Dr Greg Bahnsen - Normative Ethics: Introduction to Eastern Ethical Systems (Part 2)

And moving on from the ethical vocabulary of value and right, good ought, moral, immoral, and words of that nature, to a discussion of the distinction between descriptive ethics, normative ethics, and metaethics. Briefly, descriptive ethics, as the title would tell you, describes the ethical outlook and practice of a person or a group of people, some society or what have you. Normative ethics would. Is our concern in these classes has to do with an ethics ought or ethics from the standpoint of not what people believe about what ought to be done, but what actually ought to be done. Normative ethics Metaethics has been introduced in the last few generations of ethical theorists as the study of the meaning and justification of fundamental moral judgments. The meaning and justification of fundamental moral judgments. Metaethics would be the philosophy of ethics. What do we mean by our moral terms? How do we go about philosophically defending the judgments that we make in morality? Do we defend our ethical judgments on the basis, say, of utilitarian standard? Good is whatever favors the welfare of the greatest number of people. Do we depend it on a dispositional basis, as with Sartre? Good is whatever expresses man's genuine freedom. Do we defend it on the basis of duty, as with Kant, doing duty as it's understood according to the categorical imperative, or what have you? So the questions of metaethics are philosophical in orientation. I want to look at the various schools of metaethics in a moment, but first of all, just so that we'll have a broader understanding of what normative ethics includes. Normative ethics deals with judgments about right and wrong and for the most part, would constitute a person's working ethic, that ethic that he uses to form conclusions about particular situations in the way that he offers reasons for them. Normative ethics would comprise a theory of obligation, a theory of rights, and a theory of justice. Theory of obligation will deal with what our duties are, what general moral principles we are to follow. A theory of rights would be a theory as to what is permissible for us to do. And a theory of justice would be a theory about desserts, what people deserve when they behave in either good or bad fashions. When we're engaged in normative reasoning, normative moral logic, if you will. Ethical reasoning. The general pattern that we use, as I've explained to you already before, is that of beginning with a general judgment, a rule or a principle. And here the illustration I use is one ought to obey the higher authorities. After you have a general ethical principle, then your syllogism moves to the second premise, which is a statement of relevant fact for Instance, escaping from prison is not submitting to the higher authorities. And then the third premise overall in the argument is going to be your particular application that is drawn through the major and minor premise, and the major premise drawn through the minor premise, that is the general principle applied to the fact, therefore Peter ought not to escape from prison, or Socrates ought not to escape from prison. Something like that. First, a general moral judgment, secondly, a statement of fact. And then third, applied application, applied application, applied conclusion. From these previous two premises, here's another illustration to reinforce what I've given you. We begin with the premise that the infliction of needless suffering is wrong. And then we might make the following ethical, excuse me, factual observation. Torturing children is a case of inflicting needless suffering. We would conclude that if the infliction of needless suffering is wrong, and torturing children is such a case, therefore torturing children is wrong. Now, even this brief rehearsal of the typical pattern of moral reasoning shows us that good Christian ethicists are going to, first of all, need to have their facts straight before they can draw a proper conclusion. Secondly, they're going to have to have conceptual clarity. They're going to have to be able to reason logically without committing errors, informal or formal, engaging in fallacious argumentation. And thirdly, they're going to have to have their principles be thoroughly biblical. You need a thoroughly biblical starting premise, factual second premise, which is accurate and then conceptually clear, valid conclusion. So much for normative ethics. Metaethics, as I've already said, deals with the meaning of crucial moral terms and the justification of fundamental moral judgments. Let me just read off the various schools of metaethics. First, on the question of the meaning of moral terms, we have the objectivist school that says that moral terms give us information about the objective moral good. And among the objectivists, one will find naturalists those who think good is a natural property such as gives pleasure. And then we have the non naturalist or the intuitionists who say good is indefinable. Over against the objectivist, whether naturalistic or non naturalistic, you have the subjectivist who say that moral terms tell us only of the subjective likes of the speaker. And sometimes the speaker or the subject is understood as the society at large, sometimes just the private individual. Two schools of subjectivism, then we have also a third school among the cognitivists, that is those who think moral discourse has an informative function. And that is what I call the instrumentalist school of metaethics. And