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.)
原著者まえがき n.3 |
Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954, Preface | |||
|
"Reason” has a perfectly clear and precise meaning. It signifies the choice of the right means to an end that you wish to achieve. It has nothing whatever to do with the choice of ends. But opponents of reason do not realize this, and think that advocates of rationality want reason to dictate ends as well as means. They have no excuse for this view in the writings of rationalists. There is a famous sentence: "Reason is and ought only to be, the slave of the passions.” This sentence does not come from the works of Rousseau or Dostoevsky or Sartre. It comes from David Hume. It expresses a view to which I, like every man who attempts to be reasonable, fully subscribe. When I am told, as I frequently am, that I "almost entirely discount the part played by the emotions in human affairs,” I wonder what motive-force the critic supposes me to regard as dominant. Desires, emotions, passions (you can choose whichever word you will), are the only possible causes of action. Reason is not a cause of action but only a regulator. If I wish to travel by plane to New York, reason tells me that it is better to take a plane which is going to New York than one which is going to Constantinople. I suppose that those who think me unduly rational, consider that I ought to become so agitated at the airport as to jump into the first plane that I see, and when it lands me in Constantinople I ought to curse the people among whom I find myself for being Turks and not Americans. This would be a fine, full-blooded way of behaving, and would, I suppose, meet with the commendation of my critics. |