バートランド・ラッセル『ヒューマン・ソサエティ-倫理学から政治学へ』(邦訳書)第1章 - 冒頭
* 出典:バートランド・ラッセル(著),勝部真長・長谷川鑛平(共訳)『ヒューマン・ソサエティ-倫理学から政治学へ-』(玉川大学出版部,1981年7月刊。268+x pp.)* 原著:Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954
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* これは附番を間違えたもの → https://russell-j.com/cool/47T-introduction-01.htm に変更!
人間は情熱的で,強情で,かなり狂気じみている。その狂気によって人間は自らの上に,また他のひとびとの上に災害をもたらすのであるが,その災害たるや,すこぶる規模の大きなものにもなりかねない。しかし,衝動に駆られる生活は,危険ではあるが,人間の生存がもしその妙味を失うべきでないとすれば,どうしても温存しておいてやらなくてはならない。衝動と抑制という両極の間に,人間が幸福に生き得る拠りどころとしての倫理は,ぜひともひとつの中間点を見出さなくてはならない。人間の本性の奥底にこのような葛藤があればこそ,倫理学への希求が生まれるのである。 人間はその衝動と欲望とが他のどの動物よりも複雑であって,しかもその複雑さからもろもろの困難が生じている。人間は,アリやミツバチのように完全に群居的でもなければ,ライオンや虎のようにまったく孤立的というのでもない。人間は半群居的動物である。人間の衝動・欲望には,社会的なものもあれば孤立的なものもある。人間本性の社会的な面は,独房監禁が最も厳しい処罰形式であるという事実にあらわれており,もう一つの面は,プライバシーを好んで,見知らぬ人に話しかけたがらないところに,あらわれている。グレアム・ウォラス(Graham Wallas, 1858-1932:イギリスの政治学者,社会学者)は,そのすぐれた著書『政治における人間本性』(Human Nature in Politics, 1908)において,ロンドンのような過密地域に住んでいるひとびとは,不本意な過度の人間的接触から,自らを守ろうという社会的行動の防衛機構を発達させていると指摘している。バスや郊外電車で隣り合わせて坐るひとびとは,普通は,互いに話しかけない。しかし,空襲とか,ないし異常濃霧などの,何か警戒を要する事件が発生すると,とたんに見知らぬ者同士が互いを仲間と感じ始め,遠慮なく話し合い始める。このような行動は,人間本性が私的側面と社会的側面との間を揺れ動いていることの例証となる。われわれが完全に社会的であるとはいえないからこそ,われわれは,目的を示唆する倫理と,行為のルールを教示する道徳綱領とを必要とするのである。アリにはどうやらそんな必要はないようである,アリはつねにコミュニティの利益の命ずるままに行動するからである。 |
THE Iife of man may be viewed in many different ways. He may be viewed as one species of mammal and considered in a purely biological light. From this point of view his success has been overwhelming. He can live in all climates and in every part of the world where there is water. His numbers have increased and are increasing still faster. He owes his success to certain things which distinguish him from other animals: speech, fire, agriculture, writing, tools, and large-scale co-operation. It is in the matter of co-operation that he fails of complete success. Man, like other animals, is filled with impulses and passions which, on the whole, ministered to survival while man was emerging. But his intelligence has shown him that passions are often self-defeating, and that his desires could be more satisfied, and his happiness more complete, if certain of his passions were given less scope and others more. Man has not viewed himself at most times and in most places as a species competing with other species. He has been interested, not in man, but in men; and men have been sharply divided into friends and enemies. At times this division has been useful to those who emerged victorious: for example, in the conflict between white men and red Indians. But as intelligence and invention increase the complexity of social organization, there is a continual growth in the benefits of co-operation, and a continual diminution of the benefits of competition. Ethics and moral codes are necessary to man because of the conflict between intelligence and impulse. Given intelligence only, or impulse only, there would be no place for ethics. Men are passionate, headstrong, and rather mad. By their madness they inflict upon themselves, and upon others, disasters which may be of immense magnitude. But, although the life of impulse is dangerous, it must be preserved if human existence is not to lose its savour. Between the two poles of impulse and control, an ethic by which men can live happily must find a middle point. It is through this conflict in the inmost nature of man that the need for ethics arises. Man is more complex in his impulses and desires than any other animal, and from this complexity his difficulties spring. He is neither completely gregarious, like ants and bees, nor completely solitary, like lions and tigers. He is a semi-gregarious animal. Some of his impulses and desires are social, some are solitary. The social part of his nature appears in the excellence, one social, fact that solitary confinement is a very severe form of punishment; the other part appears in love of privacy and unwillingness to speak to strangers. Graham Wallas, in his excellent book Human Nature in Politics, points out that men who live in a crowded area such as London develop a defence mechanism of social behaviour designed to protect them from an unwelcome excess of human contacts. People sitting next to each other in a bus or a suburban train usually do not speak to each other, but if something alarming occurs, such as an air raid or even an unusually thick fog, the strangers at once begin to feel each other to be friends and converse without restraint. This sort of behaviour illustrates the oscillation between the private and the social parts of human nature. It is because we are not most of their acts are completely social that we have need of ethics to suggest purposes, and of moral codes to inculcate rules of action. Ants, it seems, have no such need: they behave always as the interests of their community dictate. |