among the instrumentalists, we would number the evolutionary ethicist the Marxist, the idealist and the pragmatist. All of them believe that ethics is part of a process of attaining something. Objectivism, subjectivism and instrumentalism, then will be three schools of more generally cognitivistic ethics. The view that moral discourse has an informative, a cognitive function. The non cognitivists also have to be mentioned here as well. Those who believe that the function of moral discourse non informative. Some would be emotivist, saying that ethical discourse is nothing more but expressive of personal feelings. Others would be prescriptivist, saying that moral discourse is nothing more but imperitival in its function, veiling commands and directives, the meaning of crucial moral terms. You have a cognitive approach and a non cognitive approach. Among the cognitivist, you find the objectivist, the subjectivist and the instrumentalist. Among the non cognitivist, the emotivist and the prescriptivist. Now let's clear the register and begin with the second major question of metaethics. And that is, how do you justify fundamental moral judgment? How do you go about giving a rationale for the judgments that you draw in ethics? Three basic schools here and the schools of deontologists and teleologism and personalism or dispositionalism. The deontologists are people who believe that moral judgments are justified in terms of rules or duties. The teleologists are those who believe that moral judgments are justified in terms of consequences that can be computed. And the dispositionalists or personalists are those who believe that moral judgment is justified in terms of the moral worth of one's character or motivation. Now let me just detail schools within each one of those three categories. The deontological school, ethics of duty, or normative ethics, if you wish a distinguishing title for it. The deontologist would include the formalist school of Plato, the naturalist school, school of Epicurus, the approach to conscience in Butler, the rationalist school of Kant, and the intuitionist school of G.E. moore. Plato felt that our duty was found in the forms. Epicurus thought that duty was found in natural qualities like pleasure. Butler felt that duty was found in conscience. Kant felt it was found found in the exercise of reason. G.E. moore thought that duty was discovered through intuition. The teleologists, those who believed that consequences have to be computed in order to justify moral judgments, would include the utilitarians and the egoist primarily those who believe we should seek the good of the most number in society, those who think we should be seeking our own individual good. And then finally, among the dispositionalists, we can distinguish trait deontologism trait teleologism, and then finally, What would amount to existentialism. Three subclasses. First of all, trait deontologism, those who believe that we have a duty to show forth certain cardinal virtues. Trait teleologism would be schools of thought like egoism, altruism, utilitarianism, that believe that we should be demonstrating certain traits, that our traits should lead to certain ends. And then finally, existentialism believes that the most important thing to be demonstrated in ethics is freedom. I've explained in our previous two courses that the relationship between normative ethics, those questions of duty, rights and desert or justice, the relationship between normative ethics 1 supplied ethics and meta ethics, philosophical ethics, dealing with the meaning and the justification of fundamental moral judgments. The relationship is something of a circular one. It isn't as though one first has his meta ethic and then finally starts living his life and has normative or applied ethics. Because the way a person lives his life and the way he uses his mind are going to determine and using your mind as an ethical matter too, that will determine your meta ethical or philosophical conclusions. On the other hand, your philosophical understanding of the meaning of moral terms and how they're justified is going to lead you to your ethical conclusions of an applied source. And so it doesn't seem that you can have one and then the other. These two affect each other in something of a reciprocal way. Metaethics is based on the way a person lives his life, is normative ethic. And yet normative ethics flows from his meta ethical philosophy. Just from this brief rehearsal of metaethics, we see then that there are three basic schools of philosophical thought. What Mr. Frame in his syllabus calls three perspectives on ethics, three orientations to the subject matter of ethics. And if you want to understand the single question under which these three schools of thought constitute three separate answers, that question would go something like this. Is X to be judged right or wrong because of its results, because of the rules that it embodies, or because of the motivation that leads to X? Is X to be judged right or wrong because of its results, because of the principles it exemplifies, or because of the motive or trait that was involved in doing it? Which of these things determines the rightness and wrongness of whatever X may be? Let me simplify this. We can call this the three R's approach to the basic question of ethics. Are ethical judgments based on results, rules or reasons where the word reasons is being used in the broad sense of motivation? Do we judge X on the basis of the results that it brings about on the basis of the rules that lead to doing X, on