バートランド・ラッセル「教師と生徒の意見発表の自由」
* 原著：Sceptical Essays, 1928, chapt. 14: Freedom versus Authority in education.
* 出典：牧野力(編)『ラッセル思想辞典』
以下は牧野力氏による要旨訳（ただし、少し字句を修正）に英文（原文）を添付したものです。
教師と生徒の双方の意見発表の自由は、多様な自由があるなかで、最も重要なものであり、制限をもうける必要のない唯一の自由である。
これに根本的に賛成しないのは人間の信念が疑わしいからである。国家がこの問題に介入するのは、自然にまかせておく自信がないからで、権力行使になる。・・・ニューヨーク州で共産主義を肯定するのは最近まで不法であった。ソ連では共産主義否定は不法である。どちらも独断的な教え方をしている。
真理（truth）と偽りのないこと（truthfulness）との違いは、意見の自由という点で重要で、人間は真理に接近可能でも到達は望めない。だから、教育は証拠に基づいて偽りのないことを教えるべきである。意見を形成し、証拠が保証する度合によって確信を深め、相手の意見を確かめる習慣を養うべきである。科学者は自分の研究成果の「ありうる誤差」を、隠さずに」 述べる。神学者や政治家は全く違う。真偽が分らない事柄を白々しい主張と催眠術で人々に確信させようとする。
政治、宗教、道徳の、三つの例をあげよう。
(1) 米国の経済学の教師は、富豪の富と権力を増す学説を教えるように要求され、従わないとラスキ教授のように解職される。
(2) 有名な知識人の大多数の人々は、自分の収入を失うのを恐れて、キリスト教を信じていない事実を公的には隠す。最も価値ある意見の大半を沈黙させていることになる点が重大である。
(3) 人間はすべて、その生涯のある時期に身持ちが悪いことがあっても隠す。教職の地位につけるのは偽善者だけである。
( Freedom of opinion, on the part of both teachers and pupils, is the most important of the various kinds of freedom, and the only one which requires no limitations whatever. ...
.The fundamental argument for freedom of opinion is the doubtfulness of all our beliefs.... When the State intervenes to ensure the teaching of some doctrine, it does so because there is no conclusive evidence in favour of that doctrine. The result is that teaching is not truthful, even if it should happen to be true. In the State of New York, it was till lately illegal to teach that Communism is good; in Soviet Russia, it is illegal to teach that Communism is bad. No doubt one of these opinions is true and one false, but no one knows which. Either New York or Soviet Russia was teaching truth and proscribing falsehood, but neither was teaching truthfully, because each was representing a doubtful proposition as certain.
The difference between truth and truthfulness is important in this connection. Truth is for the gods; from our human point of view, it is an ideal, towards which we can approximate, but which we cannot hope to reach. Education should fit us for the nearest possible approach to truth, and to do this it must teach truthfulness. Truthfulness, as I mean it, is the habit of forming our opinions on the evidence, and holding them with that degree of conviction which the evidence warrants. This degree will always fall short of complete certainty, and therefore we must be always ready to admit new evidence against previous beliefs. ...
The habit of teaching some one orthodoxy, political, religious, or moral, has all kinds of bad effects. ... I will give three illustrations.
First, as to politics,: a teacher of economics in America is expected to teach such doctrines as will and to the wealth and power of the very rich; if he does not, he finds it advisable to go elsewhere, like Mr. Laski, formerly of Harvard, now one of the most valuable teachers in the London School of Economics.
Secont, as to religion: the immense majority of intellectually eminent men disbelieve the Christian religion, but they conceal the fact in public, because they are afraid of losing their incomes. Thus on the most important of all subjects most of the men whose opinions and arguments would be best worth having are condemned to silence.
Third, as to morals: Practically all men are unchaste at some time of their lives; clearly those who conceal this fact are worse than those who do not, since they add the guilt of hypocrisy. But it is only to the hypocrites that teaching posts are open.
)
