BERTRAND RUSSELL AND THE PARADOX OF THE COMMITTED EMOTIVIST (original) (raw)
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Notes to Russell on Ethics 2: Meta-Ethics
Pigden, Charles. R. ed. Russell on Ethics, London: Routledge., 1999
Herewith my notes to the second section of Russell on Ethics (9780 words) exploring Russell’s contributions to what we nowadays call Meta-Ethics. These deal with: 1) Russell’s admiring but critical response to Moore’s Principia Ethica. Russell distinguished between the Open Question Argument proper and what I call the Argument from Advocacy or later, following Russell himself, ‘the Barren Tautology Argument’ (See above, ‘Desiring to Desire’). He also challenged Moore’ analytic consequentialism with an argument usually attributed to Ross (though Moore later said print that it was Russell had who convinced him that he was wrong). 2) Russell’s pioneering versions of emotivism and the error theory. In the case of emotivism, his theory is my view markedly superior to those of his better known successors, Stevenson and Ayer. His version of the error theory is undermined by his own semantic commitments, specifically his belief in what he calls the Fundamental Principle. 3) Russell’s neo-Humean wobble from Human Society in Ethics and Politics.
Bertrand Russell: Moral Philosopher or UnPhilosophical Moralist?
2003
I. INTRODUCTION 'I do not myself think very well of what I have said on ethics' wrote Russell in extreme old age (DBR, p. 132). And most subsequent philosophers have agreed with him. Either they do not think very well of what he said or they do not think of it at all. Until very recently, Russell hardly rated a mention in most books and bibliographies on 20th Century ethics. His most anthologized paper on the subject is 'The Elements of Ethics' (1910) in which he expounds, not his own ideas, but the ideas of his colleague and sometime friend, G.E.Moore (PE, ch. 1). Even dedicated Russell fans such as John Slater (Bertrand Russell (1994)) and Anthony Grayling (Russell (1996)) are a bit lukewarm about his theoretical ethics, whilst R.M. Sainsbury in his 'Arguments of the Philosophers' book Russell (1979), is positively dismissive: 'I have left aside his work on moral philosophy, on the grounds that in both its main phases, it is too derivative to justify a discussion of it'. In the first phase, represented by 'The Elements of Ethics' (1910), Sainsbury suggests that Russell's ideas were derived from G.E.Moore, and in the second, represented by Human Society in Ethics and Politics, they were 'close to Hume's, with a dash of emotivism'. (Sainsbury (1979), p. x.) In my view this is a consensus of error. In the latter part of this essay I contend: 1) that Russell's 'work in moral philosophy' had at least three, and (depending how you look at it) up to six 'main phases'; 2 2) that in some of those phases, it was not derivative, but on the contrary, highly original; 3) that Russell was a pioneer of two of the chief forms of ethical anti-realism that have dominated debate in this century, emotivism and the error theory (so that if the theory of HSEP was derived from emotivism, it was derived from a family of theories which Russell helped to create); 4) that the revolt against Hegelianism, which led to the birth of Analytic Philosophy, had an ethical dimension to it; and 5) that Russell played an important part in the debates that led up to Moore's Principia Ethica, the book which he summarizes in 'The Elements of Ethics'.
Notes to Russell on Ethics 1: A Moralist in the Making - the Pre--Principia Writings
Pigden, Charles. R. ed. Russell on Ethics, London: Routledge, 1999
Herewith my notes to the first section of Russell on Ethics, commenting on Russell’s pre-Principia writings on moral philosophy (5671 words). I discuss Russell’s wrestlings with the Dualism of Practical Reasoning and his attempts to deal with the problem with the aid of Absolute Idealism; his attempts to develop what we would now call a meta-ethic; his debates with Moore which may well have played a part in the development of Principa Ethica, and his views on the ethical relevance Psychogony or what we would nowadays call sociobiology.
