The ISSN 0014-1690

Ethical RecordVol. 96 No. 5 MAY 1991

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY The Annual General Meeting will take place on Sunday 19 May 1991 at 2.30pm in the

Library at Conway Hall (registration from 2pm). Refreshments will be served at 4pm The Annual Report for 1989-90 is being prepared and will be circulated in due course (See

page 11 for further details of this year's AGM)

Editorial

NON- INTERVENTION?

The principle of non-intervention in the internalaffairs of sovereign states is contained in theUnited Nations Charter formulated at the endof World War II. That principle is now beinginvoked by the U.S.A., Britain and the SovietUnion as an argument against bringing a halt tothe brutalities of the Hussein regime in Iraq.True, the Americans have warned Hussein notto interfere with the international effort to relievethe plight of the Kurdish refugees in northernIraq, and the British have advanced the idea of aprotected enclave in the north to ensure thewellbeing of the Kurds till a long-term solutionto the refugee problem can be worked out.However, neither the Americans nor the Britishwish to challenge the sovereignty of the Baghdadgovernmemt, despite the fact that the lattercontinues to commit atrocities on top of theones perpetrated in Kuwait.

Among the major powers, only France hascome out and suggested that the principle ofnon-intervention should be re-examined; in this,the French Foreign Minister, Roland Dumas,has been exceptional. He has pointed out thatthe principle is not a simple declaration withoutqualifications. Qualifications and modificationsit indeed has, and Dumas is right to say thatthese must be scrutinised. lf, on examination, a

case can be made for intervention againstHussein, then that race should be stated loudand clear.

What is at issue here is the nature and scopeof international effort to prevent human suffer-ing and the violation of human rights. Surelysuch effort should be extended as far as islegitimately possible in any new 'world order'that may emerge from the present crisis.

Reference to what is legitimate brings to mindthe fact that the major powers have actuallyintervened in the internal affairs of a number ofcountries, but illegitimately, without consultingthe U.N. or paying heed to its Charter. TheU.S.'s entire involvement in Vietnam, and theSoviet Union's in Afghanistan, fall under thisheading; as does China's intervention in Tibet.Other cases are:— U.S. action in Guatemala(1954), the Dominican Republic (1965), andChile (1973), not to mention the recent invasionsof Grenada and Panama. The American govern-ment's present insistence on upholding the non-intervention principle must there ore be seen inan extremely ironical light.

With a view to legitimate intervention, and akind not determined by national self-interest, theU.N. Charter should be re-consulted. Even if atpresent it contains nothing that would legitimiseinternational action, there is no reason whydiscussion should not take place in the U.N.forum to amend the current framework. Thereis, in other words, no reason why the fiameworkshould not evolve, adapting with intelligenceand foresight to changes in the world situation.

CONTENTS PageCeltic Religion 3To Hell With God 5The Values of Science 9Is Then Such A Thing As Moral Truth? 15View Points 19The Way I Live 22

The views expressed in this journal are not necessarily thcse of the Society

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SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY

The Humanist Centre, Conway Hall

25 Red Lion Square, London WCIR 4RL. Telephone: 071-831 7723

Hall Lettings: 071-242 8032. Lobby: 071-405 4125

Appointed LecturerrHarold Blackham, T.F. Evans, Peter Heales, Richard Scorer, Barbara Smoker,

Hany Stopes-Roe, Nicolas Walter.

Trysteer Christine Bondi, Louise Booker, John Brown, Anthony Chapman, Peter Heales, Don

Liversedge, Ray Lovecy, Ian MacKillop, Victor Rose, Barbara Smoker, Many Stopes-Roe.

Honorary Representative:Norman Bacrac. Chairman General Committee:Diane Murray. Deputy

Chairman:David Williams. Honorary RegistrarAnn Wood. Honorary TreaswerDon Liversedge.

Hall Manager:Stephen Noiley. Honorary LibrariarrEdwina Palmer. Echior, The Ethical Recorct

Tom Rubens. Acting Secretary: Lesley Dawson.

General Committee:The Officers and Cynthia Blezard, Lesley Dawson, Govind N. Deodhekar,

Brian Haines, Ellis Hillman, Naomi Lewis, Lisa Monks, Teny Mullins, Victor Rose, Lydia Verner,

Nicolas Walter.

Finance Committee: Chair:Don Liversedge. Development Committee Chairman:Nicolas Walter.

Policy and Programme committee Chairman:Cynthia Blezard. Concerts Committee Chainnwr

Lionel Elton.

The Ethical Record is posted free to members. The annual charge to Subscribers is £6.

Matter for publication should reach the Editor, Tom Rubens, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion

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for publication in the following month's issue.

SUTTON HUMANIST GROUP

MEETINGS AT FRIENDS HOUSE

Meetings arranged for the rest of this year are set out below. They will all be a Friends

House, Cedar Road, Sutton, commencing at 8.00pm. Tea, coffee and biscuits will be

served from 7.30pm.

Wed 8 May: Islam Today;Dr M.A. Badawi, Principal of the Muslim

College, Ealing.

Wed 12 June: Amnesty Internationals Campaign for Human Rights;John Peppard, Vice-chairman, Sutton Amnesty.

Wed 10 July: Reflections of a Humanist Teacher; Bob Tutton, Head

Teacher of a Berkshire School.

Wed II Sept: Why Humanists should be concerned about animalRights; George Mepham, our Secretary (deferred from

13 Feb).

Wed 9 Oct: William Godwin and Scientific Morality; Roger

Thatcher, our member.

Wed 13 Nov: Should Britain be a Democracy?Keith Gimson, our member.

Wed 11 Dee Unitarianism Today and Yesterday;Ian Cooper, Chairman

of the congregation, Croydon Unitarian Church.

2 Ethical Record May, 1991

"CELTIC RELIGION"

Summary of lecture given on Nov. 18th 1990 by LESLIE SCRASE

People often speak of "the Celtic fringe". They refer to Cornwall, Wales and Scotland. Acomparison of the racial characteristics we associate with Cornwall and Wales and thosewe associate with Scotland soon makes it clear that when people speak of "the Celticfringe" they can't be speaking of race.

According to the Romans, the Celts or Gaels were tall, fair to ginger, blue-eyed,passionate and quarrelsome and vain. They were also very artistic, delighting in swirlingdesigns.

