Choices by Lewis Smedes, Chapter 1 "What's Good About Being Right?"

Choices by Lewis Smedes, Chapter 1

Posted by Sarah M. White  

Here We Go 

Welcome to week 1 of the Choices series, where I hope that we can all learn how to think better. If you missed the intro/rationale post, read it here. For every chapter, I'll provide a brief summary of the key points of the text and some discussion. The parts of the summary that are relevant to the discussion will be in this color of green, so pay attention. Haha. If you're reading the book along with me, please introduce yourself in the comments so I can read subsequent chapters with you in mind. And if you haven't gotten the book yet, there's still plenty of time to get a copy and join in : ) 

Chapter 1 "What's Good About Being Right?"

There are plenty of ways to be wrong and right, but morality is a special kind of being right that means "treating people fairly and lovingly" (18). 

In Chapter 1, Smedes introduces the concept of morality by telling a story about a guy on a bus knocking an old lady out of the way so that he could get to the last empty seat first. He explains that there are plenty of ways to be wrong, like legally, economically, aesthetically, psychologically, etc., but that these ways of being wrong are not quite the same as being morally wrong, which he defines as "treating people unfairly and unlovingly" (17). A morally wrong behavior is one that ought not to be done by anyone, anywhere (17). Morality, on the other hand, "respects people's rights and cares for people's needs" (18). 

Pleasing people and being morally right are not the same thing. 

You can be morally right and still upset people. You can feel guilty for displeasing people without being morally wrong. "Being good to people does not always make them feel good" (18). 

Moral right and wrong are real, and they exist outside of and independently from our beliefs about moral right and wrong. 

Some things are just plain wrong. He brings up an example of terrorists hijacking a plane and says that the terrorists think they are right and you think they are wrong. He asks, "Does the fact that you and the terrorists do not see eye to eye mean that neither of you can be correct?" (19). (The answer is NO). He goes on to say, "the worst thing we can do for the human family, in my opinion, is to leave right and wrong up to everybody's sovereign gut feelings" (19). 

Our ability to sense the moral dimension in life is part of what it means to be human and created in God's image (19-20). 

However, not everything in life is a moral issue (20). 

Some things matter more than other things; some wrongs are worse than other wrongs, some rights are better or more important than others. 

Smedes warns of the dangers of black and white thinking and of treating all moral offenses with the same weight (21).

Morality and God 

Two beautiful thoughts here in the last few paragraphs. First, since God is love, "when we choose to live by his intelligent design we are also choosing what is best for us all in the long run" (21). And, "morality is... a signal pointing us to what is best for our true selves" (21). 

Discussion 

*These are my thoughts now, not book summary. 

Right and wrong up to the gut feeling? (first green highlight)

This book was originally published in 1986, but I think if he had written it recently, he would have had much more to say about this point. In 2020, it feels like American culture at large fully subscribes to "do what feels right." It's everywhere. Why might he call this "the worst thing we can do for the human family"? 

Some wrongs are worse than other wrongs (second green highlight)

This one was hard for me to accept at first. If you've met me in person, you might know that I like to be right. It's better to be good and right in everything. So, when anything, even a small thing, is wrong, it's just wrong. I don't rearrange the dirty silverware in the dishwasher... everyday haha. But in my mind, any wrong should be righted. So, this idea that some wrongs are worse than other wrongs means that some wrongs aren't that bad. This is hard to accept. But, it's also a little bit freeing in the sense that it means I don't have to get so upset about every single wrong I see around me every day. I can definitely start to let some things go. 

However, in this scenario, isn't it better to apply the principle that not every wrong (ie dishwasher wrongs) is a moral wrong? What does it mean that some specifically moral wrongs are worse than others? For the examples he gave, how is he determining which one is the worse wrong? The number of people that are affected? The depth of the harm that is done to the person in question? I hope he covers this more in future chapters because this is one of our biggest problems today-- not knowing how to evaluate which is the worse wrong morally. 

What do YOU think? 

Chime in with your thoughts on this chapter. If you're reading along at home, introduce yourself!