2007
Russell remains famous as a logician, a metaphysician, and as a philosopher of mathematics, but in his own day he was also notorious for his social and political opinions. He wrote an immense amount about practical ethics-women's rights, marriage and morals, war and peace, and the vexed question of whether socialists should smoke good cigars. (They should.) And unlike present-day practical ethicists (with a few notable exceptions such as Peter Singer) he was widely read by the nonphilosophical public. (See for instance Phillips 2013, which details Russell's successes as a popular moralist in the 1950s.) But though Russell was famous as a moralist and famous as a philosopher, he does not have much of a reputation as a moral philosopher in the more technical sense of the term. Until very recently, his contributions to what is nowadays known as ethical theory-meta-ethics (the nature and justification, if any, of moral judgments) and normative ethics (what makes right acts right etc)were either unknown, disregarded or dismissed as unoriginal. Key texts on the history of twentieth century ethics-Warnock's Ethics Since 1900 (1978), Urmson's The Emotivist Theory of Ethics (1968), Milller's Contemporary Metaethics: an Introduction (2013) and Schroeder's Non-Cognitivism in Ethics (2010)-say nothing, or next to nothing, about Russell, at least in his capacity as a moral philosopher. It is only very recently-in the last fifteen years or so-that ethical theorists have begun to pay attention to him. (See Pigden 2003, 2007 and Potter 2006, though L.W. Aiken 1963 anticipated Potter and Pigden by about forty years.) Perhaps Russell would not have repined, since he professed himself dissatisfied with what he had said "on the philosophical basis of ethics" (RoE: 165/Papers 11: 310). But since he took an equally dim view of what he had read on that topic, the fact that he did not think much of his own 1. The Open Question Argument and its Aftermath: Moore's Influence on Russell 2. Desire, Motivation and the Open Question Argument: Did Russell Influence Moore? 2.1. The Open Question Argument versus the Barren Tautology Argument 2.2. Wrestling With Desire: the Young Russell's Adventures in Meta-Ethics 2.3. Why the Open Question Argument? 3.
Bertrand Russell: The Potential for Ethics Through Authentic Philosophical Enquiry
Violence dominates the landscape of our present world. Prejudice and sectarianism threaten human rights, putting our hopes for the authentic possibility of humane ethical/moral interaction on a global scale in serious question. Ours is a world where epistemological and ethical relativism appear to rule the day. In these extremely hard times, it would benefit us, as philosophers, informed thinkers, and concerned human beings, to revisit with a discerning eye and charitable heart the philosophy of Bertrand Russell, which reminds us in a powerfully persuasive manner just how important philosophy can be in offering hope for a better world during dark, turbulent times. In what follows, I examine the unique way in which Russell responds to the following question: What is philosophy good for, what is the value of philosophy for the world and its inhabitants? His response to these queries resonates with a distinctive ethical tone and timbre.
"MORAL ISSUES IN BERTRAND RUSSELL'S ESSAYS"
isara solutions, 2020
(1872-1970) turned out to be the torch bearer in the twentieth century. Russell did not think there should be separate methods for philosophy. He thought philosophers should strive to answer the most general of propositions about the world and this would help eliminate confusions. In particular, he wanted to end what he saw as the excesses of metaphysics. His influence remains strong in the distinction between two ways in which we can be familiar with objects: knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. Russell was a believer in the scientific method, that science reaches only tentative answers, that scientific progress is piecemeal, and attempts to find organic unities were largely futile. He believed the same was true of philosophy. Russell held that the ultimate objective of both science and philosophy was to understand reality, not simply to make predictions. Moral Issues is one of the coinages of Bertrand Russell which gained great currency in our time. It is a fact that Moral Issues is much older than the label given to it by Bertrand Russell. As a philosophy comprising thoughts and reflections of the creative writer on his own art, it may be traced all the way through the Renaissance and even before to our times. Alfred North Whitehead, his teacher, colleague and in due course collaborator had recommended his scholarship. His many friends, such as the Trevelyan brothers and G. E. Moore, whose philosophy eventually influenced him profoundly. Here, it was that he heard Moore read a paper which began, 'In the beginning was matter, and matter begat the devil and the devil begat God'. 'The paper ended with the death first of God and then of the devil, leaving matter alone as in the beginning' (Autobiography) that influenced Russell the most. Bertrand Russell's dissent and doubt were to extend much further. He inherited a fearless individualism, and the texts which his grandmother inscribed in the fly-leaf of his Bible affected him profoundly: 'Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil' was precisely observed and 'Be strong, and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord Thy God is with Thee where so ever thou goest' was followed in what Russell saw as the cause of humanity rather than the Lord. Along with Moore, Russell then believed that moral facts were objective, but known only through intuition; that they were simple properties of objects, not equivalent (e.g., pleasure is good) to the natural objects to which they are often ascribed and that these simple, undefinable moral properties cannot be analysed using the non-moral properties with which they are associated. In time, however, he came to agree with his philosophical hero, David Hume, who
Bertrand Russell: Meta-ethical Pioneer
he Philosophy of the Social Sciences, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 181-204., 1996
Bertrand Russell was a meta-ethical pioneer, the original inventor of both emotivism and the error theory. Why, having abandoned emotivism for the error theory, did he switch back to emotivism in the 1920s? Perhaps he did not relish the thought that as a moralist he was a professional hypocrite. In addition, Russell's version of the error theory suffers from severe defects. He commits the naturalistic fallacy and runs afoul of his own and Moore's arguments against subjectivism. These defects could be repaired, but only by abandoning Russell's semantics.Russell preferred to revert to emotivism.
