C.S. Lewis pointed out that all men recognize the existence of a universal moral law, even if they do not follow it. How does he know this? Because all men offer excuses. When someone offers an excuse for their actions, they are admitting that they have violated some higher law, but think their violation is justified. They seek to justify their behavior, rationalizing their way out of the guilt they know is due them. As J. Budzeszewski noted, “No one has ever discovered a way to merely set aside the moral law; what the rationalizer must do is make it appear that he is right. Rationalizations, then, are powered by the same moral law which they twist.”
October 1, 2009
Excuses Prove the Existence of an Objective Moral Law
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Moral Argument[12] Comments
Thinking to Believe 
October 1, 2009 at 6:18 am
If relative moral law existed instead of universal, society would consist of multiple morals.
In order to live peaceably (a large majority of moral standard), we must take into account other people’s morals and therefore argue that ours is better than theirs instead of forcing our morality on the other people…
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October 1, 2009 at 10:44 am
Scott – this may be a slight tangent to the intent of the article, but I have a question from your response: how does one “force” their morality on someone else?
Jason – interesting points…so would the next step be to prove that this objective moral law that is referenced is indeed the moral law as given by God, therefore building a case for theism?
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October 1, 2009 at 11:02 am
Scott, I agree with your post I understand you correctly. I think we must take evangelism to an actual debate or dialogue level, where we state and support our claims.
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October 1, 2009 at 11:06 am
Lewis is right on here too. I have Mere Christianity, the Problem of Pain, and a couple others on audio CD as well as in book form. The audio version has helped me catch a little more though for some reason.
The intro of Mere Christianity is incredible as well as the first part of the Problem of Pain where Lewis really goes back and forth with objections and affirmations.
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October 1, 2009 at 11:58 am
Scottspeig,
I’m not sure what to make of your comment. This post is talking about how excuses give evidence to both the existence of a realm of objective moral values, and our moral intuitions regarding their existence and our obligation to keep them. Relativism denies all of this.
Jason
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October 1, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Michael,
Yes, if there is an objective, transcendent realm of moral values and duties, they must be grounded in something. We cannot say they just exist inexplicably. Certain ways of trying to ground them ontologically are insufficient to explaining all the various facets of morality (its objectivity, our duty to obey it, our experiences when obeying or disobeying, etc.). Ultimately I think theism is the best account for morality.
Jason
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October 1, 2009 at 3:01 pm
This was one of the proofs that really got me reconsidering my previous stance of atheism (Mere Christianity changed my worldview).
I want to also mention that I think the people who have commented against Lewis’ point are missing the point all together. The fact that if I were to walk up to you the reader and slap you across the face immediately brings you to feel that I “ought” not to have acted in the way I did.
Lewis says this “ought” of how we should and should not act (not a religious moral ethic in this instance), displays that there had to be a designer of this “ought.”
However, I would now like to chime in and say the recent developments of the theory of “social contracts” have really bruised the Lewisian proof, and it would be nonsense not to discuss the point.
Social contracts argue that a moral ethic of how we “ought” to act is wrought in evolutionary psychology wherein it was an evolutionary advantage to not steal and murder and hurt from our fellow species (because the same wont be done to you). And if that mechanism within our brain is existent, this would explain why we do get mad when someone steals our chair…
That said, while Mere Christianity did wonders for my belief system, looking back at his proofs for the existence for God can be somewhat week in light of recent evolutionary research.
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October 2, 2009 at 1:11 am
Jason,
I was trying to view it from the other perspective. If relative morality existed instead of universal morality, then people would make excuses when they break their own morality, or realise about other people’s morality.
Of course, I’m not well versed in relative morality and so could be wrong…
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October 2, 2009 at 1:14 am
Michael – A simple way of “forcing” morality on people is by creating laws.
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October 2, 2009 at 9:56 am
Scott,
I see. Yes, even if morality was relative people would still make excuses for some things. But there wouldn’t be any need for excuses. One could just as well say, “Yeah, I did it. Who cares. It’s not like it’s really wrong or anything. Society or the government may say it’s wrong, but that doesn’t mean anything.” But would anyone respond like that when they betray their friend? No. They try to justify why it was acceptable for them to do so in that particular circumstance. By doing so, however, they are presupposing that we ordinarily have a moral duty not to betray people.
Jason
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October 2, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Jason,
Doesn’t offering excuses show that the individual has violated what other people consider to be moral?
Running for governor in 1998, Dan Lungren made excuses for being pro-life. He basically said “Please excuse me for being pro-life because it’s my religion.” Does that betray the existence of an objective pro-choice moral law?
Arthur
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October 2, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Arthur,
No, no more than my saying “excuse me” for belching.
Jason
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