"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell
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"Moris should be here soon to rub it in my face..." -Pizza
Neither did Rand. If you had to pigeonhole her beliefs, she would end up as an empiricist. She didn't think you could prove anything without experience, especially ethical valuation. I don't quite understand your argument. How did Russell come to the conclusions he did, if not by reason? Do you suggest there is a completely alogical way of coming to accept ethical principles?
I don't know how Russell came to the conclusions he did, with regard to socialism. I haven't read anything he wrote on politics.
When it comes to ethics, I draw heavily from Aristotle and Hume. Moral values are emotional values gained through habit, not rationally defensible principles gained through observation.
I assume that Russell came to accept socialism because some aspect of it felt right to him, on the basis of his values.
Ethics is a tricky discipline. I should draw a distinction between how humans do, in fact, come to make ethical judgments, and how humans should make rational judgments regarding ethical matters. Some objective, rationally defensible principle must guide decisions at this level, but instead people generally "go with their gut," including respected ethicists. I have suggested before that this objective standard should be survival ability and reproductive fitness, but I am unsure whether this can be successfully defended.
If I have misunderstood Ayn Rand's epistemology, forgive me. She speaks with the unwavering authority of a logician, and not the cautious and qualified rigor of an empiricist.
This thread should be more about Russell's atheism than his socialism. He was brave to say all that in 1959, and I love how he can be gracious in his responses while standing resolute in his belief (or disbelief, as it were).
Aristotle was not an emotionalist. He did believe that morality came out as a practice of habit, but he didn't believe the source of it was in our sentiments alone. He based it on happiness. Hume simply based it on a somewhat relativistic framework of what feels right, what a particular society agrees to etc. A lot of this crap left over from Hume is why I don't want to bother with ethics much at all.
I don't expect you to know of Rand's epistemology that well, so no biggie. However, she believed that all knowledge to be gained must come first through the senses.
I admire Russell for a great deal. His atheism is minute, his courage in general is admirable. I know he wrote and also spoke out "Why I Am Not a Christian" long before this interview too. I'm not sure if people took their religion as seriously back then as they do now, though. I think religion was more widely believed in, but taken less seriously.
I'm not sure what an "emotionalist" is, but that part of my sentence came from Hume, not Aristotle. Hume viewed morality as coming in large part from "the passions" or emotions. Because of this, he believe that ethics was not entirely a rational enterprise. Linking this to Aristotle, I posit that these "passions" are habits formed in childhood or even through natural selection (in which case "habit" should be replaced with "instinct").
It's true that fundamentalism, both in Christianity and Islam, occurred mostly after Russell's time. He was still one of the first to come out and say "God is not real" rather than just "I question the divinity of Christ" or some other halfway compromises made my atheists to theists. Deism, for instance, is in my opinion an early expression of atheism, rather than a sincere attempt at theology. Russell and others in the early 20th century cut away all the nonsense and denied God in plain language.
Russell had something that I think is lacking in the most public of atheists today: restraint. Perhaps in response to the fundamentalists, people like Dawkins have turned to vitriol in the public debate. I don't mean to say this is wrong or imprudent, but I wish we lived in a world where believers and non-believers could intelligently discuss these matters. Whoever that woman interviewing Russell was, she was clearly (I think) a Christian, and yet was supremely deferential and respectful of Russell. How many Christian commentators would show Dawkins or Dennett that level of respect?
