The Long Quote

 On Pages 254 and 255 of his book, BEYOND ORDER 12 MORE RULES FOR LIFE, Jordan Peterson describes our moral duty as well as I have ever see it laid out: ". . . Not only do our choices play a determining role in transforming the multiplicity of the future into the actuality of the present, but--more specifically--the ethics of our choices play that role. Actions based on the desire to take responsibility; to make things better; to avoid temptation and face what we would rather avoid; to act voluntarily, courageously, and truthfully--these make what comes into Being much better, in all ways, for ourselves and for others, that what arises as a consequence of avoidance, resentment, the search for revenge, or the desire for mayhem. This means that if we act ethically, in the deepest and most universal senses, then the tangible reality that emerges from the potential we face will be good instead of dreadful--or at least as good as we can make it."

My response: Jordan is warning each of us that everything we do personally and collectively matters--we have real input and impact on what the future will be--will we make it a bit more heavenly or a bit more hellish? We will choose how we will influence the world, and our choices directly shape that future, the coming world.

Jordan continues: "Everyone seems to know this. We are universally tormented by our consciences for what we know we should have done yet did not do. We are tormented equally by what we did but know we should not have done. Is this not a universal experience? Can anyone escape the pangs of conscience at four o'clock in the morning after acting immorally and destructively, or failing to act when action was necessary? And what is the source for that inescapable conscience? If we were the source of our own values and masters of our own houses, then we could act or fail to act as we choose and not suffer the pangs of regret, sorrow and shame. But I have never met anyone that could manage that. Even the most psychopathic of people seems motivated at least to mask their malfeasance with a layer of lies (with the depth of that layer precisely proportionate to the severity of the impropriety in question). Even the most malevolent, it appears, must find justification for his or her evil."

My response: Jordan is accurate in premising that each person in naturally/supernaturally equipped with a conscience. God's voice always wells up from within us, especially when we fall short, or fail to do our duty.

This universal conscience that we are born with is why Jordan scoffs at Nietzsche's and my claim that we can create our own values. I still think I am right, but the values an individuator would construct would not much conflict with supernatural voice of God welling up within us. Indeed, our new values would build on old ones as hand in glove as the New Testament builds upon but does not replace the Old Testament.

Jordan also nails down the close kinship between the concepts of good, conscience, godliness, and truth. Note how the evildoer must lie to bury but not extinguish his critical conscience still barking at him for his voluntary misdeeds and rebellion against the Mother and Father.