the basis of the motivation, the internal reasons for doing X, Results, rules and reasons. You remember those three R's. You'll remember the three approaches to ethics, results, rules and reasons. The teleologist is interested in results, the goal and consequences of our activities. The dispositionalist is interested in our reasons for what we do, what kind of character traits are being manifest in our actions. And of course, the deontologist, the person who is interested in ethic of duty, is interested in the rules that are followed when somebody does one thing or another. These three Rs then constitute three orientations on ethic. And I'm going to give you three syndromes here of terms, so you'll get a feeling for the three approaches and the vocabulary goes with them. Those who emphasize rules in ethics, the relevant vocabulary, applicable terms would be deontological, normative, standard, duty, law, rules. For those who emphasize results, we talk about teleological ethics, situational ethics, goal, facts, consequences. Whereas those who are interested in dispositions and motives would be dispositional, existential, motivational, interested in moral agency, internal, personal traits. As it turns out, these three approaches from a Christian standpoint, and this fact is very well presented in Mr. Frame's syllabus, from a Christian standpoint, these three approaches are distinguishable approaches, but not separable approaches, distinguishable, but not separable. And the illustration that I've used in the past for something that's distinguishable but not separable would be that heads and tails of a coin. Obviously, we can distinguish between looking at the heads and looking at the tails of the coin, but you can't separate the heads from the tails. You can only look at the coin from different angles. You look at the top of the coin, you see the heads, you look at the bottom, you see the tails of the coin. But the heads and the tails together constitute the coin. And so there you have something distinguishable but not separable in the same way. Goal, motive and standard in ethics, or normative ethics, dispositional ethics and consequential ethics would all be distinguishable approaches, but not separable approaches. There is certainly a different perspective, a different way of looking at ethics when you're approaching it from the standpoint of personal holiness, or from the standpoint of maximizing happiness and welfare, or from the standpoint of norms and standards. Those are different outlooks, different approaches, different, if you will, perspectives on the whole, but nevertheless they require one another, they can't be separated from one another. Each of these perspectives is required by the other perspectives and leads to the same conclusion. So that if somebody comes to me, let's say I have a young man who comes to me for counseling and the question on his mind is whether he can engage in premarital intercourse with his fiance. Because they have, after all, given some indication of their intention to be faithful to one another. They do love each other, they're on the road to finalizing legal arrangements anyway. Now, I can approach my counsel of this young man from three perspectives. I can say, well, let's look at the results will come about from this kind of promiscuous activity. Is this really pursuing the kingdom of God, the glory of God, and the well being of the two people involved. Now, when I approach it that way, and I look at all the biblical perspectives that are important here, I look at the facts of the situation. The presence of God, the word of God, the coming of Jesus Christ, the influence of angels and demons. When I look at the social context, my individual obligations, Will I in fact counsel him to go ahead and engage in this premarital act? No, I will not. Well, I can look at that from another standpoint too. The standpoint of love and disposition. The fruit of the spirit. Is this in fact, patience that he's demonstrating? Is it genuine love? Is this true gratitude to God? Is this real loyalty and a comprehensive reorientation of his life? No, it's not. And consequently, if I approach it from the standpoint of love or disposition, I'm going to lead to the same conclusion. Obviously, if I approach it from the standpoint of God's law, it tells us to flee fornication. I approach it from the standpoint of the duties of sexual purity. I'm going to be led to the conclusion that he ought not to engage in this premarital act. And so all of these are different approaches to the question, and yet they all lead to the same conclusion. In that sense, you might want to think of the triangle that is presented to you in your syllabus, Mr. Frame's syllabus on ethics. You might think of that triangle as something of a pyramid. I think that helps expand and makes a little more useful the illustration. The triangle has three different angles, obviously three perspectives. But as it turns out, each one of those leads to the same point. You see, every side, every corner of the base of the pyramid leads up to the tip of the pyramid, if you view it in that way. And what I want to say is that each one of these angles points to the same activity, points to the same conclusions refers to the same moral judgment in the case that I've just given you, that people ought not to engage in premarital intercourse. Now, while each one of these angles requires the other angle and leads to the same conclusion points to the same apex, if you will, on the pyramid. While they are not separable, we should remember that