Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
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same grants as married people? The trouble is that onc e a thing is not forbidden, it
may be felt not only to be permitted but to be encouraged. It could be argued that
what the law permits, it approves... It is here, in fact, that the public aspect of
privat e moralit y c omes in. A man c an live his own life, but when he begins
deliberately to alter the lives of others, then a real problem arises, on which we
c annot simply turn our bac ks, and in whic h there is a place for law as the
enc ourager of moralit y.
iii. There is the tension between the individual and the c ommunity. T his is t he
t ension bet ween individualis m and solidarit y. In t he early days of Judaism t here
was suc h solidarit y t hat t he individual as an individual had hardly any independent
existence... They say that to this day if you ask a man in a primitive society what
his name is, he will begin by t elling you, not his name, but his t ribe. But in our t ime
it is t he individual who is st ressed. Self-development, self-expression, self-
realisation have bec ome the watc hwords of modern soc iety. Too muc h law means
t he oblit erat ion of t he individual; t oo muc h individualis m means t he weakening of
law. It so happens t hat t oday we are living in a t ime of individualis m, but a man will
do well to remember that it can never be right to develop himself at the expense of
ot hers.
We may well come to the conclusion that one of the great problems of the
present situation is to adjust the delicate balance between freedom and law, and
between the individual and soc iety. And the only solution is that a man should
disc over what it means t o love his neighbour as himself.