one is that morality
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is nothing but biological instinct.
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And the second is that it's just a social convention that changes
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over time. So we need to see how Lewis just
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systematically with pure logic takes both of these arguments
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apart. And this isn't just some, you
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know, academic exercise getting a handle on why the moral law
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can't be boiled down to biology or just arbitrary social rules.
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It's the prerequisite for any meaningful conversation about
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human nature, about accountability, and about
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whether there's a standard that stands over all of us.
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If Lewis's arguments hold, it changes the entire ethical
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playing field for you. OK, let's unpack this, starting
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with that first and probably most common objection.
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A lot of people today will suggest that what we call the
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moral law, this rule of decent behavior, is really just a
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sophisticated form of herd instinct.
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It's just a biological Dr. that developed to help the species
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survive. You know, like a mother's love
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for her child or the instinct to find food.
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It's evolution making rules so the group can stick together.
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It's a very compelling claim in our modern world, isn't it?
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Because it seems to anchor morality in something real,
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something tangible or biology. And Linda is quick to
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acknowledge that yes, of course we have instincts, we have
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desires that push us to help other people.
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But he immediately draws this razor sharp distinction between
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the internal push, the want that we feel, and what he calls the
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external command, the ought that we recognize.
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That's really the whole crux of it, isn't it?
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The difference between want and ought It is if the moral law is
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just another instinct, it would always speak the language of
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desire. It would say I want to help.
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But if it's something different, something else, it speaks the
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language of obligation. It says I ought to help even if
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I don't want to. Precisely.
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And to make this crystal clear, let's use Lewis's classic
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scenario. It illustrates this crucial
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difference perfectly. The Drowning Man.
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The drowning Man. So imagine you're there.
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You witness a truly dangerous situation.
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You see someone struggling in rough water and it's clear they
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are drowning inside you. In that very instant, 2 very
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powerful, very conflicting instincts just erupt.
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The first would be that impulse to help right?
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What we call the herd instinct or sympathy.
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You feel a pull to jump in, Yes. But the second one, and let's be
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honest, it's often much much stronger, is the instinct for
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self preservation. It's that powerful, primal
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desire to stay safe, to not get yourself killed.
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So you have two voices screaming at you at the same time.
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Help and run. Exactly.
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Just two competing forces, 2 distinct desires pulling you in
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opposite directions. Now, if morality were only
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instinct, the story would end right there.
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Meaning the stronger one would just win out.
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You would have to. You'd feel the stronger pull and
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you do that thing if self preservation one, maybe you'd
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walk away feeling a bit uncomfortable, but you wouldn't
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feel a deep sense of moral failure.
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It would just be biology doing its thing.
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But Lewis says that's not our actual experience.
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He says there's a third thing present in that moment.
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There is absolutely a third thing, and that third thing is
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this awareness, this feeling that you should suppress the
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imulse to run away, even if that desire to run is overwhelmingly
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strong, and that you should follow the imulse to help even
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if the idea of helping is terrifying.
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This third thing is the judge. It sits above the instincts.
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It's not one of them, it's the director.
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That's the logical step. Then the thing that is judging 2
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other things, telling you which one to listen to and which one
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to ignore. It can't logically be one of the
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things it's judging. It's structurally impossible for
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it to be, and the analogy Lewis gives here is just it's perfect.
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The piano and the sheet music are biological instincts, self
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preservation, herd instinct, hunger, the sexual drive.
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All of them. Those are the keys on the piano.
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They're just the raw material. They're the mechanisms that let
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us act. But the moral law, that's the
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sheet music. It's the instruction manual.
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Yes. The sheet music tells you when
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to play a specific key, how hard you should hit it, and when you
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should just leave it alone entirely.
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The sheet music itself is not made of ivory and wood.
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It's not one of the keys. So if the sheet music says play
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AC sharp and the C# key itself pipes up and says wait a minute,
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I am the sheet music, the whole system just collapses into
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nonsense. It's a category error.
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The law, the instruction, is external to the biological
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mechanism. The instinct that it's
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commanding, The tune we're supposed to play, which is good
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conduct, is created by the law directing the keys at just the
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right moment. The very existence of that
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judging faculty inside you proves the moral law is
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something separate from the raw material of your desires.
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OK, so that brings us to a second really critical point
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that Lewis makes about the strength of these impulses.
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If morality were simply the stronger instinct winning out
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the outcome would just be a matter of biological intensity.
