一些異議

Mere Christianity

C. S. Lewis

1943

Bill Lin 譯

Book I. Right and Wrong As A Clue to The Meaning of The Universe

Chapter 2. Some Objections

某些反對的意見

我收到的一些信件顯示 — 很多人認為所謂人類本性的規範，或道德律，或正當行為的規矩很難理解。如果這些是根基部份，我最好停下來，把根基穩固以後再繼續下去。

例如，有人在信裡說：「你所謂的道德律，簡單的說，不就是我們的群體直覺。跟我們所有其他的直覺不都一樣嗎？」現在我不否認我們或許有一個群體直覺；但那不是我所謂的道德律。我們都知道，它感覺起來很像是被本能所促使 — 被母愛，或性本能，或對食物的直覺。它意味著，你感到一個很強的需要或慾望，去做某種方式的行動。當然，我們有時真是感到有那種慾望去幫助另一個人：毫無疑問的，那種慾望是由於群體直覺。但是感覺到有一個慾望去幫忙，和感覺不管要或不要，你都得幫忙，是很不一樣的。假設你聽到一個遭遇危險的人呼叫幫忙。你或許會感到兩個慾望 — 一個慾望要給幫忙(基於你的群體直覺)，另一個慾望要避免危險(基於自保的本能)。但是在你的裡面，除了這兩個衝動以外，有第三個東西，告訴你應該遵循幫忙的衝動，壓抑逃跑的衝動。現在這個東西評斷兩個直覺，決定應該鼓勵哪一個的，它自己不會是兩者之一。你的說法，可能就像一張樂譜告訴你，在某時，要彈鋼琴上的這個鍵而不是那個鍵，然後你說樂譜也是琴上的一個鍵一樣。道德律告訴我們必須彈奏的曲調；我們的本能只是那些琴鍵而已。

由另一個方式，來看道德律不是我們簡單的本能之一是這樣的。如果兩個直覺互相衝突，而這個生物的內心除了那兩個直覺以外沒有別的東西，很明顯的，比較強的那個應該會贏。但是在那些時刻，當我們有很強的道德律的意識時，它經常像是正在告訴我們要站在那兩個衝動的弱的那一方。你或許要安全比要去救那正在溺水的人多很多：但是這道德律還是照常的告訴你要去救人。它是肯定的經常告訴我們，試著去使正確的衝動強過於它本來的嗎？我的意思是，我們經常覺得那是我們的責任去刺激群體直覺，藉著喚醒我們的想像力，引起我們的憐憫等等，來得到足夠的動力，去做對的事情。但是很清楚的，我們並不是從一個直覺去促使一個直覺比原來變得更強。這個東西對你說：「你的群體直覺睡著了。把它弄醒吧，」它本身不可能是群體直覺。那個對你說哪個鋼琴上的琴鍵，應該彈得比較大聲的東西，本身不可能是琴鍵。

這是第三種看法，如果這道德律是我們的本能之一，我們應該可以指出我們裡面的某一個衝動，經常是我們所謂“良善的”，經常符合好行為的規矩。但是沒辦法。我們的衝動裡面，沒有一個是道德律告訴我們經常要抑制的，也沒有一個是告訴我們要經常鼓勵的。如果去想我們有些衝動 — 譬如母愛或愛國心 — 是好的，而其他的，像性本能，或戰鬥本能是不好的，是一個錯誤的想法。我們所有的意思是，戰鬥本能，或性慾需要被節制的場合的確比那些節制母愛或愛國心的場合來得多。但是在有些情況下，鼓勵他的性衝動是一個結了婚的男人的責任，而對一個士兵要鼓勵他的戰鬥本能。也有一些場合，一個母親對她自己的子女的愛，或一個人愛他自己的國家，是需要被抑制的，以免導致對別人的子女或國家的不公平。嚴格的說，沒有所謂的好的或壞的衝動。再想一想鋼琴的例子。它上面沒有所謂的兩種琴鍵，“對的” 琴鍵和“錯的” 琴鍵。每一個琴鍵都是這時對，那時錯。道德律不是一個本能或任一組本能：它是藉著指揮這些本能造成一種和諧(這個和諧，我們稱之為良善或對的行為)的東西。

還有，這一點是有很大的實質後果的。你所能做出的最危險的事，就是把你的自然的任一衝動，當成你必須不記代價去遵循的東西。它們之間沒有一樣不把我們帶進邪惡，假如我們把它塑造成是一個絕對的引導。你或許會想到人道的愛通常是無害的，但並不盡然。如果你拿掉了公義，在遭受考驗的時候，你將發現你自己毀約，作假證據，“為了人道的緣故，”最後變成一個殘酷奸詐的人。

