It might lead you to become a prig and to think you were rather a special person who deserved to be congratulated on his ‘idealism’. And it would be even more dangerous to think of oneself as a person ‘of high ideals’ because one is trying to tell no lies at all (instead of only a few lies) or never to commit adultery (instead of committing it only seldom) or not to he a bully (instead of being only a moderate bully). Perfect behavior may be as unattainable as perfect gear-changing when we drive but it is a necessary ideal prescribed for all men by the very nature of the human machine just as perfect gear-changing is an ideal prescribed for all drivers by the very nature of cars. Moral ‘ideals,’ are not like and ideal house, or room-mate, or car.It is true that moral perfection in impossible, and that in that sense, it is an ‘ideal.’ In that sense, any kind of perfection is ‘ideal’ for humans – driving, tennis, drawing straight lines.When you are being taught how to use any machine, the instructor keeps on saying, ‘No, don’t do it like that,’ because, of course, there are all sorts of things that look all right and seem to you the natural way of treating the machine, but do not really work.įor some people it’s easier to talk about moral ‘ideals’ or moral ‘idealism’ than about moral obedience. That is why these rules at first seem to be constantly interfering with our natural inclinations. prevent breakdowns, strains, friction in the running of that machine.directions for running the human machine.
they seem to be interferences… annoyances.He replied that, as far as he could make out, God was ‘the sort of person who is always snooping round to see if anyone is enjoying himself and then trying to stop it’. There is a story about a schoolboy who was asked what he thought God was like.
0 kommentar(er)
