Bertrand Russel and His Ethics

BERTRAND RUSSELL AND HIS ETHICS - SOME
MISCONCEPTIONS

Dr. C. Jacob

The misconceptions about Bertrand Russell’s life, character, personality and ethics can be removed if we read his Autobiography. Many people have second-hand information that Russell had sexual weaknesses and that he advocated free sex and that he married many women divorcing one after another and that he founded nude societies and that he walked naked in the streets of London, etc. If we wish to have first hand information about him we have to read his books.

Russell never advocated free sex. He always stressed on the need of character. Character, according to him, is possession of vitality, courage, sensitiveness and intelligence. When we read Russell’s treaties on education we know what kind of education he expects us to give our children to have a better society. What all he said about free sex is that at university level young men and women, who cannot control their sexual urge can have sex, that too by avoiding children as a trial and at the same time try to know each other so that if they married whether they would be in a position to live a happy life. Russell, in his book “Marriage and Morals” advocates this new sexual moral keep in view a number of facts and circumstances. Youngsters from the age of 14 to 15 will be prone to sexual impulses but because of public censure, traditional morality, family prestige, self respect and social stigma resort to masturbation and develop a kind of morbidity and self condemnation that they are committing a great sin or spoiling their health both physical and mental. Since sex is a natural desire like food and drink in the words of Russell, young men and women try to find out outlets for sex and for that they indulge in self ­abuse or homosexuality. We all know that homosexuality is prevalent in western countries including Great Britain. If the practice of masturbation has its own demerits, homosexuality also has its own besides social stigma. Another important thing is, youngsters easily fail in love but they can hardly come out of it safely when they do not want it. Consequently there would be frustration, psychic disorders and ghastly or pathetic repercussions like suicide, homicides and insanity. To avoid a number of such evils Russell suggests some solutions or remedies as aforesaid. If what he said is not good or reasonable we are at liberty to ignore his advice and find out better remedies. But curiously what Russell advocated long is being practised and followed in most of the western countries including his own country. Another interesting aspect is Russell was denied of professorship in New York university on the ground that he was an apostle of free sex, immorality and sin. His works were described as lecherous, libidous, lustful, venerous, erotomaniac, irreverent, narrowminded, untruthful, and bereft of moral fiber. But a few years there after to the surprise of some and dismay of all of Russell’s antagonists Russell was awarded Nobel Prize for literature and especially in appreciation of his book “Marriage and Morals”. What is most astonishing is, the country that rejected Russell’s ethics had recorded his entire book called “Human Society in Ethics and Politics” on gramophone and played it and listened to it and that had a revolutionary affect on the views of many Americans. It is paradoxical that the very country that depicted Russell as a monstrous sinner and tried to drive him out of the country, not much time there after began to extole him. There is one more curious thing. When Russell visited Australia about the same time he found his new philosophy on sexual morality very much appreciated there.

Whether Russell became a slave to sexual passions and led a free life or not, the impressions many people carry are positive. But they are wrong. Russell never tolerated any kind of fetters on his intellectual liberty. He gave great importance to freedom of thought and intellectual liberty. If sex, marriage, social conventions, religious beliefs, traditional morality or public sensors came in his way he simply ignored them and maintained absolute freedom. That is why he married four women divorcing one after another. Instead of making his life miserable with one wife through out, bound by traditional morality, he ignored it and followed a path laid by himself that best served his interests. In that way he became a great thinker, philosopher, prophet and epoch-maker.

The misconceptions about Russell’s forming nude societies and his walking bare bodied in London streets are due to this: Russell is of the view that sexual desires in men start even at the age of five and if parents or others appear naked by chance, children stare at them and compare themselves with them and get attracted by the opposite sex, and if all men and women live naked, attraction between sex ceases and men would again revert to dress and covering to have sufficient sexual excitement. He is also of the view that bare bodies exposed to the sun will be safe from skin diseases and that sun-bath is rather good for health. He, after his marriage with Alice, his first wife went with her to Italy and took a naked bath in the sea. This had irked and displeased some moralists, especially the so called Christian puritans and priests, and they raised a tirade against him to tarnish his image. Most of his views strike odd and strange in the first instance as those of any other great man. But if once we have a close look at them, we will be convinced how great men are always misunderstood. Their awareness to social evils is so great that they cannot reconcile themselves with what is out-dated, unfit and bad. They are beyond their times, being conscious of the past and the present.

Russell advocated birth control, sexual freedom, moral education (not traditional and conventional but evolutionary and progressive) intellectual freedom, love for humanity and for the suffering, rational and scientific outlook, and universal peace and happiness. He condemned all kinds of irrational fears, views, ideas and misconceptions. He condemned conventional and traditional morality harmful to human progress. He equally condemned religious dogmas, bigotism, fanaticism, superstitions and irrational beliefs. Any kind of fear, according to him, is bad. Fear is the root cause of many evils, he says.

Russell preached universal love and peace. He was against nuclear war and destruction. He is a peace-lover. The road to universal peace and happiness, according to him, is love guided by reason. He had visualized a World Government and laid foundations for it. Most of his views on education, politics, international law, ethics, marriage, morals, philosophy and science are universally acknowledged to be the great guidelines and they are being adopted and followed by almost all world nations. The world of equality he has foreseen is one where in no one should learn to obey, and no one should attempt to command. Is it not a world happier than what Plato and Thomas Moore have visualized? May Russell and his tribe increase!