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But what we find is that the moral law often tells us to do
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the exact opposite. This is an incredibly persuasive
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point because it uses our own inner experience against that
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deterministic biological view. How so?
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Well, think about physics. If two physical forces collide,
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the stronger one wins. Period.
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End of story. So if the instinct for your own
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safety is biologically stronger than the instinct to help a
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complete stranger. Then safety has to win every
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time. It must win, and what we call
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morality would just be the story we tell ourselves afterwards to
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justify why the strongest impulse won.
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But our conscience doesn't work like that.
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It tells us we have to help the drowning person, even though if
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we're being really honest with ourselves, our raw physical or
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emotional want for our own safety is probably overwhelming
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in that moment. You're likely to desire your own
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safety far, far more strongly than you desire to help that
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stranger. And that's the absolute
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contradiction for the instinct theory.
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The moral law consistently commands us to obey what Lewis
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calls the weaker impulse. It requires self sacrifice.
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It requires the suppression of our primal self-interest.
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Now someone might argue, while maybe over millions of years the
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herd instinct has actually become the dominant one because
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communal survival helps individual survival, so maybe
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the stronger long term instinct is the one that wins out.
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And that's the more sophisticated evolutionary
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challenge. You're right, but Lewis's logic
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still holds up because the moral law isn't acting like a
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statistician. You know, averaging out what's
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best for the group over the next 1000.
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Years. No, it's immediate.
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It's an immediate commander making a singular binding demand
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in a moment of peril. In that instant when those two
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instincts are really colliding head on, the moral law sides
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with the one that feels weaker, less urgent, and frankly, more
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dangerous to you personally. So it can't be the sum of our
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instincts or even the average of them.
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It has to be an independent rule, some kind of standard that
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we use to weigh the competing instincts against each other.
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Yes. If it were just the sum, it
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would reflect the loudest voice in the room, the most dominant
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feeling. It would be the loudest note on
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the piano, but instead it's that quiet external voice that says,
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look, despite your fear, despite the intensity of your survival
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impulse. The rule here requires this
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specific, difficult action, and that shows that the moral law is
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prescriptive. It prescribes behavior based on
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a rule, not descriptive, which would just describe whatever
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action came from the strongest biological drive.
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It gives us a little glimpse of something that's outside the
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biological system entirely. So let's look at a third way.
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Lewis pulls the law and instinct apart.
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This one focuses on those times when we feel a moral duty to,
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well, to kind of manufacture a feeling that we don't actually
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have. I mean, if the moral law was
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really just an instinct, why would we ever feel like we have
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a duty to strengthen it? This really gets at what you
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might call the coldness of duty. There's so many times when we
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know what we ought to do, but we check our emotional gas tank and
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it's empty. Our pity, our compassion, our
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willingness to help. It's just not there and yet we
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feel this internal mandate. You need to wake up your herd
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instinct. You need to get it going.
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We have to actively generate the emotional steam, as Lewis calls
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it, just to get ourselves to do the right thing.
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I feel this sometimes when I have to deal with, say, a
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difficult neighbor or a frustrating family situation.
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My natural goodwill is just gone, but I know I should feel
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pity or patience, so I have to almost force myself to conjure
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it up. And that intentional act of
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conjuring is the key piece of evidence.
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How can the thing that needs to be awakened be the very same
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thing that's giving the command to wake up?
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Can't be. The command is the moral law.
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The thing being commanded is the instinct.
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The sheet music can tell the pianist you need more volume on
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this part, but the sheet music is not the volume knob.
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The 2 are separate. So if I feel an obligation to
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really focus my mind on what a suffering person is going
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through, specifically so I can generate a feeling of pity that
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isn't there, naturally, that proves the obligation itself
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came from a standard that's higher than my current dormant
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feeling of pity. It shows the legislative quality
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of the moral law. It's like a law giver.
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It isn't satisfied with the strength of the instinct as it
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finds it. It demands a level of emotional
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input, a level of action that goes beyond our current natural
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state. This separates the moral law not
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just from our strong instincts, but also from our weak ones.
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And it really demonstrates its supervisory role over the whole
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array of our internal drives. Right, because if morality were
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just biological, we just do whatever action corresponds to
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the feelings we happen to have at the moment.
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And we wouldn't feel bad about it.
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The fact that we feel guilty for not having the right feelings
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and then feel duty bound to try and cultivate them demonstrates
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the independence of law from the feelings it governs.
