Russell on Ethics: Selections from the Writings of Bertrand Russell

273 Pages·1999·1.1 MB·English

by  Bertrand Russell

RUSSELL ON ETHICS
Russell on Ethics presents a coherent and comprehensive selection of
Bertrand Russell’s writings on ethics, many of which have been
previously unavailable to students and general readers. Charles
Pigden provides an accessible introduction, situating the papers
within the field of ethics as a whole, together with a detailed set of
annotations, analysing Russell’s arguments and exploring their rele-
vance to current concerns. Russell on Ethics provides a valuable
insight into Bertrand Russell as an ethicist that will be useful to
both specialist and non-specialist alike.
Charles R. Pigden is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of
Philosophy, University of Otago, New Zealand. He is the author of
anumberofpapersonBertrandRussellandonmeta-ethicsgenerally,
including the chapter ‘Naturalism’ in Peter Singer’s prize-winning
A Companion to Ethics(Oxford 1991).
RUSSELL ON…
General editor’s introduction
A. C. Grayling
Russell achieved public fame – often enough, notoriety – because of
his engagement in social and political debates, becoming known to
a wide audience as a philosopher in the popular sense of the term.
But his chief contributions, the ones that have made a permanent
difference to the history of thought, lie in logic and philosophy; and
they are such that his influence both on the matter and style of
twentieth-century philosophy, principally in its Anglophone form,
is pervasive. Elsewhere I have described his contribution as consti-
tuting the ‘wall-paper’ of analytic philosophy, in the sense that his
successors ‘use techniques and ideas developed from his work
without feeling the need – sometimes without recognizing the need
– to mention his name; which is influence indeed’.
Russell devoted much attention to central technical questions in
philosophical logic, epistemology and metaphysics. He also wrote
extensively and forcefully about moral, religious and political ques-
tions in ways not merely journalistic. Much of his work in all these
areastooktheformofessays.Somehaveofcoursebeenfamouslycol-
lected, constituting a fundamental part of the canon of twentieth-
century analytic philosophy. But there are many more riches in his
copious output, their value to some degree lost because they have
not hitherto been collected and edited in such a way as to do justice
to the development and weight of his thinking about these subjects.
This series, in bringing together Russell’s chief writings on major
subject areas in an editorial frame that locates and interprets them
fully, aims to remedy that lack and thereby to make a major contri-
bution both to Russell scholarship and to contemporary analytic
philosophy.
RUSSELL ON
ETHICS
Selections from the writings of
Bertrand Russell
Edited by Charles R. Pigden
*
I
m
London and New York
First published 1999
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016
Transferred to Digital Printing 2009
© 1999 selection and editorial matter Charles R. Pigden
© Chapters 21, 23, 27, 29 and 30 The Bertrand Russell Peace
Foundation Ltd
© Chapters 1–18, 22, 24–26 and 28 McMaster University
© Chapter 19 Oxford University Press
© Chapter 20 Open Court Publishing Company, La Salle, Illinois
Typeset in Garamond by Routledge
The right of Charles R. Pigden to be identified as the Editor of this
Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Russell, Bertrand, 1872–1970
Russell on ethics: selections from the writings of Bertrand Russell
Russell / edited by Charles R. Pigden
Includes bibliographical references and index
1. Ethics, Modern – 20th century.
I. Pigden, Charles R. 1956– II. Title
B1649.R91P547 1998 97-42586
170’.92–dc21 CIP
ISBN 0–415–15659–9 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–15660–2 (pbk)
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO
MY MOTHER AND FATHER,
JEAN AND CHARLES PIGDEN
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CONTENTS
Preface and acknowledgements xi
Introduction 1
PART I
A moralist in the making: the pre-Principiawritings 25
1 Greek exercises 27
2 On the foundations of ethics 31
3 The relation of what ought to be to what is, has been
or will be 37
4 The relation of rule and end 41
5 On the definition of virtue 44
6 The ethical bearings of psychogony 48
7 Ethical axioms 53
8 Cleopatra or Maggie Tulliver? 57
9 Are all desires equally moral? 68
10 Is ethics a branch of empirical psychology? 71
11 Seems Madam? Nay, it is 79
12 Was the world good before the sixth day? 87
vii
CONTENTS
PART II
Meta-ethics 93
13 The meaning of good 95
14 On scientific method in philosophy 105
15 War and non-resistance: a rejoinder to Professor
Perry 111
16 Controversy with ‘North Staffs’ 114
17 Is there an absolute good? 119
18 What I believe 125
19 Science and ethics 131
20 Reply to criticisms 145
21 A compromise solution? 151
22 Last perplexities 164
PART III
Reasons and the passions 167
23 Reason: the slave of the passions 169
PART IV
The function of morality 175
24 The development of morals 177
25 What is morality? 184
Interlude 1: a new morality versus nomorality 189
26 A Russian communist philosopher 194
27 Power and moral codes 204
viii
CONTENTS
PART V
Contemplation and the good life 221
Interlude 2: Spinoza and the ethic of impersonal
self-enlargement 223
28 The good of the intellect 225
29 On the ethical importance of scientific realism 227
30 The Spinozistic outlook 233
Bibliography 236
Index 244
ix