they are distinguishable nevertheless, and that the Bible sets forth at least three different criteria for good works. The Bible tells us we have to have the right goal if we're going to please the Lord. The goal of God's glory. Paul says in First Corinthians 10:31, Whether you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. Moreover, we have to have the right motive. Romans 14:23. Into the verse Paul says, whatever is not of faith is sin. So it's not motivated by faith. Faith is going to be sinful and not pleasing to God. And then we have to have the right standard for ethics also, because according to 1 John 3:4, sin is lawlessness. We have to have the right law and be following the right standard or law or norm if we wanted to please God. And those three all have to be combined. If somebody is doing what the law requires, for instance, giving aid to a poor man, if that person is not doing that for the sake of God's glory and kingdom, to pursue God's kingdom, or if that person is not motivated by love, rather out of pride and wanting to draw attention to himself, then that person's not truly obeying God. All three aspects have got to be incorporated in any God pleasing attitude or action. You know, those three perspectives, the right goal, the right motive, and the right standard therefore correlate to what we've been talking about in our rehearsal of metaethics as the situational or teleological consequential approach to ethics. Motive would correlate with the existential or personalistic approach, a motivational aspect of ethics. And then the standard obviously would correlate to the deontological or normative perspective in ethics. We see that these are all distinct and yet they are interdependent perspectives. I believe it was syllabus that was adequate enough in explaining the triperspectival approach to ethics that I can leave it at that. Let me just see if you have any questions, things you want to review from our introduction to ethics. We've now done this three times, so we should have a very good feel for what ethics is, what its questions are, how we should reason. Hopefully we've set the parameters for what we're going to be doing in our course. Any questions before I make my concluding application of these remarks? Now, I've begun by saying it's very important we study ethics. If you're Christians, we have to be interested in ethics and ethics of a normative variety. We've introduced ethics in terms of its. Its aims, its purposes, its distinctive character, what it includes, those sorts of questions. And if we've paid attention to what ethics is and it's distinctive, then we now understand that we have to study ethics from a normative perspective. In the past, I gave you five reasons for personalistic ethics. I gave you five reasons for teleological ethics. In keeping with my session with parallelism, I'm going to give you five reasons for normative ethics. Now, remember now, the purpose here is simply to say, given the introduction to ethics, just if we understand what ethics is, then we must study normative ethics. The first reason is that by its very nature, ethics aims to scrutinize codes of behavior. You'll recall that I said that this morning. By its very nature, ethics aims to scrutinize codes of behavior. Moreover, ethics is. This is still part of the first reason. Ethics is distinctively prescriptive in nature. Ethics seeks to scrutinize codes, is distinctively prescriptive in nature, and it includes, as we listed, the various subject matters of ethics. Ethics includes judgments concerning moral obligation, rights and justice. And so, by its very nature, normative ethics is going to be a central concern in ethics. Codes, prescriptions, moral obligations must be studied in the ethical system. I have to admit that it's a little awkward trying to give a justification for normative ethics, because it's so obvious that I think we sometimes overlook that for the most part, when people speak of ethics, what they mean is normative ethics. Ethics in very nature, the case is normative, has a prescriptive nature about it. And so we're going to have to have some interest in deontological ethics as we go on. My second reason, pursuing the obvious now, is that morality, as I've said, calls for principled action and ethical principles that are used in moral syllogisms. Morality involves action and reasoning, and the action is principled action over against immature, unthinking actions or the pitfalls of moral reasoning. And if morality calls for principled action, it obviously calls for the search. It requires us to search for the right principles by which to act. We need ethical principles not only to act, but to draw conclusions showing us how to act. We need the basic principles that are used in moral syllogisms to add to our factual accuracy and conceptual clarity in drawing moral judgments. Thirdly, we have to study normative ethics because, as I said in my opening remarks, pre established norms for a complex age are being largely ignored today, given our theological and cultural milieu. And these pre established norms for a complex age are being ignored despite the fact that to be a Christian is, as I've said in various ways, to acknowledge our obligation to the dictates of God. To be a Christian means you acknowledge the dictates of God. A fourth reason why normative ethics in particular must be studied by the Christian. And that's that the other two perspectives on ethics drive us to the standards of God's law. If you take a personalistic or motivational approach to ethics, we have