"The mystery of self-deception raises all sorts of questions."

J. Budziszewski, author of The Line Through the Heart: Natural Law as Fact, Theory, and Sign of Contradiction (ISI, 2009) and several other books, is interviewed by Steven McGuire for the Lehrman American Studies Center site. A small excerpt:

 3. You’ve written a lot about the inexpungibility of the natural law. What led you in that direction?

A few moments ago I remarked that in my "ass" phase, I really did know better. For all my self-deception, I hadn’t been able to blot out my conscience; I had only suppressed and obscured it. Discovery of the reality of natural law, then, meant rediscovery of realities that had been pretty obvious all along, but that I had been trying not to see. It seems to me that this phenomenon is quite general. The real difficulty isn’t that there is insufficient light to find our way, but that we shut our eyes to it. The mystery of self-deception raises all sorts of questions. How is it even possible? What motive could we have for it? When we tell ourselves we don’t know what we really do, what happens to us?

4. As a teacher of the natural law, what are some of the challenges you’ve faced in the classroom? Are students open to the idea of natural law? Do they care? How do you attempt to lead them toward the natural law?

I am still finding that out. Some students are not only open to hearing about natural law, but hungry to do so. Others find it offensive, and consider the fact that it offends them a good reason not to inquire into whether it is true. The biggest challenge in teaching is the interweaving of honest confusion with what might be called motivated confusion. One part of us desperately seeks to know; another part desperately tries not to know, because then we may have to change. A good teacher tries to love wisdom, tries to help the wisdom-loving part in his students to look for it, and tries to help the wisdom-hating part in them to see through its own pretensions.

Read the entire interview, which covers a lot of ground not touched on in my March 2010 interview with Budziszewski:



Also see "Objections, Obstacles, Acceptance", an interview with J. Budziszewski about his journey from Episcopalianism to Catholicism.