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』- Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954
* 原著:Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954* 邦訳書: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.)
第1章 n.4 |
Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954, chapter 1, n.4 | |||
倫理学を神学から分離することは、科学の場合における類似した分離(科学を神学から分離すること)よりもずっと困難である。確かに、科学は長期にわたる闘争の後にようやく自らを解放した。17世紀後半にいたるまで、魔術を信じない者は無神論者に違いないと一般に思われており、依然として神学的根拠にもとづいて進化論を非難する人々が存在している。しかし、現在、非常に多くの神学者が科学は宗教的信念の根底をゆさぶることはできないということで意見が一致している。 倫理学では事情が異なっている。 多くの伝統的な倫理的概念は解釈が難しく、また、多くの伝統的倫理的信念は神や世界精神、あるいは少なくとも、宇宙に内在する目的(が存在すること)を想定しなくては、正当化するのは困難である。 神学的な根拠がなければそのような解釈や正当化は不可能だとは、私は言わない。しかし、そのような根拠がなければ、伝統的な倫理学の概念は説得力や心理的強制力を失うと言っている(のである)。 |
It may be said that if hopes and desires are fundamental in ethics, then everything in ethics must be subjective, since hopes and desires are so. But this argument is less conclusive than it sounds. The data of science are individual percepts, and these are far more subjective than common sense supposes ; nevertheless, upon this basis the imposing edifice of impersonal science has been built up. This depends upon the fact that there are certain respects in which the percepts of the majority agree, and that the divergent percepts of the colour-blind and the victims of hallucinations can be ignored. It may be that there is some similar way of arriving at objectivity in ethics; if so, since it must involve appeal to the majority, it will take us from personal ethics into the sphere of politics, which is, in fact, very difficult to separate from ethics. The separation of ethics from theology is more difficult than the analogous separation in the case of science. It is true that science has only emancipated itself after a long struggle. Until the latter half of the seventeenth century, it was commonly held that a man who did not believe in witchcraft must be an atheist, and there are still people who condemn evolution on theological grounds, but very many theologians now agree that nothing in science can shake the foundations of religious belief. In ethics the situation is different. Many traditional ethical concepts are difficult to interpret, and many traditional ethical beliefs are hard to justify, except on the assumption that there is a God or a World Spirit or at least an immanent cosmic Purpose. I do not say that these interpretations and justifications are impossible without a theological basis, but I do say that without such a basis they lose persuasive force and the power of psychological compulsion. |