Intuitive Morality

Intuitive Morality

In our society today many people live by a code of ethics or morals. Some people think that these come from inherited habits, and some believe they come from personal experiences. Morality is a way of living that is already built inside of you.

Since there is this moral code that governs men and that men are compelled to follow, it must be determined where this code came from and what compels men to follow it. There must be something behind the law that made it up and enforces it, because behind every law there must be a lawmaker or lawgiver. But who is this lawgiver? I believe that this lawgiver is God. It says in the Bible that the Ten Commandments were placed on man's hearts before they were given to Moses. A law cannot just create itself and it cannot be what determines if it is good. Since there are forces in our world that determine what laws are right or wrong there must be a force behind this moral law making it good. "All the civilized nations of the world have agreed upon fixing some rules for common behavior" (Swift 34).

This force must also be the reason for the law so it is the lawgiver. This lawgiver thus rules the affairs of men by this universal law and has made it known to all men. The lawgiver must have a purpose behind this law because it is known to all men.

We can also look at cultures throughout history for evidence of this law. David Hume says in Of the Dignity or meanness of Human Nature, "That there is a natural difference between merit and demerit, virtue and vice, wisdom and folly, no reasonable man will deny"(82). If one looks at history, they would be able to see that there are certain good and vices common to all civilizations throughout history. There are always small differences in the morals of civilizations, but there are certain ones that are common to all. For example, it has never been thought that cowardice was a virtue or that honesty was bad.

Besides this fact, the differences in morals between these civilizations are also scrutinized by outsiders. One can not make a distinction that one culture's morals are any better than another unless they are admitting there is a real right that one cultures morals are closer to than the others. There must be this real right and real wrong standard in order for any two to be judged by. Where does this moral standard come from? In Intuitive Morality by George Santayana, he states that "With maturity comes the recognition that the authorized precepts of morality were essentially not arbitrary" (342). It was not made up by men, so why are men so compelled to follow it?

Just as an architect does not become a wall or a doorway, the lawgiver cannot become its creation to express itself; it must impart something onto its creation to make itself known. This is what we see in men. There is a compelling force inside men telling them the way they should act.

Morality seems at first an external command, a chilling and arbitrary set of requirements and prohibitions which the young heart. Yet while this rebellion is brewing in the secret conclave of the passions, the passions themselves are prescribing a code. (Santayana, Intuitive Morality 342).

It is directing men in the way to do right and causes them to feel bad when thy do wrong. The law imparted upon men not only gives them a way to live, but a way to learn about the lawgiver that created them.

I believe that this is the reason that men try to act morally. They feel inside them a force that compels them to act a certain way. This force has been present and consistent throughout history as one looks at the morals of different cultures and notices their overwhelming similarities. Some