They arrived in the British Isles during the period between 1,000 B.C. and the arrival ofthe Romans. They became the dominant people particularly in England and in Irelandand developed a number of tribal kingdoms. Their predecessors, the small, dark, neolithicand Iberian peoples, were either pushed back into the west country and into Wales orwere submerged in the general population as slaves and as wives. Gaelic became thelanguage of the whole population and Celtic culture and religion became dominant. It isno longer possible to be dogmatic however about what is Celtic and what is pre-Celtic.

Successive waves of invaders destroyed the Celtic dominance but Celtic culture andlanguage continued in the west country, Wales and Scotland. That is what we now meanwhen we speak of "the Celtic fringe". In I reland the country was never overrun by wavesof invaders and Celtic dominance continued.

Studies at Stonehenge and other ancient sites seem to suggest that the main religiousfocus of our earliest ancestors was on the moon. The incoming Beaker people switchedthe focus of attention onto the sun although the older traditions continued. Both thesegroups of people seem to have concentrated their attentions on fertility, personal safety,and death. They were anxious to keep on the right side of whatever spirits there were andalso to keep on the right side of the dead since the dead could be dangerous to the living.

It is incredible how persistent ancient ideas have proved to be. Our week is a celebrationof all the old religions. Tuesday to Saturday are ail named after Roman, Saxon or Vikinggods. Sunday takes us back to the Celts and Moon day or Monday takes us back evenfurther to our Neolithic ancestors. Our continuing devotion to the mistletoe and to theoak goes right back to these earliest peoples. Before the revival of cremation our devotionto graves and gravestones also carries us back to the ancient long-barrows andround-barrows.

Christians have tried to christianise all the ancient festivals but ancient ideas linger on.In earliest times the Celtic year was divided into two seasons. The most important festivalwas that of Sa main on the night of October 31st and the day of November 1st. and itlingers on with Halloween. It was a time when the spirits including the spirits of the deadwere abroad. It was a time to please and propitiate them and to find ways of controllingthem.

The second major festival of Beltine was on May I st, still remembered with our MayQueens and dancing round the Maypole. Great purifying fires were lit and cattle weredriven between them to protect them from disease.

Later on the Celts introduced two further festivals dividing the year into four instead ofinto two. On February 1st I mbolc was celebrated in honour of Brigit, the daughter of thegreat god Dagda, a potent fertility goddess. And on August I st Lugnasad was celebratedto pray for a good harvest.

The Celts had many gods belonging to the two families of Don and Llyr. Don, agoddess, symbolised the heavens, light and life. Llyr was a goddess of the sea, darknessand death. King Lear and Llyrcester (or Leicester) are named from her.

Ethical Record, May, 1991

Llyr's children were Bran the Blessed, who was a fertility god, a god of war and the lord

of the dead. His sister was Branwen.

There are many legends of the gods and the gods merge and separate in different parts

of the country. In Roman times the situation became even more confused as Celts from

Europe serving in the Roman army added their gods and legends, and Roman gods were

identified with and mingled with the gods of the Celts. Caesar commented that peoples'

beliefs were pretty much the same all over the world but their gods had different names.

The Celtic horned god had two forms. In one he had antlers and wore a torc or

necklace. He was accompanied by a ram-headed serpent. (Antlers were often buried with

the dead). In the other the god was represented by a bull, a ram or a goat.

Two of the favourite gods were Dagda, the All-Good and Epona, the goddess mare

(who may explain our superstition about lucky horseshoes). The Cerne Abbas chalk

figure may represent Dagda with his mighty club. He was also often represented with his

cauldron. It was said that no one who visited him ever went empty away. His title "the

All-Good" has nothing to do with ethical goodness. It just means that he was good at

everything.The white mare of Uffington is our earliest chalk hillside mare and may well be an

ancient representation of Epona, the goddess-Mare. Unlike Epona, most goddesses were

demonic and frightening, like Morrigan the queen of demons.

Up to Roman times worship took place in sacred woods and groves,particularly of oak

and beech. It was conducted by the druids and was largely a matter of gifts and sacrifices

including human sacrifice. The word "druid" means "knowledge of the oak". Like the

old Anglican priesthood, the druids were from aristocratic families.

The Roman author Lucan described different forms of human sacrifice. Huge wicker

cages in the shape of a man were filled with people and burned to Taranis. The god

Teutatis preferred his victims to be drowned, and Esus liked his to be hanged. It was a

useful method of getting rid of criminals and of old or unsuccessful (and therefore

impotent) kings.But the Celts moved away from human to animal sacrifice. There is a legend of a King

of Tara who was set to sacrifice the son of virtuous parents when a goddess appeared

leading a cow as a replacement for the boy. There is an identical story in Indian legend and

of course the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac.

With the coming of the Romans there was a great deal of syncretism. And with the

coming of the Saxons and the Vikings the syncretism continued and the old paganisms

were enriched with new legends and gods. But successive periods of Christian missionary

activity led to the virtual destruction of the old religions.

Secular humanists will not mourn their passing any more than we mourn the decline of

Christianity. As we root about among the old legends and fairy stories, we find a good

deal that we are very thankful to have left behind. But we also find a good deal to amuse

and delight us and, just occasionally, pearls of wisdom to enrich or (in the old Victorian

phrase) "improve us".

4 Ethical Record, May, 1991

TO HELL WITH GOD!

Summary of S.P.E.S. Sunday morning lecture on Feb. 3rd 1991 by BARBARA SMOKER

I took the title for this talk from the late Phyllis Graham, the ex-nun. She was writing a bookwith this title when she died, and I understand that her sister destroyed the manuscript — atypical Christian action.

It is, of course, a metaphorical title, as it goes without saying that I have no belief either in hellor in a personal god — but these things clearly exist as ideas, and to my mind they are viciousideas, which are widespread geographically and tenacious historically, and are often heldfanatically.

Your Programme of Events announced that I am speaking on the nonotheistic concept of adivine creator. Those readers who didn't realise this was a misprint for monotheistic— the work,no doubt, of the printer's devil — may have imagined I was going to introduce the idea of a beliefin nine gods — say, a trinity of trinities. But even the Christian trinity is supposed to be at thesame time (somehow!) a single indivisible god, so that Christianity remains one of the threemonotheistic religions, which are also essentially patriarchal — the other two being Judaism andIslam. Even in theory, only a lone supreme being, without rivals, could be an absolute deity, withsuch traditional attributes as omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, perfect love, and so on— and (apart from the logical fact that some of those absolutes would be logically incompatible)it is that sort of god-idea that I wish to damn to hell.