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OK, this leads right into a common misunderstanding that
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comes out of the instinct theory.
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And that's the idea that some of our impulses are just inherently
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good, like mother love or patriotism, and others are
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inherently bad, like sex or aggression.
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If the moral law were just an instinct, we should be able to
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point to one of them that is always, in every single
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situation, the right one to follow.
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And Lewis basically challenges anyone to find such an instinct.
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He says very firmly that it just doesn't exist.
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He reclassifies all our impulses as being fundamentally neutral.
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They're just tools. They're the piano keys.
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No single key on a piano is inherently a wrong note.
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Every note is correct at one time and incorrect at another.
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It all depends on the tune that the sheet music is calling for.
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Can you walk us through that with an impulse that seems
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purely good, like a mother's love for her child?
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How can that become morally wrong if it's not directed by
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something else? Of course, take mother love in
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its proper place. It's a beautiful, powerful
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thing. But if a mother elevates her
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fierce devotion to her own child above the rule of justice, her
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love becomes destructive. For example, if she lies to
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protect your child from consequences he deserves, or if
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she, say, steals resources meant for other children just to
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benefit her own, then her impulse, no matter how strong or
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pure it felt to her, is now directing her toward injustice.
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The moral law is what commands her to suppress that fierce
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protective instinct in favor of fairness to everyone.
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And on the flip side, those impulses that society often
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labels as bad or dangerous? The fighting instinct, for
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instance, are sometimes the very thing the moral law commands us
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to use. Absolutely.
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The fighting instinct, you could call it aggression or righteous
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anger, is clearly required when you have to defend someone who's
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vulnerable. If a soldier is called to defend
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their people from an invader, or a person has to defend a victim
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from an assault, the moral law actually commands them to
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encourage and use that instinct. The point is, the impulse itself
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has no intrinsic moral value. The moral value is only in the
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instruction that commands the impulse at the right time and in
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the right measure. So the moral law isn't just a
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list of our instincts, it's more like the master Carpenter who
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knows how to arrange all the different tools.
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And if you take any single tool and make it the master the whole
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project, your life, your conduct is going to end up crooked and
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dangerous. That is the big practical
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consequence. Lewis warns about the danger of
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absolutizing any single impulse. If you pick one internal drive,
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even the one that seems as noble as, say, compassion for the
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suffering, and you set it up as the one thing to follow at all
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costs, you very quickly find yourself having to negate other
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virtues like truth and justice. I think we should pause on this
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because it's so relevant to modern conversations.
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If a person decides that love of humanity is their ultimate moral
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guide, they might start to justify some truly terrible
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actions. The outcomes are often
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terrifying. If the overall benefit of
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humanity is your absolute goal, and you leave out the need for
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justice or truthfulness, which are also directed by the moral
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law, you can start to rationalize things like breaking
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sworn agreements with a minority group, or manipulating public
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opinion with lies, or even fabricating evidence and trials,
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all under the banner of serving some greater benevolent cause.
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By following that one impulse absolutely, you become
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treacherous and cruel in the pursuit of what you thought was
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good. And that just proves again that
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the moral law has to be this balanced director, external to
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all our internal motivations and supervising them.
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It does. It firmly establishes the
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conclusion for this first part of our deep dive.
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Yeah, The moral law is not a description of our biological
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urges. It's a prescriptive standard
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that governs them. We've successfully disconnected
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the ought from the want. OK, so if the moral law isn't
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rooted in our biology, the next most obvious objection
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immediately comes up. It must just be a social
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convention. It's just something we're
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taught. It's passed down through
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education, from our parents, from our society.
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Therefore, it's something humans invented, and it can be changed
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by cultural whim. This is the other major
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reductionist move. It's an attempt to strip the law
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of any claim to reality. It wants to suggest that
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morality is arbitrary, like fashion trends or which side of
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the road we drive on. But Lewis, right away, he
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tackles this misunderstanding that's built into the objection.
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He clarifies the massive difference between learning
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something and something being a human invention.
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Right. When we are taught the rule of
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decent behavior, we are definitely learning it from
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external sources, from our culture.
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But learning something doesn't automatically mean it was
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invented. If I learned that in my country
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we drive on the right side of the road, that's clearly an
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invention, a convention. It could have just as easily
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been the left. Exactly.
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Driving on the right is a rule, but it's an arbitrary one.
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It's something we chose as a group, and we could have chosen
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differently without any problem. But Lewis asked us to consider
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the other category of things we learn things that are real
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truths, totally independent of our choice.
