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.)
第1章 n.5 |
Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954, chapter 1, n.5 | |||
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It has always been one of the favourite arguments of the orthodox that without religion men would become wicked. The nineteenth-century British freethinkers, from Bentham to Henry Sidgwick, vehemently repudiated this argument, and their repudiation gained force from the fact that they were among the most virtuous men that have ever existed. But in the modern world, which has been shocked by the excesses of totalitarians who professed themselves unbelievers, the virtues of Victorian agnostics seem less conclusive, and may even be attributed to imperfect emancipation from the Christian tradition. The whole question whether ethics, in any socially adequate form, can be independent of theology, must therefore be re-examined, with more awareness of the deep possibilities of evil than was to be found among our grandfathers, who were kept cozy by their comfortable belief in rational progress. |