其他的人寫信告訴我：「你所謂的道德律，不就是一個社交慣例，我們藉著教導得來的東西嗎？」我想這裡面有一個誤會。問這個問題的人通常是“想必當然爾”，假如我們從父母老師學到一樣東西，這個東西一定只是個人類所發明的。當然並非如此。我們全都在學校裡學了99乘法表。一個獨自生長在沙漠孤島的孩子就不曉得這個。但是實際上，這並不構成99乘法表只是一個人類的慣例的說法，人類做成了某些東西給自己用，假如他們喜歡的話，他們不也可以把它做得不一樣嗎？我完全同意，正如我們學得其他的每一樣東西，從父母和老師那兒，還有朋友和書本，我們學得正當行為的規矩。但是有些學來的東西只是慣例，它們可能會不一樣 — 我們學了在路上靠左邊走，只是如果規定要靠右邊也可以 — 還有其他的，像數學，是真的事實。問題是，人類本性的律是屬於哪一類。

有兩個理由可以解釋，它和數學是屬於同一類的。第一，像我在第一章裡所說的，雖然道德觀念在不同時代、或不同國家互相之間存有不同，這些相異之處並不很大 — 遠不及大多數人想像的那麼大 — 你可以辨認出相同的律在所有的他們之間運行：而單純的慣例，像在路上靠邊走，或是人們穿的衣著，可以到任一程度的不同。另一個原因是：當你想到在這些民族之間道德的不同時，你有想到一個民族的道德比另一個較好或較差嗎？有任何的差別是改進呢？如果不是的話，當然從未有任何的道德的進步的。進步的意思不只是改變，而是變得更好。假如沒有一組道德觀念是比其他的更真實或更好，所謂的比較喜愛文明人的道德甚於化外人的道德，或基督徒的道德相對納粹的道德，就沒什麼意義了。當然，實際上我們都相信某些道德是比其他的好。我們相信某些人試著改變他們那個時代的道德觀念，就是我們所謂的改革者或先驅 — 這些人理解道德的程度比他們的鄰人們好。就是這樣。當你說有一組道德觀念比另一組更好的時候，實際上，你在用一個標準在衡量它們，你是說它們之中的一個比另一個更符合這個標準。但是這個用來衡量這兩樣東西的又跟這兩者不同。實際上，你在用某個真正的道德來比較它們，你承認有這麼一個東西是一個真正的“大是”，和人們的想法無關，有些人的觀念比其他的人的觀念更接近這個真正的“大是”。或者這麼說。假如你的道德觀念比較真實，而納粹的那些比較不真，那一定有某些東西 — 某個真的道德 — 使它們真不真。為什麼你對紐約的看法會比我的真或不真的理由，是因為紐約是一個真正的地方，存在於我們所想的很遠的地方。假設當我們都說“紐約”時，我們都只是意味著“我的腦子裡所想像的小鎮” ，怎麼可能我們中的一個人會有比較真實的看法呢？決不可能有真或假的問題了。同樣的，假如正當行為的規矩只意味著“每個國家所認定的”，要說哪個國家的認定，一直都比其他任一國家來得正確，那是沒有意義的；要說這世界在道德上將一直演變得更好或更壞也是沒有意義。

我在此做個結論，雖然人們對正當行為的看法有所不同，經常會使你懷疑根本就沒有真正的自然的行為的律，但是我們一去思考有關這些不同的事的時候，卻實際上證明它是存在的。在我結束以前再加一句話。我遇過人們誇大這些不同，那是因為他們他們不能分辨道德的不同，和相信事實的不同。例如，一個人告訴我：「三百年前，在英國，人們把女巫處死。那就是你所謂的人類本性的規矩或大是的行為？」但是確切的理由使我們不再處死女巫，是因為我們不相信有這樣的事。假如我們相信 — 假如我們真的想到有人會去把他們自己賣給魔鬼，而從他得到超自然的力量，轉過來用這些力量來殺害他們的鄰人，或使他們發瘋，或帶來不好的氣候，當然我們會一致同意，如果有人該被判死刑，非這些骯髒的內奸莫屬。在這裡沒有道德原則的差異：一個不同點只是簡單的事實的真相。不相信女巫的存在，在知識上或是一大進步：但是當你們不相信他們的存在，而不處死他們，是沒有什麼道德的進步的。假如一個人因為相信屋子裡沒有老鼠，而不再擺老鼠夾，你們應該不會說他很有慈心吧！

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If they are the foundation, I had better stop to make that foundation firm before I go on. Some of the letters I have had show - that a good many people find it difficult to understand just what this Law of Human Nature, or Moral Law, or Rule of Decent Behavior is.

For example, some people wrote to me saying, "Isn't what you call the Moral Law simply our herd instinct and hasn't it been developed just like all our other instincts?" Now I do not deny that we may have a herd instinct: but that is not what I mean by the Moral Law. We all know what it feels like to be prompted by instinct - by mother love, or sexual instinct, or the instinct for food. It means that you feel a strong want or desire to act in a certain way. And, of course, we sometimes do feel just that sort of desire to help another person: and no doubt that desire is due to the herd instinct. But feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that you ought to help whether you want to or not. Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger. You will probably feel two desires-one a desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-preservation). But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. You might as well say that the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys.