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And the classic parallel he uses here is mathematics.
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Yes, we all learn the multiplication table at school.
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It's taught to us entirely through instruction.
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A child who was raised completely alone on an island
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would be ignorant of it. So does that mean the
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multiplication table is just a convention that humans invented
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it and we could have all just agreed that 2 * 2 = 5?
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Of course not. It's absurd on its face.
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The multiplication table describes a real truth about
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reality. It existed before humans ever
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formalized it, and it'll continue to be true whether any
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single society acknowledges it or not.
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It is discovered not invented. So the essential question for
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the moral law becomes which of these two categories does it
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belong in? Is it like the arbitrary rule of
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the road or is it like the fixed truth of the multiplication
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table? That's the question.
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If it's like the rule of the road, then we can change it
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whenever it's convenient for us, and no version is truer or
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better than any other. But it's like mathematics.
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Then we might learn it gradually, we might
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misunderstand parts of it, we might apply it imperfectly.
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But the rule itself remains fixed, real and mandatory.
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And Lewis argues very strongly that it belongs in that second
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category. So what's the first piece of
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evidence he brings to the table to put the moral law in the same
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class as an independent truth like math?
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He asks us to just look at the evidence, to look at the
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consistency across different cultures and throughout history.
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Now, critics love to focus on the differences in moral codes.
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And yes, of course there are differences.
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But Lewis asserts that those differences are vastly
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exaggerated. What people so often overlook is
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the profound, overwhelming common ground.
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So if we look at the laws of, say, the ancient Babylonians,
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the Chinese, the Greeks, and compare them to modern society,
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we find that while the specific penalties or applications of
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justice might differ, the core principle of justice that you
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shouldn't murder, that you should honor agreements, that
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you should respect property, is universally present.
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That underlying common law is the key.
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Think about things that are genuine conventions, like
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clothing or table manners. Those can differ entirely to any
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degree you can imagine without any logical contradiction.
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The way someone eats with chopsticks in China is
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completely different from the way someone eats with a fork and
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knife in England. But neither custom contradicts
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the other. They're just arbitrary.
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But a moral principle that says it is wrong to torture an
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innocent person for amusement it you can't just have another
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culture arbitrarily invert that without fundamentally
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contradicting the common moral sense of humanity.
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Right. That relative uniformity of
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these basic moral principles suggests that we're all dealing
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with a response to the same objective reality.
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Even the apparent contradictions, like tribal laws
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that say you should only be kind to people within your own tribe.
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That's not actually a rejection of the moral law.
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It's just an imperfect application of a universal rule.
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Treat your neighbor justly, but with a mistaken tunary
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definition of who qualifies as your neighbor.
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They're affirming the rule even while miss applying its scope.
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And that underlying rule remains intact and consistent, which is
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the hallmark of a real truth, not a shifting convention.
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OK, now let's turn to the second, and I would argue the
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most potent refutation of this whole convention theory.
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And that's the logical requirement that's embedded in
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the very idea of moral progress. We talk about moral progress all
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the time, but what does that word progress actually require
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for it to make any sense? Progress is such a powerful
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word, and it's a logical minefield for the moral
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relativist. Because progress doesn't just
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mean change. If I change my shirt from a blue
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1 to a red one, that's just a change.
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Progress means changing for the better.
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It means moving toward a more correct state.
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So if all moral ideas were just conventions, just arbitrary
19:11
rules made-up by different groups at different times, then
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one set of ideas couldn't possibly be better or truer than
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another. They would just be different,
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like changing your currency from the franc to the euro.
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If morality is purely conventional, there is no
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logical basis whatsoever to prefer, say, civilized morality
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over savage morality, or to argue that the 21st centuries
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views on human rights are in any way superior to the 16th
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centuries views. That just be alternative social
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operating systems. And if we really, truly believe
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that, we couldn't criticize the moral code of any society, and
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that includes the worst atrocities in human history.
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But we absolutely do criticize them.
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We use words like reformers and pioneers for historical figures,
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people like the abolitionists or the leaders of the civil rights
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movement who challenged the accepted morality of their own
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time. The very act of calling them a
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reformer implies they saw the truth that their contemporaries
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were missing. The second you use the language
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of improvement or reform or getting near to the truth, you
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have logically admitted that there is an external fixed
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standard of behavior. That standard is the real
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morality that has to exist independent of both reformers
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new ideas and the conventional ideas of his age.