HELL

In fact, if there were a literal hell of "everlasting torment", only one being could possibly deservesuch a fate bereft of all hope — the being that created it, with other victims in mind; especiallysince, unlike all his creatures, he cannot plead in mitigation for his acts of cruelty that there wasinherent cruelty in his original makeup and that he was responsible neither for creating himselfnor for the happenings that had directed his development.

Of course, he could insist that his morality was not like ours — but that would make itmeaningless for human beings, with human notions of morality, to refer to him as a good god, ajust god, a merciful god, a god of love, and so on. It would also mean that he had perverselyimplanted in us different kinds of sensibility from his own.

Eternal hell would be a disproportionate punishment for even the most cruel and depravedhuman being who ever lived. Suppose you make Adolf Hitler your moninee: well, it is knownthat as a child scarcely a day went by when he was nat beaten unmercifully by his father — sothat when he reached his goal of a powerful dictator, he would wake in the night shaking andsweating for fear of his father. Might not this childhood treatment have had something to do ,with his later lack of mercy for others? In fact, it is rare to find a mass murderer who was notmaltreated in childhood. Moreover, the classic mass murderer is a psychopath who has afundamentalist religious belief and sees himself as God's agent for vengeance.

Only the alleged self-existent, uncaused, omnipotent and omniscient creator would have nosuch excuses for his misdeeds. But since his traditional attributes also include absolute love andabsolute compassion, the very existence of suffering in the world he is supposed to have createdpresents an insoluble conundrum. The combination of divine attributes postulated is asimpossible as a square circle or a vegetarian abattoir.

If the alleged creator really were all-powerful, then he could not be a god of love; if he were agod of love, then he must be so incompetent that it would have been better had he left creationuncreated. So there is one thing in God's favour after all: his non-existence.

Ethical Record May, 1991 5

PROBLEM OF EVIL

Some of the more modernistic Christians say nowadays that the god in whom they believe is notin fact omnipotent or omniscient — an obvious ploy to resolve the problem of evil and to enablehim to pose as a god of love, exonerated from deliberately creating a world of suffering. But thebelievers who wish to limit his power never suggest the actual extent of it. Did he have sufficientpower, for instance, had he so chosen, to base evolution on some less cruel principle than that ofthe weakest going to the wall? Did he have sufficient foreknowledge, or even shrewd guesswork,before creating the angels (including Lucifer, who is supposed to have undergone ametamorphosis into Satan) and the universe, and life on earth to assess the amount of evil andsuffering that was to ensue? If so, why did he go ahead with creation? And if he was powerless toimprove his handiwork, what is the use of him?

Having learned nothing at all from billions of years of trial and error, the alleged creator is putto shame by the powers of adaptability exhibited by the least of his putative creatures. RichardBenjamin once put forward the suggestion that, on all the earthly evidence, "divine intelligence"apparently scores no better than random chance, and must therefore have an I.Q. of nought.

It seems less disagreeable, as well as more rational, to put the blame for evils and disasters onnothing but blind chance. But if there were an all-powerful personal god, then the blame wouldsurely have to rest on him — though believers often argue that it is man, not God, who isresponsible for all the evil in the world. This argument conveniently overlooks the fact that suchdisasters as earthquakes and volcanoes and drought are not yet within man's capacity toprevent: so how can man be blamed for the suffering caused by such happenings? Indeed, evenpious believers have referred to them as "acts of God"!

Besides, if man were created by God, then human faults are implicit in the creator's design—especially as we are also told that all of us, without exception, are sinners, which seems tosuggest that to commit sin is simply to behave in a human way. The God of the Bible, who addsinsult ot injury by waxing angry and self-righteous when his creatures behave in accordance withtheir given natures, is utterly unreasonable.

SATAN

Another religious theory is that it is neither God nor man, but the chief devil, Satan, who isresponsible for all the evil in the world — and again it overlooks the fact that God is alsosupposed to have created the angels who became devils, together with the much vaunted freewillto defy him and to thwart all his plans.

In any case if God really gave freewill to any of his creatures, it would necessarily entailsurrendering his own supposed omniscience and omnipotence. Theologians, however, ofteninsist on accepting these mutually contradictory doctrines; and they posit the gift of freewill,bestowed by God on human beings as well as angels and devils, as the factor that makes all thesuffering in life worthwile. Though some of the top people of the world do perhaps have ameasure of freedom of choice, how much do the underlings have? Yet it is they who bear most ofthe suffering.

Ah! but suffering, we are told, ennobles human character; surely, when it is excessive, it is farmore likely to embitter than ennoble. It is true that there would be little point, for example, inclimbing a mountain if it were so easy that it entailed no struggle at all; but it is hardlyworthwhile if the suffering includes a broken back.

Other religious arguments attempt to explain away suffering either as punishment for sin(one's own — or even, most unjustly, the "original sin" of our earliest human ancestors); or elseas an opportunity to acquire merit for the next world; or as a means of being tested by God — asthough this supposed creator, whether or not he is all-powerful and all-knowing, would beunable to assess our willpower or other qualities without actually putting us through a lifelongseries of tests.

6 Ethical Recore1 May, 1991

ANIMALS

Then what about the sufferings endured by the rest of the animal kingdom? Are the animalsbeing tested too — and to what end? Admittedly, man is responsible for some of the animals'sufferings, such as the effects on marine life of the oil slick in the Persian Gulf at present, butanimals obviously suffered from illness, injury, predation, and adverse physical conditions, longbefore man existed.

Religious fundamentalists have an answer for this: in the Garden of Eden, before the Fall ofMan, there was no suffering and no death: "the lion lay down with the Iamb". But in that case,the lion could not have been a lion as we know it, with teeth and claws evolved for predation.And what sort of justice would it be to condemn the animals to suffer for the alleged

disobedience of the first human beings?It is not as though cruelty is a necessary part of animals sustaining life: many of the largest

animals are vegetarian, and vegetation cannot suffer in the full sense of the word; and evenamong meat-eaters, many of the higher species survive on primitive ones with no central nervoussystem. But the opposite is also found in nature: highly sensitive animals being the prey of lowerforms. Again, among the animals that live on higher forms of life, though many of them manageto kill quickly, others are apparently programmed to torture their prey first. Why? Did Goddeliberately design one animal to chase another to the point of exhaustion, to bite out lumps ofliving flesh, or to swallow a living animal whole? How on earth can people who watch thefascinating and beautiful, but often cruel, wildlife programmes on television still go on believingin a benign deity?

God-belief ought logically to lead to god-hatred for such cruelties in nature, but those whobelieve in the creator almost invariably adore him — whether out of awe or fear or simplybecause they are told they should — and this adoration of a god who, on all the evidence, mustbe cruel and punitive, inevitably tends to distort the believers' moral sense. Perhaps the realmystery is how most of them nevertheless manage to remain decent-living people.

