Saturday, March 13, 2010

resolving moral conflicts

Unless you have been trained in the areas where the commandments clearly apply, you are really not prepared to deal with a conflict situation. Unless you are trained in the value of truthfulness, unless you are used to telling the truth, and unless veracity is one of your personal characteristics, you will not see the dilemma when protection of innocent life is at stake. If you lie every day for convenience, then it is certainly not going to be a problem to lie for some beneficial purpose. So, it is only people who have been trained in veracity and truthfulness who, when they are faced with this dilemma in an emergency situation, recognize it is a dilemma.

- David Jones, Christian Ethics, Lecture 13