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.)
『ヒューマン・ソサエティ』第7章:罪 n.8 |
Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954, chapter 7: Sin, n.8 | |||
|
It is difficult to know exactly what is meant by this statement, owing to the qualifications with which it is introduced. By the “psychical” definition of religion the author means, as he has previously explained, whatever a man accepts in the way of religion, and not only what Christians regard as true religion. But it is not clear what is meant by “feeling no religious sentiment of any sort”. I myself have “sentiments” -- emotions and moral convictions -- which are apt to be associated with Christian beliefs, but I have no “ideas of deity or of the super-natural”. I am not quite sure, therefore, whether, in Dr. Tennant’s view, I am or am not capable of “sin”. Nor am I sure whether, in my own view, there is a valid concept deserving to be called “sin”. I know that certain acts, if I perform them, fill me with shame. I know that I find cruelty detestable and that I wish it did not exist; I know that failure to use to the full such talents as I may possess would feel to me like treachery to an ideal.' But I am by no means certain how to rationalize these feelings, nor whether, if I succeeded in rationalizing them, the result would afford a definition of “sin". * Op. cit, p. 216 . |