MYSTERY OF EXISTENCE

As for postulating a creator-god as an answer to the mystery of existence itself, it is no answer atall. Theologians say (rightly enough) that nothing can come from nothing; but they then go on tosay that everything must therefore have been created by God — out of nothing! This is such anobvious self-contradiction that it is amazing so many people fail to see it. The more traditionaltheologians also say that since nothing in our experience is ever uncaused, there must have beena First Cause or Prime Mover — some means, as it were, of lighting the fuse-paper for the BigBang. And that First Cause or Prime Mover is God.

If God is seen as the metaphorical spark that lit the fuse-paper, one might go along with that— though an eternity of matter/energy, with an infinite series of Big Bangs, seems more likely.But in any case, whyever should that primal spark be accorded consciousness and intelligence?

If everything requires a personal creator, then the creator himself must have required a

superior creator, and so ad infinitum. The whole hypothesis therefore merely forces the questionfurther and further back, and so fails to supply any satisfactory answer, except for those whoquit thinking at that point. And it thus inhibits the free inquiry that is necessary for humanbeings to push back the frontiers of human knowledge and rational speculation.

Historically, religion has therefore been the main brake on scientific knowlidge and itsapplication. Galileo, Darwin, and many medical pioneers were all persecuted in the name ofGod; and this belief continues to hold up such advances as the legalisation of voluntaryeuthanasia and of medical research and techniques involving the use of early human embryosand fetal tissue.

Ethical Record May, 1991 7

MORAL BEHAVIOUR

On the other hand, might there not be somepositive value in god-belief, even if it is irrational?

H.G. Wells thought so, for a year or two during the first world war, and tried to spread the idea

of God as a sort of "Great Captain", but later he completely rejected the idea and referred to

God as "a venerable Being with an inordinate lust for propitiation and praise". In a speech to the

British Association during the second world war, he spoke of "dead religions that cumber the

world", and said that "a dead religion is like a dead cat — the stiffer and more rotten it is, the

better it is as a missile weapon".But might not Wells have been right during the earlier war and wrong in the later one? Might

it not be that religious belief, as we are told, actually inculcates moral behaviour, if only because

of the self-interested desire to attain heaven or avoid hell? Well, that rather depends on one's

defmition of "moral". The answer may indeed be in the affirmative if moral behaviour is taken

to mean blind obedience to God's supposed precepts — for instance, interpreting the

commandment "Thou shalt not kill" to the, extent of prohibiting abortion or voluntary

euthanasia, whatever the circumstances — though possibly advocating at the same time the

pursuance of a "holy war". But if morality is taken to mean acting on the basis of the probable

consequences of one's actions so as to promote human (and animal) welfare or to diminish

suffering, then the answer is almost invariably in the negative, for the utilitarian principle of

morality is far more characteristic of the humanist than of the religious approach.

Even judging morality on the rough-and-ready basis of the criminal law, it is a statistical fact

that there is in penal institutions a considerable under-representation of secular humanists, while

the prison populations of some religious groups (notably Roman Catholics) are over-

represented in most other Westem countries. (It could, of course, be that non-believers are

generally cleverer than believers at not getting caught, but this seems an unlikely explanation.)

Of course, most religious people lead good lives— though in many respects their idea of what

constitutes goodness is at variance with the rationalist view. In any case, since at least as many

non-religious people lead equally good lives, it is clear that leading a good life is not dependent

on religious belief, and could well be in spite of it.Freud described religion as a neurosis, and when somebody really "gets religion" it is, in

common with most neuroses, an attempt to deal with one problem by erecting another as a

shield. But in most communities throughout history it has also been a deliberately induced

neurosis, through filling children's minds with fearful stories that are told as facts, and through

repetitive rituals that often amount to brainwashing techniques.

However, it is commonly supposed that religious belief can be the answer to psychologjcal

problems, and to global problems. But not only does it generally fail to answer any of them; it

often exacerbates them, and is indeed in many cases their underlying cause.

Nothing is more intransigent than religious doctrine. During the past century, there has

hardly been a month in which there have been no fairly major wan being fought in some parts of

the globe — and in most of these wars, religious differences have been a significant causal

component, and often the major one.

SACRED BOOKS

The sacred books that God (Jehovah, the Father, or Allah) is supposed to have dictated to holy

men are full of his intolerably cruel injuctions, such as stoning people to death for specified

sexual irregularities. And he blinds the eyes of his followers to his grotesquely callous character

by upholding uncritical faith as the greatest virtue and threatening with hellfire those who dare

to question his laws, to assess them in the light of ordinary human sensibility, and to think things

out for themselves.

Admittedly, religious conversion can result in radiant faces: most of us would probably

radiate happiness if we became convinced that we would never really die and that all our closest

8 Ethical Record. May, 1991

friends who had already died were waiting for us to join them in another, better world. Some ofus, however, prefer not be be conned with such fairy-tales. As Bernard Shaw pointed out,"Drunken men are often happier than sober ones" — but would most of us therefore choose tolive our lives in a drunken stupor?

Facing up to life means relying on reason, mental integrity, and scientific evidence, rather thanwishful thinking and the dubious, cynical old proverb "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to bewise". Far from being a virtue, blind faith is a betrayal of human reason.

All of this is why I say "To Hell with God"!

THE VALUES OF SCIENCEor

TRUTH BY CONSENSUS

Text of a talk given on Sunday. January 13th 1991 by RICHARD SCORER

It may seem a little presumptuous for a scientist to imagine that his discipline is particularlyconcerned with truth, as if emphasizing that he, more than workers in other disciplines, isconcerned with it. We scientists are thinking of the real world and try to tell the truth about it.We aim to base statements on evidence which can be checked.

Of course we act like other people most of the time, but we try to make a clear distinctionbetween having good evidence that something is true, and guessing when we know of noconvincing evidence. Often, like anyone else, we have to act in the same way as if we were certainthat something were true. Also it is usually possible to nit-pick, and find faults with a statementwhich appears to be made with certainty, but which ought to be accompanied by severalqualifications which reduce its validity in some way.