to remember that man is a sinner by nature. That's his internal character. He's sinful. And as a sinner, he needs corrective revelation from God if he's to know God's will properly. And what is that corrective revelation from God, but a revelation of our duty law, if you will, Norm. Moreover, those who are redeemed sinners seek to love God above all and their neighbor as themselves. And according to the Scripture, love means keeping the law. And so, if you begin with a personalistic approach to ethics, you are driven to a normative approach. On the other hand, if you begin with the consequential approach to ethics, you have to ask yourself, how does the kingdom of God come on earth? How is God's will done on earth as it is in heaven? What does it mean to pursue God's kingdom? What is God's will for the earth? It isn't enough simply to say we're going to pursue the kingdom of God and leave that open to definition by anybody. You don't do that any more than you let love be openly defined by those who don't know the Lord. And so the kingdom of God and God's will have to be defined for the consequentialist, for the teleologist, by the law of God. Moreover, God's word assures us that the law was given for our good. And so, if we really are interested in the good of mankind, our society, or the good of ourselves as individuals, we must look to the law of God. We are driven to the law of God. If we consider personalistic ethics, we're driven to the law of God we consider consequential life. And then finally, my fifth reason, supplementing what I've already said, the normative perspective, that is, having proper standards, is in fact a necessary and a sufficient criterion of good works. Notice that it's not only necessary. You have to have the right laws to follow for all the reasons we rehearse, but it's a sufficient criterion of good works as well. If somebody studies only the law of God, that will be a sufficient ethic. The only reason I can have confidence in saying that is that if you study the law of God, you'll see how broad it is. The law of God itself encompasses being the right kinds of people, the fruit of the Spirit, the beatitudes, that sort of thing, and it encompasses the kingdom of God and the welfare of our neighbor. And so that we see that personalism and consequentialism are demanded by the law itself. For that reason, the study of normative ethics is in itself sufficient for ethics. Well, let me just rehearse that for you one more time. Why study normative ethics? Because of the very nature of ethics as scrutinizing codes, being prescriptive in nature and including judgments of obligation. Secondly, because morality calls for principled action and clear reasoning begins with ethical principles. Thirdly, pre established norms are being spurned today in a complex age, even though to be a Christian means acknowledging the dictates of God. Fourthly, the other two perspectives on ethics drive us to the normative approach to ethics. And fifthly, the normative perspective is necessary and also a sufficient approach to ethical questioning. That concludes my introductory remark in Lecture of Pause here and see if you have any questions you want to pursue. What are we doing in ethics? Why are we studying normative ethics? It might be a natural question after we've spent so much time in ethics already looking at dispositions and consequences. Why? Another course in ethical principles? I guess you all understand why we're doing that. If so, let's change gears and begin a discussion. Ethical apologetics. That is to say, let's study normative ethics from a philosophical standpoint. And again, our interest is in normative ethics. In philosophical jargon, that would be called deontological ethics. The term deontology derives from two Greek words, dion, which means do that any more than you let love be openly defined by those who don't know the Lord. And so the kingdom of God and God's will have to be defined for the consequentialist or the teleologist, by the law of God. Moreover, God's Word assures us that the law was given for our good. And so, if we really are interested in the good of mankind, our society or the good of ourselves as individuals, we must look to the law of God. We are driven to the law of God if we consider personalistic ethics. We're driven to the law of God if we consider consequential ethics. And then finally, my fifth reason, supplementing what I've already said, the normative perspective, that is having proper standards, is in fact a necessary and a sufficient criterion of good works. Notice that it's not only necessary, you have to have the right laws to follow for all the reasons we've rehearsed. But it's a sufficient criterion of good works as well. If somebody studies only the law of God, that will be a sufficient ethic. The only reason I can have confidence in saying that is that if you study the law of God, you'll see how broad it is. The law of God itself encompasses being the right kinds of people, the fruit of the Spirit, the beatitudes, that sort of thing. And it encompasses the kingdom of God and the welfare of our neighbors. And so that we see that personalism and consequentialism are demanded by the law itself. For that reason, the study of normative ethics is in itself sufficient for ethics. Well, let me just rehearse that for you one more time. Why study normative ethics? Because of the very nature of ethics, scrutinizing codes, being prescriptive in nature, and including judgments of obligation. Secondly, because morality calls for principled action and clear reasoning