Two Arguments for Emotivism and a Methodological Moral
Russell, 2020
In 1913 Russell gave up on the Moorean good. But since naturalism was not an option, that left two alternatives: the error theory and non-cognitivism. Despite a brief flirtation with the error theory Russell preferred the non-cognitivist option, developing a form of emotivism according to which to say that something is good is to express the desire that everyone should desire it. But why emotivism rather than the error theory? Because emotivism sorts better with Russell’s Fundamental Principle that the “sentences we can understand must be composed of words with whose meaning we are acquainted.” I construct an argument for emotivism featuring the Fundamental Principle that closely parallels Ayer’s verificationist argument in Language, Truth, and Logic. I contend that Russell’s argument, like Ayer’s, is vulnerable to a Moorean critique. This suggests an important moral: revisionist theories of meaning such as verificationism and the Fundamental Principle are prima facie false. Any modus ponens from such a principle to a surprising semantic conclusion (such as emotivism) is trumped by a Moorean modus tollens from the negation of the surprising semantics to the negation of the revisionist principle.
Notes to Russell on Ethics 4: The Function of Morality
Pigden, Charles. R. ed. Russell on Ethics, London: Routledge, 1999
This section deals with Russell’s response to the Thrasymachean (and indeed Marxist) thought that what PASSES for justice is OFTEN to the advantage of the stronger. Morality as an institution often serves as an excuse for cruelty and a prop to predatory elites. For the humane moral realist that Russell was in the 1910s, these facts are distressing but of no fundamental significance since the justice which supports the stronger or justifies cruelty is obviously not real justice. However if you are a moral anti-realist (an emotivist or an error theorist) this is a bit more of a worry. If morality is often so pernicious in its effects and we can’t appeal to the TRUE morality to save the day, perhaps we would be better off without it? Russell flirted with what I call ‘humanistic amoralism’ but ultimately plumped for the idea that what we need is a NEW morality rather than NO morality. Why? I suspect that his encounter with the professed amoralism of the Bolshevik leaders had something to do with it. Russell also tries to deal with the Paradox of Enlightenment. The worst kind of power is Naked Power where the rulers rely on force (because the ruled not think that they ought to be obeyed) and when the rulers do not feel bound by traditional moral constraints (because they too are moral skeptics). Thus the critique of traditional moralities (of the kind he was committed to) can lead to the horrors of Naked Power. Russell tries to deal with this difficulty by recommending a humane form of utilitarianism in place of the traditional moralities to be slated for an Enlightened critique.
Problems of Philosophy (Russell) - A critical Review/Essay (Phil.2) [Jun 2017]
This is a review of this very influential “little” book by a man who was one of my early heroes but who fails to deliver convincing argumentation in this (therefore) disappointing book. Professional philosophers like to define philosophy as “thinking about thinking” [see “The Oxford Companion to Philosophy” p. 666 – referred to later as ‘Oxon’] but the practice of philosophy has been an extended attempt by western intellectuals to construct verbal models of the world we live in. Historically, philosophy has focused on three key areas: the nature of the world (metaphysics especially the theory of existence – ontology), the justification of belief (theory of knowledge – epistemology) and the conduct of human affairs (the theory of value – ethics).