Outside science this idea of scientific correctness is not always understood, and people do notlisten to the qualifications because they do not find them helpful. While they recognise that thequalifications are necessary to make the statement scientifically correct, they are only seeking astatement on the basis of which to act: as they are not experts themselves they prefer to act on thebest advice they can get and the degree of reliability is of no concern if they are assured it is thebest advice available to them. When the qualifications are thus separated from the statement, itgets quoted as the scientist's scientific and final view. If a statement by another scientist is giventhe same treatment it is quite probable that it will be regarded as clear evidence that the twoscientists are in disagreement, whereas it may be that, either knowing or not knowing the use towhich their statement will be put, they have different views as to how it should be phrased.

I will illustrate this with a current example — Global warming.Global warming due to an increase in the human production of carbon dioxide is an idea well

founded in physics. It is simply a statement that the atmosphere at sea level is warmer than itwould be if there were much less of the"greenhouse gases" present: it is presumed that if we havea greater quantity in the air it will get warmer. This is a reasonable deduction, and as such is not•in dispute among meteorologists. But there are several other mechanisms which interfere withthe end result. Let us consider a more homely example.

The radiator of a car engine keeps the engine from boiling the cooling water by circulating itthrough the radiator. An aero-engine is made to work at a higher (and More efficient)temperature by using glycol as cooling liquid because it requires a higher temperature to make itboil. It is also very important at high altitude where the low pressure makes the fluid boil at amuch lower temperature and fluid has to be sealed into the system to keep it at high pressure.Thus far it would be expected that if the engine worked harder and consumed more fuel it wouldget hotter, and this is a common experience. In most engines, however there is a thermostat in the

Ethical Record, May 1991 9

system, and this prevents the water from circulating through the radiator until it reaches acertain temperature, and then it opens and does not allow the temperature to rise any further. Ofcourse it is possible that the engine might be made to work mueh harder and produce surplusheat at a rate greater than can be taken away by the circulating liquid, and then it would gethotter. It would probably settle at some higher temperature at which the radiator would loseheat fast enough to keep it from getting any hotter.

Let us suppose that the atmosphere has some sort of thermostat which comes into operationwhen it reaches a certain temperature at sea level, but which does not prevent it from gettingcooler if something changes so as to let heat escape faster, and that the greenhouse gases are partof that thermostat. We can see that it would not prevent an ice age if the sun became weaker, or ifall the greenhouse gases were to disappear. We need the sun to keep us warm, but we may verywell have a mechanism which keeps us cool if the sun becomes too hot.

Actually there are several mechanisms which do not all work in the same way. Some cause a"positive feed-back". For example if the air at sea level became warmer, evaporation from thesea would increase the humidity of the air, and, since water vapour is a greenhouse gas, it wouldenhance the greenhouse gas warming effect. Likewise snow and ice have a cooling effect andmore of either would tend to enhance any tendency towards moving into an ice age — anotherpositive feed-back.

Only a few years ago it was thought by some researchers that the climate was unstable onaccount of these two positive feed-backs in opposite directions. All we seemed to need was somesort of push in one direction or the other and we might move quickly into an ice age or a verywarm period. Indeed some thought that this kind of explanation was why there seem to havebeen ice ages in the past with warm periods in between, with the input from the sun being thestabilising influence.

The trouble with such theories is that they do not explain how the climate has remained asequable as it is, and has been for millennia. The Gaia theory, according to which living specieshave caused a stabilisation of the temperature, is a response to this difficulty. In its simplest formLovelock invites us to imagine a species of daisy which has two varieties, one white and onebrown: if the temperature became too hot, the white variety would flourish and would increncethe amount of sunshine reflected back into space so that the earth would not become so hot. Ifthe climate became too cold the brown variety would flourish, and more sunshine would beabsorbed and the earth would become warmer. If these daisies had not had this response theywould have died out long ago. Their response was a "negative feed-back", and if it had beenpositive it would have become either too hot or too cold for it to survive. I think it is true to saythat some Gaia theorists expect the living world to produce an antidote to the global warmingwhich has been predicted as a result of the increase of the greenhouse gases.

My own view is that there is a mechanism in the formation of cloud and rain which has a verypowerful "stabilising influence. We can see, and it is obvious, that the sunshine causes theformation of clouds each day, which increase the amount of sunshine reflected back into space,and therefore limit the amount of warming due to sunshine. Also the clouds carry up into thehigher levels of the atmosphere a great amount of heat which is released into the air when watervapour condenses and rain falls down, and which was transferred into the air from the sea orland when the water was previously evaporated into the air. This rainfall process carries heatupwards when the lower levels get warmer, and we may remind ourselves that the effect of thegreenhouse gases is to warm the lower layers and actually cool the upper layers.

It might be comforting to be certain of this stabilising effect of clouds, but we have also toinclude other effects, and we can think of mechanisms by which clouds at a high level mightcause a general warming, just as a layer of cloud usually prevents the occurrence of frost at night.People often argue that we should put all these mechanisms into our computer models and findout what the answer really is. But the making of a computer model is not a simple

continues on page 15

10 Ethical Record, May, 1991

SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 1991

The objects of the Society are:The study and dissemination of ethical principlesThe cultivation of a rational and humane way of lifeThe advancement of education in fields relevant to these objects

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

to be held in the Library at Conway Hall Sunday 19th May 1991 from 2.30pm to 6.30pm

registration from 2pm, tea 4pm

AGENDAI. To elect a chair to the Meeting

To elect three ScrutineersTo consider and receive the General Committee's annual Report and the Statementof accounts for year to February 28 1990

5. To elect members to fill vacancies on the General Committee. The followingmembers, having been duly nominated to fill the I I vacanciesa are put forwardat this AGM:

Name Proposer Seconder

David MorrisMiriam EltonRichard BenjaminPatrick FeatherstonMichael NewmanAlice MarshallLouise BookerLeslie WarrenMartin HarrisDavid Murray

Martin LincéMartin LincePeter HealesJim AddisonLesley DawsonJean BaylissDon LiversedgeJim AddisonJim AddisonMichael Newman

Mary Linc6Lionel EltonNorman BacracAlice MarshallDon LiversedgeGeoffrey AustinLesley DawsonEdwina PalmerEdwina PalmerSteve Norley

There are 6 vacancies for the full 3 year term, 2 for 2 years, and 4 for I year.Therefore there will be a ballot to decide which candidates fill which vacancies,candidates with the most votes filling the most lengthy terms.

'To elect Trustees under Rule 8 (4): Louise Booker and Victor RoseTo appoint auditors for the ensuing year (1991-92)To elect Appointed LecturersTo consider resolutions submitted. The texts of the 2 resolutions submitted areposted in Conway Hall and will appear in the Annual ReportAny Other Business

End of business of annual General Meeting

• There being fewer nominations than vacancies, there will inevitably be at least 2 gaps inthe 1991-92 GC. Note that this does not affect the GC's authority. The usual requirementof a quorum of 8 voting members still applies to each GC meeting.

