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.I care a bit about it, CHAPTER 29: ON FORGETTING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG 403and you care much more.But this does not involve that you know moredifferences between right and wrong than I do, if this makes any sense,or that you know the difference better, if this makes any sense.Similarly,a specimen of Shakespeare s literary genius may please me while itthrills you.We appreciate the same excellence, though we are unequallyappreciative of it.So even if, in some domains, to teach is, inter alia, tokindle, still we do not think of what is taught as varying in magnitudewith the heat of the fire.The match is the same, but the fuels are different.One last point.In most fields instructors can misinstruct.I may betaught that the Battle of Hastings was fought in 1077, and I may be taughtto grip fiercely my billiard cue and my steering wheel.While I retain faithin my instructor, I shall still claim to know the date of the battle and toknow how to control the cue and the steering wheel; but, when I havelearned better, I shall agree that I had not formerly known the date of thebattle or how to control the cue or the wheel.I have to unlearn what I wasoriginally taught.There is no difficulty in conceiving of misinstruction in the particulararticles of codes of etiquette.A boy might well be trained to remainrespectfully hatted in a lady s drawing-room and punctiliously to end hisletters to tradesmen with Yours sincerely.Nor is there much difficulty inconceiving of misinstruction in some of the bylaws of morality.Somepeople used scrupulously to pay all their gambling debts before paying offany of their debts to servants and tradesmen.Their consciences had beeneducated to insist on this priority.But there is a difficulty in conceiving of a person s being taught to beselfish, deceitful, cruel, and lazy on principle; to be morally shocked atexhibitions of fair-mindedness; or scrupulously to make reparations forhis backslidings into unselfishness.The notion of moral non-educationis familiar enough, but the notion of moral miseducation has a smellof absurdity.There is a whiff of the same smell of absurdity in the notionof the would-be connoisseur of wines or engravings being mis-taught,taught, that is, to relish wines for their immaturity or to admire engravingsfor their smudginesses.However, the smell of absurdity is less strong here.The Albert Memorial does seem to have been admired for its architecturalbadnesses.The oddness, if it exists, in the idea of moral miseducation might beone source of the strength of the notion of the Moral Law.But to follow upthis train of thought would seduce me into talking Ethics. 30A PUZZLING ELEMENT IN THENOTION OF THINKINGReprinted from Proceedings of the British Academy , vol.xliv, 1958, Oxford UniversityPress, by permission of the British AcademyUsually when we philosophers discuss questions about thinking, we con-centrate, for very good reasons, upon what people do or might think; thatis, on the opinions that they form, the beliefs that they have, the theoriesthat they construct, the conclusions that they reach and the premissesfrom which they reach them.In a word, our usual questions are questionsabout the truths or falsehoods that people do or might accept.Theirthoughts, of which we discuss the structures, the implications and theevidential backings, are the results in which their former ponderings andcalculations have terminated.For when a person knows or believes thatsomething is the case, his knowledge or belief is something that he nowhas or possesses, and the pondering which got him there is now over.While he is still wondering and pondering, he is still short of his destin-ation.When he has settled his problem, his task of trying to settle it isfinished.It should not be forgotten that some of the problems that we have to tryto settle are not theoretical problems but practical problems.We have totry to decide what to do, as well as try to decide what is the case.Thesolution of a problem is not always a truth or a falsehood.We should not assume, either, that all thinking is trying to settle CHAPTER 30: A PUZZLING ELEMENT IN THE NOTION OF THINKING 405problems, whether theoretical or practical.This would be too restrictive.Aperson is certainly thinking when he is going over a poem that he knowsperfectly, or dwelling on the incidents of yesterday s football match.Hehas, or need have, no problems to solve or results to aim at.Not all of ourwalks are journeys.Lastly, we should not assume that all or even most of the truths orfalsehoods that are ours are the fruits of our own ponderings.Fortunatelyand unfortunately, a great part of what we believe and know we have takenover from other people.Most of the things that we know we have notdiscovered for ourselves, but have been taught.Most of the things thatwe believe we believe simply because we have been told them
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