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So without that external standard, the reformer isn't
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progressing towards anything. He's just arguing for a new
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arbitrary convention to replace the old arbitrary convention.
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The debate wouldn't be about right and wrong, it would just
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be about which arbitrary system is more convenient or preferable
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to a certain group. Our ability to criticize past
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moral systems, or even to feel guilt about our own failures,
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depends on the assumption of this fixed standard.
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It does when we judge the past. Let's take the practice of
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slavery. We aren't judging it by our
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modern convention. We're judging it by a rule of
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justice that we believe ought to have applied back then, just as
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it applies now. This standard is the reference
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point. It's the reality that makes the
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very concept of progress logically possible.
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And this brings us right to Lewis's analogy that connects
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moral truth to an objective, independent reality.
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To judge whether any idea is true, there has to be a reality
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that exists apart from the idea itself.
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Let's use this example of the city of New York.
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My mental idea of New York can be judged as being truer or less
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true than your mental idea of New York for one reason and one
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reason only. Because New York is a real
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place. Because New York is a real place
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that exists outside of both of our minds, we can check our
21:36
imperfect mental maps against the external reality of the city
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itself. If New York simply meant the
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imaginary city that's currently in my head, then there would be
21:44
no truth or falsehood involved in describing it.
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There would only be difference. My idea would be true for me and
21:50
your idea would be true for you. Now apply that same powerful
21:54
logic to the moral law. If the rule of decent behavior
21:57
simply meant whatever each nation happens to approve of at
22:01
the moment, then there would be no truth involved.
22:04
We couldn't say that the world could ever grow morally better
22:06
or morally worse over time. We could only say that it has
22:10
changed his mind. And since we as a society
22:13
constantly evaluate the morality of the past and believe that
22:15
humanity has in fact made genuine moral advances, I mean
22:19
moving away from things like public torture or summary
22:21
executions or widespread injustice, that very belief
22:25
requires an independent standard to measure against.
22:28
The very concept of moral improvement is the logical
22:31
guillotine for the convention theory.
22:33
It just cuts his head clean off. The moral law must be a real
22:37
natural law, like gravity or like mathematics, something that
22:40
we may learn about slowly, something we apply
22:43
inconsistently, and something we misunderstand frequently, but it
22:46
exists outside of our subjective opinions and our cultural
22:49
choices. It's the truth about how humans
22:51
ought to behave, whether we have the courage or the wisdom to
22:55
fully follow it or not. Yes.
22:57
So we've now shown that the moral law is neither determined
22:59
by our internal desires nor is it invented by our social
23:03
contracts. It stands as an external real
23:05
standard. Now that we've established the
23:07
reality and independence of the moral law, let's circle back to
23:11
really practical issues. First, let's revisit the danger
23:14
of confusing the law with a single impulse.
23:17
And 2nd, we need to clarify how differences in moral codes are
23:20
so often based on errors of fact, not errors of principle.
23:24
We really do need to reaffirm the practical danger of
23:26
elevating any single internal impulse, no matter how good it
23:29
seems, to the status of the absolute moral law.
23:33
Lewis is very clear that doing this leads to moral ruin.
23:36
It seems a bit counterintuitive, though.
23:38
How can you criticize an impulse like generalized compassion?
23:42
What makes taking that as your guide so destructive?
23:45
Because the moral law isn't a single virtue.
23:48
It's a complex tune. It's played with many different
23:51
keys. Justice, truth, temperance,
23:54
fairness and compassion all have their part.
23:57
To take just one of those instruments and make it the sole
23:59
guiding star is to throw away the rest of the musical score.
24:03
So if I choose to follow compassion alone, I might have
24:06
to sacrifice justice. If I choose to follow fairness
24:09
alone, I might have to sacrifice mercy.
24:11
Exactly. Let's take the love of humanity
24:13
again. If that is your absolute guide
24:15
and you were trying to implement a system that you believe will
24:18
greatly benefit the majority of people, you might find that to
24:21
achieve that goal you have to break agreements with certain
24:24
individuals. Or lie to a specific subset of
24:27
people, or even imprison people without due process.
24:30
And you would justify these localized cruelties by saying
24:32
it's for the sake of the greater good?
24:34
But in doing so, you're violating the moral laws demand
24:37
for justice and for truthfulness.
24:39
Yes, you become treacherous and in the end cruel, all while
24:43
believing you are being highly moral.