Ethical Record, May, 1991 11

SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETYThe Humanist Centre, Conway Hall

25 Red Lion Square, London WCIR 4RL

Telephone: Secretary 071 - 831 7723 Hall Manager 071 - 242 8032

PROGRAMME OF EVENTS

Lectures and forums are held in the library and are free (collection).

MAYMonday May 20

at 2.30 pm Lecture-discussion: The Anist And Her Public: PETER HEALES continues his series of

eight meetings on aspects of art: 5. Symbolism in Art: What gives a work its

significance; levels of understanding; hidden meanings. £1.50 per lecture

(Concessionary rate £1.00).

Monday May 23

at 7 pm Course: Four Twentieth-Century Dramatists Jim HERRICK starts his evening class

with Arthur Miller. For complete syllabus, see page 14.

Monday May 26

at II am Seminar: Humanism Today Representatives of various strands in the humanist

movement put forward their conception of the meaning and philosophy of

humanism, and the purpose, problems and prospects of the humanist movement in

the world today.

at 3 pm Forum: Secular Sexual Ethics FRANCIS BENNON. expounds the ideas in his book 'The

Sex Code - Morals for Moderns' just published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Monday May 27

at 2.30 pm Lecture-discussion: The Artist And Her Public PETER HEALES continues his series

with 6. Expressing Emotion: What aspects of a work of art evoke emotive response

and/or enlarge our understanding of emotive experience.

Thursday May 30

at 7 pm Course Four Twentieth-Century Dramatists. JIM HERRICKW course continues.

JUNESunday June 2

at I I am Lecture: The Cultural Materialism of Raymond William.S.CHRISTOPHER HAMPTON

discusses the development of the critical work of Raymond Williams (author of

'Culture and Society' and 'The Long Revolution') from his early more-or-less

Leavisite position to his concept of cultural materialism on which he was working

at the time of his death in 1988.

at 3 pm Forum: The Relevance of IQ Tests and Personality. Testing in Education.JANE

JUDELSONlooks at this vexed question.

12 Ethical Record, May, 1991

Monday June 3

at 2.30 pm Lecture-discussion: The Ardsr And Her Public PETER HEALES continues his serieswith 7. The 'Spiritual': can art yield experiences beyond those of our normal life? Ifso, what do those experiences consist of'?

Thursday June 9

at 7 pm Course: Four Twentieth - Century Dramatists. JIM HERRIC'K's course continues.

Sunday June 9

at I I am Lecture: Humanism as a Modern Utilitarianism. HARRY STOPES-ROE says manymodern philosophers consider consequentialism to be discredited, yet it continuesto have wide appeal. Harry uses Mill's concept of "higher pleasures" to see ifconsequentialism can work.

at 3 pm On the 200th anniversary of the publication of "Rights of Man", there are twoevents relating to THOMAS PAINE, (the second being on June 16).Lecture: Local Attachments, National Identity and World Citizenship in The Thoughtof Thomas Paine. PROF. I. DYKE of the Simon Fraser University, British Columbia.SPES is hosting this meeting, which is sponsored by the Thomas Paine Society.

Monday June 10

at 2.30 pm Lecture-discussion: The Artist And Her Public PETER HEALES completes his serieswith 8. The Huinanity of Art: The qualities which make art valuable, and possiblyessential, as a human activity.

Thursday June 13

at 7 pm Course: Four Twentieth - Century Dramatists,

Sunday June 16

at II am Lecture: The Life and Work of Malcolm Muggeridge. T.F. EVANS says ofMuggeridge, who died recently: "From a detached viewpoint, he affected to despisethe various means of publicity in which he made his reputation. He graduallymoved towards a religious point of view and ended in the Roman CatholicChurch." T.F. Evans examines the merits and contradictions in Muggeridge's lifeand work.

at 3 pm Forum Thomas 'Clio' Rickman - Paine' Boswell?Jim CLAYSON, observes that thepersonal reputation of Thomas Paine lay in shreds after his death. Rickman"vindicated his friend and, in the process, renewed the impetus for parliamentary reform".

Ethical Record, May, 1991 13

S.P.E.S. COURSE

FOUR TWENTIETH-CENTIJRY DRAMATISTS: THE 'INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY

An 8-week evening class to be given by JimHERRICK

Thursdays 7pm to 9pm starling Thursday 23 May 1991 in the library, Conway HalL

I. Arthur MillenA View from the Bridge Individual responsibility versus fate.

Berton Brecht GalileaThe sceptic and scientist versus authority.

Samuel Beckett:Endgame.The end of society.

Harold Pinter The Homecoming.The individualand thefamily.

TheWine will include play-reading and discussion. Other aspects which will be considered are

theatrical technique and twentieth century humanism.

Admission £1.50 per lecture, including refreshments. Concessionary rate £1.00.

SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETYRegistered Charity No. 251396

Founded in 1793, the Society is a progressive movement whose aim is the study and dissemination

of ethical principlm based on humanism, and the cultivation of a rational and humane way of life.

We invite to membership all those who reject supernatural creeds and fmd themselves in

sympathy with our views.

At Conway Hall there are oppoltunities for participation in many kinds of cultural activities,

including discussions, lectures, concerts and socials.

A comprehensive reference and lending library is available, and all members and associates

receive the Society's journal,The Ethical Record ten times a year.

The Sunday Evening Chamber Music Concerts founded in 1887 have achieved international

renown.

Memorial and Funeral Services are available to members.

Minimum subscriptions are: Members £6 p.a.; Life Members £126 (Life Membeiship is available

only to members of at least one year's standing). It is of help to the Society's officers if members pay

their subscriptions by Bankers Order, and it is of further fmancial benefit to the Society if Deeds of

Covenant are entered into.

14 Ethical Record April 1991

continued from page 10

process. As far as possible we try to base models on the laws of physics and mechanics of whichwe have confident knowledge, such a Newton's laws of motion and the laws of radiation ofwhich we have acquired more certainty in the last hundred years or so. The situations are socomplex that words like "turbulence" and "probability" tend to occur in discussions far toooften for us to be able to define a final model and we certainly can't achieve the desired accuracy.The models are simply not close enough to reality — which is not surprising when the "system"(atmosphere, biosphere and ocean) never does the same thing twice! Not only is it evolving bothbiologically and geologically, it is also so complex that the best model is the system itself, and it isawfully presumptuous to try to predict its behaviour before it has had time to discover itself whatit is going to do.