that begins with ethical principles. Thirdly, pre established norms are being spurned today in a complex age, even though to be a Christian means acknowledging the dictates of God. Fourthly, the other two perspectives on ethics drive us to the normative approach to ethics. And fifthly, the normative perspective is necessary and also a sufficient approach to ethical questions. Well, that concludes my introductory remarks and lecture. Let's pause here and see if you have any questions you want to pursue. What are we doing in ethics? Why are we studying normative ethics? It might be a natural question after we've spent so much time in ethics already looking at dispositions and consequences. Why another course in ethical principles? I guess you all understand why we're doing that. If so, let's change gears and begin a discussion of ethical apologetics. That is to say, let's study normative ethics from a philosophical standpoint. And again, our interest is in normative ethics. In philosophical jargon, that would be called deontological ethics. The term deontology derives from two Greek words, dion, which means duty, logos, obviously which means study, or science, or word reason, and therefore etymologically deontology means the science of duty. The science of duty in current usage. However, in current philosophical usage, the meaning of deontology has become more specific than simply the science of duty. A deontological theory of ethics is one which holds that at least some acts are morally obligatory, regardless of their consequences for human happiness or human woe. And the operative phrase here is regardless of their consequences. A deontological theory is one that studies duty and says our duties are our duties, regardless of the consequences. So you might remember the popular motto, let justice be done though the heavens fall. That's a deontological attitude, no matter what comes of it, Let duty be done, let justice be carried out. That conveys the spirit that underlies most deontological theories throughout the history of philosophy. Let's begin the history of philosophy, the history of deontological ethics, then by a consideration first of Eastern thought, especially the. Where I'm going to begin is with the Eastern religions. I do say that I want to say a few more things about deontology before we actually get there. Deontological approach to ethics, as Mr. Frame rehearses it in his syllabus, of course, focuses on normative ethics, motivation behind it. The attitude that's behind deontological approach is that the ethical norm must be in some sense transcendent to man. It must go beyond man's desires and his own self interest so that duty can be a matter of self sacrifice. Ethics isn't purely selfish, always doing things so that our welfare would be advanced. Ethics sometimes involves self sacrifice, at least for the short term. I may be rewarded in heaven, but for right now I have to be willing to endure persecution for righteousness. Say ethics is not derived, according to the deontologist, from an understanding of our sensual experience. Sensation tells us about the facts, but from the facts that sensation gives us, we cannot derive moral obligations. The facts do not give us our obligation. We cannot reason in what is the case, what ought to be the case in any simple way. The only way to do that is to bring in some theological conception and some correcting device like revelation. And so deonthological ethics is interested in self sacrifice, obligation that's not built upon sense, experience or personal desire. Ethical norms for the deontologist are going to be beyond us. They're going to be authoritative, they're going to bind us, they're going to set down a duty for us to follow. It's going to lay down something for which there's no excuse to disobey, no right to depart from the norm that God has given. Another characteristic of deontological theories is the emphasis upon universalizability. Ethical duties are universal in their character. So that if it's true that I am to honor my obligations, my promises, so you too must honor your obligations and promises. Ethics is not person relative. When the person is the only variable. When you're discussing ethics, then all persons have the same obligations. Sometimes we're in different circumstances to change our obligations. For instance, I'm under obligation to return a book to the library if I checked it out and it's due today. You're not under obligation to return a book to the library today unless you too have checked one out and it's due today. So the situation changes what my individual obligation will be. But given that you have checked out a book from the same library, same conditions, all the rest, and I have checked out the book from the library, same day, same conditions, and we both have the duty to return it. Duty is universal in character. So let's bring all this together. The deontological approach is characterized by this attitude, regardless of consequences, is interested in self sacrifice. Obligations which are not built upon sense, experience, authoritative, binding duties which are universally binding. Now we can turn into our first illustration of a deontological theory and that is found in the cosmic laws and ethical theories based on cosmic law in Eastern or pagan religions. Here we have, as Mr. Frame says, ethics that is rooted in impersonal law, like fate, for instance, or Confucian heaven. Fate in heaven, some kind of law built into the character of the universe. What's interesting about such laws in Eastern faith is that