24:46
That very action proves that the moral law is the impartial
24:50
director that commands a balance between all these competing
24:52
duties. It ensures that no single
24:55
impulse, not even a benevolent 1, is allowed to destroy the
24:58
whole moral life. The law forces us to see that
25:02
all our natural desires are just raw material, and none of them
25:05
on its own has the authority to command the others.
25:08
OK, finally, let's tackle that appearance of extreme moral
25:11
differences that relativists love to point to.
25:13
For instance, the historical practice of executing people who
25:16
are accused of being witches. People, stop doing that.
25:19
So hasn't morality just changed drastically?
25:21
This is such a crucial area where, you know cultural studies
25:24
can get it wrong. They often conflate differences
25:26
in the application of a principle with a difference in
25:28
the underlying principle itself. Lewis demands we draw off a very
25:32
sharp line between a difference in moral principle and a
25:35
difference in factual belief. So in the case of executing a
25:38
witch, what was the underlying moral principle at play?
25:41
The principle was that heinous, destructive treason actions that
25:44
cause severe harm to the community, like killing your
25:46
neighbors or bringing about sickness, deserves the death
25:50
penalty. That core principle, that severe
25:52
crime deserves severe punishment, is consistent across
25:55
almost all human societies. The moral principle itself
25:59
didn't change. The factual belief change.
26:01
Precisely the people in the 16th century genuinely believed, as a
26:05
matter of cold, hard fact, that certain individuals were selling
26:08
their souls to malevolent forces, gaining supernatural
26:11
powers, and then actively using them to ruin crops, murder
26:15
children, and cause chaos. They view these accused people
26:19
as, in Lewis's words, filthy quizlings who were literally
26:23
destroying the community from within through supernatural
26:26
means. And I suppose if we today
26:29
factually believed that our next door neighbor had the
26:31
supernatural ability to kill our child just by wishing it, and
26:34
that they were actively doing so, we would probably agree they
26:37
should be removed from society and maybe even executed.
26:39
That is Lewis's stark assertion. We stopped executing them not
26:43
because we rejected the moral rule that destructive evil
26:46
should be punished. We stopped executing them
26:48
because we stopped believing the fact of their existence or the
26:52
fact of their alleged powers. That makes the distinction
26:54
incredibly clear. So moral advance is often just a
26:57
factual advance or a scientific advance, not a change in the
27:01
core moral rule. That's it.
27:03
The man who stopped setting mouse traps because he finally
27:05
realizes there are no mice in his house isn't a more humane
27:09
man. His factual premise has simply
27:11
been updated. There's no moral advance in not
27:15
punishing something you no longer think is there.
27:17
And this helps us see the consistency of the moral law.
27:19
When we look at ancient societies, their moral codes are
27:22
often just these universal principles, like justice, being
27:25
applied to their specific and sometimes very inaccurate
27:28
beliefs about how the world works.
27:30
The rule stays the same. Do not harm the innocent.
27:33
The factual question that changes is who counts as
27:36
innocent and what actions actually cause harm.
27:39
The core principles of justice, fairness and truth telling
27:42
remain remarkably consistent, which points us again to a real
27:46
external standard. So after all this, what does it
27:48
all mean for us, for the listener thinking this through?
27:51
It means that the moral law successfully resists being
27:54
reduced. It isn't some arbitrary rule we
27:57
invented for our own convenience, nor is it merely A
28:00
biological feeling that developed to help us survive.
28:03
It is an independent, fixed standard that applies to
28:06
humanity everywhere and always. It's a fact about reality that
28:09
dictates how we ought to behave, regardless of how we want to
28:13
behave at any given moment. And the necessary conclusion of
28:15
this deep dive, then, is that if this rule of decent behavior is
28:19
a real, fixed external truth, like the laws of mathematics are
28:23
a real truth, then we have to seriously confront the question
28:26
of its source. If the instincts are the piano
28:29
keys and our conducts is the tune, and the moral law is the
28:32
sheet music directing that tune. We are forced to ask who wrote
28:36
the sheet music, that external prescriptive standard which
28:41
holds us accountable even when we defy our strongest desires
28:45
and stands independent of all our collective opinions.
28:48
It points compellingly toward a law giver, toward a mind or a
28:52
will that stands behind the very structure of right and wrong
28:55
and. That's a question that demands
28:57
an answer that goes far beyond mere instinct or convention.
29:00
Thank you for guiding us through this foundational logic today.
29:02
Is my pleasure. Until next time, keep thinking.