J. Budziszewski reflects on how what we want is not the same as who we are.
“I couldn’t help seducing my best friend’s wife. It’s just my nature.”
“I’m a hothead. I admit it. I was born that way. Deal with it.”
“You say I’m a liar, but I say you’re a loser. I’m good at lying, and I play the game with whatever nature gave me.”
“I’m a woman in a man’s body. Stop denying my reality.”
Popular culture drums into us the theme that each person’s nature is different. So far, we are oddly selective. For example, the idea of a promiscuous nature is greeted much more warmly than the idea of an adulterous one. Still, if we can have different natures, then how can we be measured by the same natural law?
People are different. From the fact that their personalities are different, though, it doesn’t follow that their natures are different. The virtues are good for all human beings; the vices are bad for all of them. If, for example, I have stronger inclinations to philandering, bad temper or drunkenness than you do, that doesn’t show that I have a different nature or a different virtue than you do, but that I have a character defect. If so, then truly “affirming” me wouldn’t mean encouraging my disordered desires, but encouraging me to keep them in check.