these laws are beyond even the gods. They're obviously beyond men, but they're beyond even the gods. Both the gods and men must look up to these laws. They find themselves in subservience to these laws. The laws transcend even the divine. These laws, usually in terms of karma or fate, govern these laws operative in an impersonal, automatic way. So the destiny of men is their retribution. What happens is that if you live a bad or an impure life, the Eastern faiths will teach that karma, fate, the heaven in some way. Those forces and powers which are even beyond God or the gods will wreak vengeance on you, so that your soul will transmigrate to a lower form or to another unhappy or sad status in life. You will have to go through this cycle of rebirth over and over again, until you finally are completely purified and fate releases you from individual existence. So there is a law to be found in the Eastern religions. Obviously, these are religions that teach an ethic of law, a normative ethic, a deontological approach to ethics. And that shouldn't surprise us as Christians, for Paul himself says in Romans 2, doesn't he, that all unbelievers show the work of the law written on their hearts. That doesn't mean that they always use the law properly, but they do accuse and excuse one another. They use moral standards, norms. And so even civilizations that have been cut off from special revelation for a number of generations or centuries, or even for the history of the human race, these cultures are going to have some kind of law code, law structure, and it turns out to be an impersonal one. In the Eastern faiths, how does one come to know it? The law is, if you're adherent of Hinduism, let's say, how do you know this impersonal cosmic law? Well, it turns out you have to depend upon some kind of human expert. Since the law is impersonal, since it doesn't come from God, it's got to come from somebody who is an expert in such matters. It might be the king, it might be a scholar, it might be some form of priest, but you've got to go to the expert if you going to learn what the workings of fate or karma or the heaven are going to require for you. And thus, although in this ironic, self contradictory way in all non Christian faiths, although the law is said to be impersonal, it becomes highly personal in the wrong sense. It becomes, it amounts to dependence upon the rational opinion of some individual and the tyranny therefore of that person's opinion. There's no way to correct that person's opinion. You simply have to go to the priest and say, well now what do the fates tell me about eating beans, or about eating cattle, or about mistreating my children? Only the expert knows. Now the expert has to study these matters. I want you to think through the implications of this. The expert has to study the workings of fate. One of the things that is unpleasant about the cycle of rebirth in the eastern phase is that a person is separate from all the rest of life or the source of life. That is the fact that we are separate individuals is part of the curse of life right now, because the goal, nirvana for most of these, the blissful final state, is going to be a reunification of all separate things into the one. Now the person who studies the workings of fate is obviously drawing distinctions. You can't study in any scientific way, in any rational way, in any communicable way, the operation of fate or the world without distinguishing between individuals and their various fates, the various consequences of their lives. You can't study those things and set people over against one another. You can't distinguish between cause and effect without drawing the very distinctions which are the curse of Eastern religious outlooks. And so it turns out that the very person who is drawing the most distinctions because he's an expert in the operation of the fate, the person who is going contrary to the ultimate goal of all things, that is the reunification of the one reality, the one person who is doing the most damage to the unity of the one, is the person you go to to learn how to be united to the one. I mean, it would seem that the expert is the one person you wouldn't want to trust just because of his rational expertise. He knows that if you eat cattle that you're going to suffer in the next life. He knows the difference between those who do and those who do not eat cattle. He knows the difference between the cause and effect. And yet what we're striving after, there are no distinctions whatsoever. So there is no cause and effect, no time, no movement, no change, no differentiation between people. So on the one hand, the law is impersonal. On the other hand, it is preeminently personal and tyrannical. As a matter of fact, on the one hand, this man is supposed to be an expert in the law, be the priest or the king, what have you, scholar. And on the other hand, this is the one person you wouldn't want to follow, since he, by his very scholarship, is not acknowledging the ultimate nature of reality. So it's not clear to me that these schemes, although they profess to give us law, it's not clear to me how these schemes really furnish us with any ethical norm that can be known whatsoever. And as we've said in our discussion of teleology with respect to the seeking of the trans ethical, if the cosmic law stipulates that I'm to live in such a way that I finally will get beyond ethical distinctions, then it seems to me to draw ethical distinctions in this life is itself unethical, ironically enough. And so if there is an impersonal cosmic law tied