Three Philosophies of Life

Having come loose from our moral moorings in this brave new world, we find ourselves adrift in uncharted seas and have decided to toss away the compass. Peter Kreeft, in his Three Philosophies of Life, stated it very succinctly:

Ancient ethics always dealt with three questions. Modern ethics deals with only one, or at the most, two. The three questions are like the three things a fleet of ships is told by its sailing orders. [The metaphor is from C. S. Lewis.) First, the ships must know how to avoid bumping into each other. This is social ethics, and modern as well as ancient ethicists deal with it. Second, they must know how to stay shipshape and avoid sinking. This is individual ethics, virtues and vices, character-building, and we hear very little about this from our modern ethical philosophies. Third, and most important of all, they must know why the fleet is at sea in the first place ... I think I know why modern philosophers dare not raise this greatest of questions: because they have no answer to it.

Extracted from Ravi Zacharias’ Deliver Us from Evil.