 Bertrand Russell Quotes 366 |
Every man, of necessity, is actuated by his own desires, whatever they may be, but there is no reason why his desires should all be self-centred. Nor is it always the case that desires concerned with other people will lead to better actions than those that are more egoistic. A painter, for example, may be led by family affection to paint pot-boilers, but it might be better for the world if he painted masterpieces and let his family suffer the discomforts of comparative poverty. It must be admitted, however, that the immense majority of mankind have a bias in favour of their own satisfactions, and that one of the purposes of morality is to diminish the strength of this bias.
Source： Bertrand Russell: Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954, chapter 13: Ethical Sanctions, n.3
More info.:
* a brief comment
When the word ‘bias’ is mentioned, we tend to translate it as ‘prejudice (henken)’ and both the free version of DeepL and ChatGPT translate it as ‘henken’. (The paid version might translate it correctly.) The word ‘bias’ should be translated as ‘tendency’, otherwise the nuance of what Russell is trying to say will not be conveyed. Here are two examples from Russell's text where translating ‘bias’ as ‘prejudice’ instead of ‘tendency’ would make the meaning unclear.
Example 1: Even in purely intellectual matters it is possible to have a constructive or a destructive bias.
Example 2: In spite of strong bias towards empiricism, I could not believe that ‘two plus two equals four’ is an inductive generalisation from experience, but I remained in doubt as to everything beyond this purely negative conclusion.
* Amazon Gift Card
