Moral Habits

“The time has come for us to relearn many of the moral habits that came so naturally to our ancestors but have come to seem strange to us. We will have to rebuild families and communities and voluntary organisations. We will come to depend more on networks of kinship and friendship. And we will rapidly discover that their very existence depends on what we give as well as what we take, on our willingness to shoulder duties, responsibilities, and commitments as well as claiming freedoms and rights. The “I–It” relationship of taxation and benefit will increasingly be replaced by the “I–Thou” of fellowship and community. And we may well come to see that the eclipse of personal morality that dominated the consciousness of a generation was a strange and passing phase in human affairs, and not the permanent revolution many thought it to be.”

Morality, p. 318