Explaining Russell’s Views on Ethics

Abstract

92 Reviews EXPLAINING RUSSELL’S VIEWS ON ETHICS Gülberk Koç Philosophy / McMaster U. Hamilton, on, Canada, l8s 4k1 kocg@univmail.cis.mcmaster.ca Osman Elmalı. Bertrand Russell’da Ahlak Felsefesi [Bertrand Russell’s Moral Phi­ losophy]. İstanbul: Ataç Yayınları, 2005. In Turkish. Pp. 204. Price 10 try (us$6.90). December 2, 2009 (5:28 pm) E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE2901\russell 29,1 060 red.wpd E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE2901\russell 29,1 060 red.wpd Reviews 93 Osman Elmalı’s book on Russell’s ethics is a well-structured, faithful expo­ sition of Russell’s views; however, it is not a critical one. Elmalı’s book is divided into two sections. The Wrst section is an exposition of the theoretical foundations of Russell’s ethics; the second, an overview of Russell’s views on various issues of applied ethics, such as the family, marriage, children, sex, hap­ piness, population, and war. The author has divided Russell’s work on metaethics into three periods, more or less in line with how the literature on Russell’s ethics does.1 The Wrst period up until the First World War is the intuitionist period. Elmalı explains Russell’s view that there are objective moral truths, as presented in his “The Elements of Ethics”.2 The second period, the emotivist period, starts around 1914.3 Emo­ tivism is the view that moral judgments are mere expressions of our emotions. The end of the Second World War marks the start of the third period, according to Elmalı. The main work representative of this period of Russell’s ethics is Human Society in Ethics and Politics.4 Following Pigden, Elmalı notes that this work is characterized with an objective stand, even though the belief that ethics is based on feelings and emotions is retained. In his early intuitionist period, Russell holds that the good must be indeWnable ; it must not be deWned in terms of its consequences or the happiness it brings about. If an action is good it should be good in itself. Russell gives several arguments for this view in the “Elements” (pp. 19–20; Papers 6: 221–2). Elmalı explains these arguments, but he does not discuss how, if at all, Russell refuted or could have refuted these arguments in his later period when he abandoned intuitionism. Elmalı, nevertheless, explains the reasons that Russell gives against intuition as a source of knowledge in Mysticism and Logic (1918) and Our Knowl­ edge of the External World (1914). When discussing the alleged relationship between what exists and what is good or bad, Russell argues that nothing can be inferred as to what is good or bad from what exists and what does not exist. And nor are there any self-evident propositions about the goodness or badness of what does and what does not exist (“Elements”, Papers 6: 223). But Elmalı mistakes Russell, and even Moore, to mean there are no self-evident propositions at all (Elmalı, p. 67). In fact, Moore claims that fundamental ethical principles are self-evident, not in the 1 Charles R. Pigden, ed., Russell on Ethics: Selections from the Writings of Bertrand Russell (London: Routledge, 1999); Michael K. Potter, Bertrand Russell’s Ethics (London: Continuum, 2006). 2 “The Elements of Ethics”, in Philosophical Essays (London: Routledge, 2003 (1910)); Papers 6: 217–50. 3 This period is divided into two by Pigden and Potter, as early emotivism and mature emotivism; the latter is best formulated in Religion and Science (1935). 4 London: George Allen and Unwin, 1954. December 2, 2009 (5:28 pm) E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE2901\russell 29,1 060 red.wpd E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE2901\russell 29,1 060 red.wpd 94 Reviews sense that they are true because they are evident to you or to me, but in the sense that they are true on their own, that is, not deduced or inferred from any other propositions.5 As for Russell’s views on normative ethics, Elmalı observes that in both the Wrst and third periods of his ethical thought, Russell factored in the conse­ quences of an action in determining what is good (p. 114). First, Russell in the Wrst period claims that consequences...