In this situation a more important consideration for our species is to estimate which of thepossible future difficulties before us demands the most serious attention. In my view the mostimportant consequence of burning fossil fuels and trees at the present rate is that we shall run outof fuel and be unable to support our children's or grandchildren's generation which has already,or soon will have, grown so numerous that we shall destroy our natural environment indesperate attempts to save everyone.

That is a scenario which is unacceptable to many people, including politicians who refuse tolook beyond the immediate problems which can so easily occupy all their attention. Anywaythey don't know how to cope with problems of excessive population.

We all have our prime values, and most of the time we scientists try to look after our familiesand do about as much as others to get our priorities right. Insofar as one can have any effect onpublic evolution, a scientist simply tries to make his own particular skills as beneficial as possible,and to survive — himself, his family, his race, and his species.

Since we are dealing with our total environment, others, including makers of importantdecisions, ask us how to avoid the harm, which, they are informed, we are doing to theenvironment. They have not the time nor inclination to listen to all the qualifications we makewhen we predict future effects. They simply want the best advice they can get. They haveinvented the concept of the "experts' consensus". But that is really to express the limitations ofour knowledge and the extent of our uncertainty, and not to give such detail as an accurateestimate of the global warming by the year 2050. In my view the political problems due toexcessive population and growing resource shortages will dominate human life on earth; and theexperts in politics, economics and engineering, on whom welfare depends, will be assigningblame to others and to particular contemporary events, and not seeing them as unavoidableconsequences of excess human numbers.

IS THERE SUCH A THING AS MORAL TRUTH?

Text of a S.P.E.S. Sunday morning lecture given on February 24th 1991 by RONA GERBER

In this paper morality will be identified as a set of principles for action (practical principles)which transcend local customs and traditions and which involve reciprocity between moralagents. I shall assume, however, that starting from this definition does not necessarily rule outthe inclusion of animals (and, indeed of all sentient beings) within the moral domain.

Before trying to answer the question as to whether there could be any true moral statements, itmight be helpful to examine what makes an ordinary statement, about an ordinary matter offact, true (or false, as the case may be). Statements, of course, are normally expressed insentences consisting of words with agreed meanings (indeed there could be no language at allwithout agreement about meanings), and when an individual makes , an ordinary factual

Ethical Record, May, 1991 15

statement about the outside world, others (if appropriately placed) can verify this statement by

looking for themselves. "Ouch, the boiling fat has burnt my hand!" is a factual statement which

an observer could verify. The words "fat","boiling","burnt" and "hand" in this context have

fixed meanings, and "my" refers to the speaker. (There are, of course, peripheral cases where

there could be an argument about whether or not some of these words applied, but this need not

trouble us here, since we will assume this is a central case). The observer and the speaker share a

public language, that is, an agreed system of terms for referring to the phenomena in question.

Both have observed the sputtering fat, both noticed (one painfully) some of the fat falling on the

victim's hand, both recognised the appearance of redness and blistering on the skin at the spot

where the fat came into contact with it, as indicating that the fat had caused a burn. Of course,

both would recognise something else as well — something indicated by the "ouch" — that is,

that the injury was painfuL (A less stoical person would probably have screamed!) The pain is

just as much a fact of the situation as are its publicly observable features; but only one individual

experiencesthe pain — the other infers it. (Probably "recognises it empathetically" would be a

more exact description of the mechanisms involved). The statement: "X (the victim) sustained a

burnt hand when the fat boiled up and spilled onto it", is clearly one that could be verified by

observation; while the further statement: "X's hand was very painful when the fat spilt onto it",

is a matter both of observation and of common experience. It is virtually impossible to be

sincerely and seriously sceptical about the reality of other people's pain, particularly in certain

circumstances. How, after all could we have learnt pain language unless people were able to use

such language appropriately to us in our early years? ("Poor darling, it hurts, doesn't it ?"

ascribes an inner experience — pain — to a child who is crying with a badly grazed knee. It is

only by means of such ascriptions that the child learns what the terms 'hurt' and 'pain' actually

mean.)Thus, in respect of statements such as the above, to claim that they are true is to claim that

what is said fits the actualsituation (tallies with the facts), and the way to set about establishing

their truth is by observation.

There is another class of facts commonly recognised as such which are judged 'true' or

'correct' in a slightly different way, having to do with logical consistency rather than with a

match against observable reality. These are the facts of mathematics and logic. Houseman

laments (or appears to be lamenting) the unyielding nature of mathematical truths when he

writes:— To think that two and two are four

And neither five nor three

The heart of man has long been sore

And long 'tis like to be.

The facts of mathematics are not adjustable to human desires; they cannot be modified to suit

our tastes or preferences. They are objective. What validates a mathematical conclusion is

mathematical logic; the progress of mathematical reasoning is governed by precise rules. Thus

mathematics, while it can be used in splendid ways as a tool for investigating reality, is not, as

such, about the real world. Its proofs are internalLet us now turn, as promised at the beginning, to so-called "moral facts" and see whether

there is any possibility of such entities existing, or whether the search for moral truth is doomed

to failure from the outset.

Plato was an extreme objectivist in morality. He held the view that the Form of the Good

existed as a thing-in-itself in a special realm of immutable forms, and was independent of both

man and the Gods. He thus believed that Goodness was objective in the strongest sense — an

object 'out there' which could be apprehended by human beings through the exercise of reason.

Few people now accept this curious view; and, indeed, it seems difficult, if not impossible, to

make any sense of the notion of a realm of eternal, timeless, unchanging forms. (Some people

say that the Forms are simply concepts — but the whole character of Plato's vision of reality

seems to disintegrate if the forms are viewed in this mundane way)

16 Ethical Records, May, 1991

If there are moral truths, then, they surely cannot be identified with objects outside human lifewhich exist totally independently of the actualities of human existence. Howeyer, it may bepossible to make do with something considerably less exalted than this. There are surely at leastsome enduring facts about the human condition which could form a basis on which some sort ofdefensible moral system could be built — a moral system which could be defended by appealsboth to reason and experience.

But first I shall briefly consider the attempt make by Kant to build a system of morality 'apriori', that is, on the basis of reasoning alone.