Another way of seeing that the Moral Law is not simply one of our instincts is this. If two instincts are in conflict, and there is nothing in a creature's mind except those two instincts, obviously the stronger of the two must win. But at those moments when we are most conscious of the Moral Law, it usually seems to be telling us to side with the weaker of the two impulses. You probably want to be safe much more than you want to help the man who is drowning: but the Moral Law tells you to help him all the same. And surely it often tells us to try to make the right impulse stronger than it naturally is? I mean, we often feel it our duty to stimulate the herd instinct, by waking up our imaginations and arousing our pity and so on, so as to get up enough steam for doing the right thing. But clearly we are not acting from instinct when we set about making an instinct stronger than it is. The thing that says to you, "Your herd instinct is asleep. Wake it up," cannot itself be the herd instinct. The thing that tells you which note on the piano needs to be played louder cannot itself be that note.

Here is a third way of seeing it If the Moral Law was one of our instincts, we ought to be able to point to some one impulse inside us which was always what we call "good," 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- say mother love or patriotism-are good, and others, like sex or the fighting instinct, are bad. All we mean is that the occasions on which the fighting instinct or the sexual desire need to be restrained are rather more frequent than those for restraining mother love or patriotism. But there are situations in which it is the duty of a married man to encourage his sexual impulse and of a soldier to encourage the fighting instinct. There are also occasions on which a mother's love for her own children or a man's love for his own country have to be suppressed or they will lead to unfairness towards other people's children or countries. Strictly speaking, there are no such things as good and bad impulses. Think once again of a piano. It has not got two kinds of notes on it, the "right" notes 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 any set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts.

By the way, this point is of 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 ought to 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 love of humanity in general was safe, but it is not. If you leave out justice you will find yourself breaking agreements and faking evidence in trials "for the sake of humanity," and become in the end a cruel and treacherous man.

Other people wrote to me saying, "Isn't what you call the Moral Law just a social convention, something that is put into us by education?" I think there is a misunderstanding here. The people who ask that question are usually taking it for granted that if we have learned a thing from parents and teachers, then that thing must be merely a human invention. But, of course, that is not so. We all learned the multiplication table at school. A child who grew up alone on a desert island would not know it. But surely it does not follow that the multiplication table is simply a human convention, something human beings have made up for themselves and might have made different if they had liked? I fully agree that we learn the Rule of Decent Behavior from parents and teachers, and friends and books, as we learn everything else. But some of the things we learn are mere conventions which might have been different-we learn to keep to the left of the road, but it might just as well have been the rule to keep to the right-and others of them, like mathematics, are real truths. The question is to which class the Law of Human Nature belongs.

There are two reasons for saying it belongs to the same class as mathematics. The first is, as I said in the first chapter, that though there are differences between the moral ideas of one time or country and those of another, the differences are not really very great-not nearly so great as most people imagine-and you can recognize the same law running through them all: whereas mere conventions, like the rule of the road or the kind of clothes people wear, may differ to any extent. The other reason is this. When you think about these differences between the morality of one people and another, do you think that the morality of one people is ever better or worse than that of another? Have any of the changes been improvements? If not, then of course there could never be any moral progress. Progress means not just changing, but changing for the better. If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilized morality to savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality. In fact, of course, we all do believe that some moralities are better than others. We do believe that some of the people who tried to change the moral ideas of their own age were what we would call Reformers or Pioneers-people who understood morality better than their neighbors did. Very well then. The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other. But the standard that measures two things is something different from either. You are, in fact, comparing them both with some Real Morality, admitting that there is such a thing as a real Right, independent of what people think, and that some people's ideas get nearer to that real Right than others. Or put it this way. If your moral ideas can be truer, and those of the Nazis less true, there must be something-some Real Morality-for them to be true about. The reason why your idea of New York can be truer or less true than mine is that New York is a real place, existing quite apart from what either of us thinks. If when each of us said "New York" each meant merely "The town I am imagining in my own head," how could one of us have truer ideas than the other? There would be no question of truth or falsehood at all. In the same way, if the Rule of Decent Behavior meant simply "whatever each nation happens to approve," there would be no sense in saying that any one nation had ever been more correct in its approval than any other; no sense in saying that the world could ever grow morally better or morally worse.

I conclude then, that though the differences between people's ideas of Decent Behavior often make you suspect that there is no real natural Law of Behavior at all, yet the things we are bound to think about these differences really prove just the opposite. But one word before I end. I have met people who exaggerate the differences, because they have not distinguished between differences of morality and differences of belief about facts. For example, one man said to me, "Three hundred years ago people in England were putting witches to death. Was that what you call the Rule of Human Nature or Right Conduct?" But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. If we did-if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbors or drive them mad or bring bad weather, surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did. There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simply about matter of fact. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believed there were no mice in the house.

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