to the fates or karma, it would seem that there can't be an impersonal cosmic law. The very conditions under which this law could exist would be the conditions that would rule out its existence. Theory of the self contradiction of all pagan thought reasserting itself Mr. Crane points out in his syllabus one other thing about the pagan cosmic law systems of ethics and that's that even to the degree that you grant that they do have laws, knowable laws to follow, that these religions are works righteousness religions. If the law is beyond the gods, then obviously there can be no redemptive plan that the gods can have any say about. If the law were built based in the character of God and under the authority of God, then clearly God can do things to redeem for the violation of his law, which is to say the repudiation of his character. However, if the law stands above even the gods, then the gods are helpless to redeem people for breaking the law. The law becomes in a very moralistic way, a tyranny over the heads of people that will always crush them. The law must always condemn Eastern religions. There can be no gospel when the gospel is above God. I mean, when the law is above God, there can be no good news since God cannot control the law and cannot control the conditions of the law, cannot control the consequences that come to us for breaking the law. And that's why I think there's this inherent character which is noted in your syllabus for all non Christian religions that have an ethic of law to tend toward legalism and works righteousness. That's a, an approach to ethics, if you will, a kind of gnomic position, a law oriented ethic that we don't run into very much in our own culture in our own day. So let me see if you have any questions before we move to the Western world. Now that would be a pervasively Eastern cultural approach. Now the Western world, any questions on the Eastern world? That's all rather clear. I think it's to Mr. Frame's credit and often to the shame of teachers of ethics that they overlook the Eastern culture, especially when you're talking about an ethics of law, because clearly there's an ethic of law there. So much so those who have taken a personal interest in studying Eastern faiths, and I think here of C.S. lewis, have really been enamored by them and have made efforts to draw connections between, for instance Taoism and Christianity on the basis of the similarity of law structure between the two. And we would say that those similarities, to the degree that they are genuine, I don't think Lewis always accurately perceived those similarities. But to the degree that they are similar, it's due to natural revelation. But anyway, there is that law structure there in Eastern cultures and we need to take account of it. Personal. The implementation by the guru is personal version of the truth and the true God. I hadn't thought of that. But I think that is a very good way of putting it. The remark is that in Eastern faiths, because of the impersonality of the law in its basic nature, the implementation becomes highly personal, that is to say, very individualistic, and for that reason, tyrannical. The guru, the expert, the pharaoh, whatever. The one individual applies the law in what seems to be an indiscriminate way, or, excuse me, in a highly discriminating way, according to his own discriminations. Whereas in Christianity, because the law is personal to begin with, the basic character of law is personal, that is, simply reflecting the character of the personal God, who is our Creator, our Lord, our providential governor of the universe, our Savior, our guide, our King and our judge, that is, God from all standpoints, surrounds our life because of the personal character of ethics and his law. For that reason, the implementation has to be impersonal, that is, does not respect people, so that even the pharaoh, even the guru, and the other cultures would come under the same law. And whereas you would ordinarily be under obligation to obey the rules of a magistrate, because the magistrate's under a common law with you, that is the same law that is God's personal law. He too can be criticized by. By a citizen, even as a preacher can be criticized by a layman, a teacher, criticized by a student, when all those who stand over others violate the law which stands above them both. So that is an interesting reversal. The impersonal law in the east becomes highly personal as it's applied, whereas the personal law in the west becomes impersonal, and therefore a standard of justice, treating people on par in its implementation. Other remarks or questions, I believe, because of the shortness of time, that would probably be best for us not to begin the Western survey just yet. In our next hour, what I will do, try to survey the history of ethics as it relates positively or negatively to normative ethics. There are a number of philosophers of note that wouldn't be touched at all in terms of our rehearsal of teleological and dispositional ethics, if we only touch now those who had a positive approach to normative ethics. For instance, there are a number of philosophers, Eraclitus, Thales and others, who couldn't develop any ethic whatsoever. But whatever ethic they would have would have been a normative one, it would appear. And so I'm going to touch on these shadow normativists, if you will, as well as the genuine ones like Plato and Kant and the intuitionist. And we'll begin doing that survey in our next lecture. And finally, have a goal today of talking about topical problems in normative ethics.