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』13-07- 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.)
『ヒューマン・ソサエティ』第13章:倫理的制裁 n.7 |
Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954, chapter 13: Ethical Sanctions, n.7 | |||
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Individual desires, which determine individual conduct, can themselves be modified to a very great extent by education, fashion, and opportunity. It is clear that such modification, in so far as it is deliberate, should be in the direction of making individual desires as far as possible in conformity with the general good. To a very great extent this happens in all civilized communities. The butcher and the baker minister to my happiness, not because they love me, but because the economic system makes what serves me useful to them. There are however in every community a greater or smaller number of people who are actuated by socially undesirable motives of hatred, or anger, or envy, or direct impulse to violence. It should be the business of psychologists and others to ascertain the causes of anti-social impulses and to endeavour to remove them. This is a matter to be treated by the methods of the scientist, rather than by those of the traditional moralist. Traditional moralists have believed too much in the efficacy of preaching and explicit exhortation, and too little in the scientific investigation of psychological causation. This has been bound up with an undue emphasis upon sin and free-will. Many character defects are as little to be cured by preaching as are bodily ailments. It is difficult to set limits to what could be done in the way of moral improvement of individuals if the matter were studied with the same care and in the same spirit with which the medical profession studies physical health. |