3.1 The Three Parts of Morality
In this chapter, the author tells us that morality, which is generally understood to be about decent human behavior, seems to be concerned with three things: (1) relations between man and man — fair play and harmony between individuals, (2) the things inside each man — tidying up or harmonizing the things inside each individual, and (3) the power that made him — the general purpose of human life. Man, he says, is usually concerned about the first thing only — if it doesn 't hurt anyone else, anything else he does is OK. But without looking at the inside of oneself and working on cleaning that up, Dr. Lewis says, man is only deceiving himself. The focus, therefore, should first be on becoming a good man and then …show more content…
Three of them are called theological virtues and four of them are called cardinal virtues. In this chapter, he speaks mainly of the cardinal virtues as he will attend to the theological virtues at a later time. The four cardinal virtues are: (1) prudence, which has to do with what we call practical common sense. (2) temperance, which originally meant being moderate —going to the right length and no further in whatever you do — now has come to mean teetotalism, which he says is a mistake. (3) justice, which is what we now call fairness; it includes honesty, give-and-take, truthfulness and keeping promises and (4) fortitude, which involves the courage to face danger as well as endure …show more content…
A distinction is made between the Christian rule of chastity, which is either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner or total abstinence and the social rule of modesty, which has to do with how much of the human body should be displayed and what would be considered decent words or decent conversation, according to the author. He talks about how the social rules of charity change over time and for various social groups, but the rules of chastity are the same for all Christians at all times.
The author goes on to say that of all the Christian virtues, chastity is the most unpopular because it seems to be so contrary to our natural instincts. Consequently, he goes into a lengthy exploration in an attempt to understand why this is so, all to no avail, and finally concludes that we have trouble desiring complete chastity — not even to mention achieving it — because of three reasons: (1) the world is inundated with temptation in that direction, (2) we think that it is impossible to achieve before even trying it, and (3) we misunderstand what psychology teaches about “repressed” sex, which is not the same denied or resisted
In this chapter, the author tells us that morality, which is generally understood to be about decent human behavior, seems to be concerned with three things: (1) relations between man and man — fair play and harmony between individuals, (2) the things inside each man — tidying up or harmonizing the things inside each individual, and (3) the power that made him — the general purpose of human life. Man, he says, is usually concerned about the first thing only — if it doesn 't hurt anyone else, anything else he does is OK. But without looking at the inside of oneself and working on cleaning that up, Dr. Lewis says, man is only deceiving himself. The focus, therefore, should first be on becoming a good man and then …show more content…
Three of them are called theological virtues and four of them are called cardinal virtues. In this chapter, he speaks mainly of the cardinal virtues as he will attend to the theological virtues at a later time. The four cardinal virtues are: (1) prudence, which has to do with what we call practical common sense. (2) temperance, which originally meant being moderate —going to the right length and no further in whatever you do — now has come to mean teetotalism, which he says is a mistake. (3) justice, which is what we now call fairness; it includes honesty, give-and-take, truthfulness and keeping promises and (4) fortitude, which involves the courage to face danger as well as endure …show more content…
A distinction is made between the Christian rule of chastity, which is either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner or total abstinence and the social rule of modesty, which has to do with how much of the human body should be displayed and what would be considered decent words or decent conversation, according to the author. He talks about how the social rules of charity change over time and for various social groups, but the rules of chastity are the same for all Christians at all times.
The author goes on to say that of all the Christian virtues, chastity is the most unpopular because it seems to be so contrary to our natural instincts. Consequently, he goes into a lengthy exploration in an attempt to understand why this is so, all to no avail, and finally concludes that we have trouble desiring complete chastity — not even to mention achieving it — because of three reasons: (1) the world is inundated with temptation in that direction, (2) we think that it is impossible to achieve before even trying it, and (3) we misunderstand what psychology teaches about “repressed” sex, which is not the same denied or resisted