Lewiss argument for the Law of Human Nature, english assignment help

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Assignment 1: Logic

Read the following excerpts taken from C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity

1. C.S. Lewis’s argument for the Law of Human Nature from Mere Christianity Chapter 1

Each man is at every moment subjected to several different sets of law but there is only one of these which he is free to disobey. As a body, he is subjected to gravitation and cannot disobey it; if you leave him unsupported in mid-air, he has no more choice about falling than a stone has. As an organism, he is subjected to various biological laws which he cannot disobey any more than an animal can. That is, he cannot disobey those laws which he shares with other things; but the law which is peculiar to his human nature, the law he does not share with animals or vegetables or inorganic things, is the one he can disobey if he chooses. 

This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that everyone knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it. They did not mean, of course, that you might not find an odd individual here and there who did not know it, just as you find a few people who are colour-blind or have no ear for a tune. But taking the race as a whole, they thought that the human idea of decent behaviour was obvious to everyone. And I believe they were right. 

….

I know that some people say the idea of a Law of Nature or decent behaviour known to all men is unsound, because different civilisations and different ages have had quite different moralities. But this is not true. There have been differences between their moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference. If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and to our own. Some of the evidence for this I have put together in the appendix of another book called The Abolition of Man; but for our present purpose I need only ask the reader to think what a totally different morality would mean. 

Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to—whether it was only your own family, or your fellow countrymen, or everyone. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired. Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or four. But they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked….It seems, then, we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong. People may be sometimes mistaken about them, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong; but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table. 

2. C.S. Lewis’s Argument for a “Power Behind” the Universe from Mere Christianity, Chapter 4

I now want to consider what [the Law of Human Nature] tells us about the universe we live in. Ever since men were able to think, they have been wondering what this universe really is and how it came to be there. And, very roughly, two views have been held. First, there is what is called the materialist view. People who take that view think that matter and space just happen to exist, and always have existed, nobody knows why; and that the matter, behaving in certain fixed ways, has just happened, by a sort of fluke, to produce creatures like ourselves who are able to think. By one chance in a thousand something hit our sun and made it produce the planets; and by another thousandth chance the chemicals necessary for life, and the right temperature, occurred on one of these planets, and so some of the matter on this earth came alive; and then, by a very long series of chances, the living creatures developed into things like us. 

The other view is the religious view. According to it, what is behind the universe is more like a mind than it is like anything else we know. That is to say, it is conscious, and has purposes, and prefers one thing to another. And on this view it made the universe, partly for purposes we do not know, but partly, at any rate, in order to produce creatures like itself—I mean, like itself to the extent of having minds. …. And note this too. You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense. Science works by experiments. It watches how things behave….But why anything comes to be there at all, and whether there is anything behind the things science observes—something of a different kind—this is not a scientific question. 

If there is "Something Behind," then either it will have to remain altogether unknown to men or else make itself known in some different way …. Now the position would be quite hopeless but for this. There is one thing, and only one, in the whole universe which we know more about than we could learn from external observation. That one thing is Man. 

We do not merely observe men, we are men. In this case we have, so to speak, inside information; we are in the know. And because of that, we know that men find themselves under a moral law, which they did not make, and cannot quite forget even when they try, and which they know they ought to obey….The position of the question, then, is like this. We want to know whether the universe simply happens to be what it is for no reason or whether there is a power behind it that makes it what it is. Since that power, if it exists, would be not one of the observed facts but a reality which makes them, no mere observation of the facts can find it. There is only one case in which we can know whether there is anything more, namely our own case. And in that one case we find there is. 

Or put it the other way round. If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe— no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house. The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way. And that is just what we do find inside ourselves. Surely this ought to arouse our suspicions? 

Using the readings above, respond to the following prompts with a unified, three-paragraph essay (2-3 pages). 

Paragraph 1: In the first excerpt, how does C.S. Lewis use logic to make an argument for the existence of a Law of Human Nature?

Paragraph 2: What significant differences and similarities do you notice between the ways Lewis argues in the first and second excerpts?

Paragraph 3: Drawing on your analyses in parts one and two, make a thoughtful argument about logical persuasion.

Not :

write it in inductive way , which mean you will be in pragraph 1 and 2 specific and 3 will be general conclugion.

paragraph 1 : also how it fit together and what part in his speech is strong and what not .

pragraph 2 : différent and similarité in structure 

collect data using STAR method with is :

S >> stand for sufficient information 

T>> typical 

A>> is the information Accurate

R>>Relevant is the information relevant 


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Explanation & Answer

The document attached here is the final document with all the answers.I have proofread the document and it grammatically correct and also 100% plagiarism free.Thank you for working with me.Goodbye

The Law of Nature

Paragraph 1: In the first excerpt, how does C.S. Lewis use logic to make an argument
for the existence of a Law of Human Nature?
What is logic? Logic is reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles
of validity.
In the excerpt, C.S. Lewis uses logic as follows;
Humans are subjected to a set of laws. Some of which he has no authority over. An example
is the law of gravity. Also as biological organisms, the body of humans obey laws ...


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