Kant started from an assumption that normal mature human beings, although differing inmany ways, all equally had the capacity to recognise and act on the moral law, and that theprescriptions of the moral law were derivable by reason. Each individual was admonished tofollow only those prescriptions (rules or maxims) which he himself was prepared to generalise;thus acting morally involved following rules which the individual would be prepared to endorseif everyone else also accepted and acted on them. Unfortunately his system took too littleaccount of the infinite variety of conditions in the real world, since the rules, once established,were supposed to be followed irrespective of the circumstances. This paid no regard to the factthat the real world sometimes presents people with dilemmas in which insisting on, say, tellingthe truth or keeping a promise could only lead to horrific consequences. To act as if the point ofmorality were single consistency is to ignore the force of the claim that morality is onlyintelligible if it has some connection with human (and, by extension, with animal) flourishing.Clear, unambiguous rules are useful, but the world is unimaginably complex and sometimesacting on a usually valuable rule is totally unacceptable. Who, after all, when questioned by agroup of Nazi soldiers about the whereabouts of a Jewish family would doubt for a moment thatthe right thing to do would be to deny all knowledge of them, despite the fact that they wereactually hidden in his attic!

Moral reasoning, then, must engage with reality all the time. Reasoning, cut adrift from thefluctuations of the real world, would seem to be an insufficient basis on which to establish a validmorality.

However, if, as suggested above, there is force in the claim that morality has some connectionwith human flourishing, an exploration into the psychological and physical conditions of suchflourishing could provide a starting point for the building of a humanly valid morality. Such aprogramme would involve both observation and reasoning (as any practically orientedprogramme must). •

Some people might argue that there are no permanent conditions of human flourishing — noconstant, enduring human needs — so that such a programme, in so far as it aimed to beuniversal in scope, could not even get off the ground. Some again might object that moralitycannot hope to promote any sort of disinterested concern for the well being of others since such amotive is not humanly possible.

In answer to the first point it could be illuminating to look at forms of punishment throughoutthe world. Punishment is generally accepted as involving intentional harm to the recipient; andsevere punishment takes remarkably constant forms throughout the centuries and across theglobe: incarceration, beatings, mutilation, humiliation and death. Such things, then, in theabsence of special circumstances, can be assumed to be harmful to human beings — and itfollows that their avoidance constitutes a sort of good. Physical harms are common to bothhuman beings and animals (and the latter's ability to experience physical harm is surely a reasonfor their inclusion within the moral domain). But what of humiliation? Human beings appear toneed some recognition of their personal worthwhileness to be happy, and humiliating,degrading treatments rob people of their !sense of self-worth.

It seems, then, that the minimal conditions of human flourishing are freedom from severephysical suffering, freedom from degradation, and freedom from enforced confinement. Butthese conditions are merely negative, and, though essential, are far from sufficient. Humanbeings, wherever they live, look for satisfaction in human contact (love, friendship, esteem,

Ethical Record. May, 1991 17

admiration). It also seems clear that the power to do something creative, to fashion something

which bears their own personal stamp, is important to people the world over, whether it be a

piece of wood-work, a model, a cake or an embroidered shawl! This need for personal

expression could also be satisfied by playing a musical instrument, acting in a play or joining in a

dance. To achieve even a modest degree of mastery in some area is a basic human satisfaction.

From this emerges a very broad and rough picture of the significant constituents of human

well-being, the 'good for man'. However the details of the good life for individuals will partly

depend on the context of culture, habit and tradition within which their lives are lived and which

provide them with particular opportunities for satisfaction and development. (For example,

playing the electric guitar is an option open to modem young people which was not available to

their forebears in previous centuries!)The second point — that human beings are unable to act other than self-interestedly — could

be countered by saying that it is possible for one's self-interest to embrace the interests of others

through sympathetic identification; and perhaps also through a sense of fairness which many

people possess to a marked degree.What implications for the objectivity of morals has the preceding discussion? What could be

said, in the light of the foregoing, about the possibility of moral truth?Before drawing any final conclusions, I want to present two examples, one of an institution,

the other of an act, which few people would deny were morally outrageous.

The first is the institution of slavery — particularly chattel slavery, involving the buying and

selling of human individuals as items of property. Other things being even approximately equal, it

is always better to be a free man than a slave (slave mentality, if it exists, is surely induced

through fear). To live a full human life, human beings need the chance to pursue their own goals,

to choose certain paths for themselves. To be completely subservient to the will of another is to

lose an element of one's essential human identity. Enslaving someone is thus to harm him; and,

given the reciprocal element in morality, the institution of slavery cannot be morally defended.

Likewise, by its very nature, the act of rape constitutes a moral outrage. The will and desires of

the victim (usually, but not always a woman) are totally disregarded, and the completely

self-centred passions of the perpetrator are forcibly imposed on a fellow human being as if she

(or he) were a mere object. The moral objectionableness of such an act is clear.Morality here has been defined as embracing the golden rule: reciprocity. Assuming this basic

feature, it seems obvious that those who follow the precepts of morality would bave no reason

for doing so unless the prospects of achieving some sort of good were thereby enhanced. The

point of morality is thus the promotion of some identifiable and comprehensible good.

I have attempted to delineate very roughly some of the basic elements of the good life for

human- kind, and believe that this picture is both intelligible and defensible. Thus, although

cultural bias and subjective elements must enter many of the moral judgement made by

individuals, at least some moral judgements can be upheld as true. Geoffrey Warnock suggests

that this applies to the judgement: "It would be morally wrong to induce an addiction to heroin

in my children", and I would be prepared to assert the truth of the claim that rape is morally

wrong, not just here and now but wherever and whenever it is perpetrated. Intentionally causing

serious illness in another individual is a further example; and, of course, enslaving anyone (and

this includes one's own children).It is, of course, easier to be certain about what is morally prohibited than about the positive

aspects of morality. This is probably because, given freedom from pain and disease, and some

power over their own lives, people will fmd out what gives them satisfaction and fulfilment for

themselves. Of course, much more needs to be said. Lesser harms must be balanced against

greater harms, and deep human needs must be investigated, identified, and, if possible, met.

However, given that morality has the function of promoting human good (and, by extension

of its principles, animal good too) it must be possible for at least some of its principles to be

objectively established.

18 Ethical Record May, 1991

VIEW POINTS

WHAT IS MODERN HUMANISM? — E.R. March 1991 — p.17.

I have read with great interest the informed views of Neil Jenkins.In my opinion, one should distinguish between morality and moral precepts such as the

Christian teaching about altruism and selfishness.I think that morality is about RIGHT and WRONG (or if you like about GOOD AND

EVIL) and not about ALTRUISM and SELFISHNESS.If we were not able to decide what is RIGHT for us, we could not act towards our

survival, we could not try to avoid pain and suffering, we could not even cross the street,let alone express thoughts and feelings through sophisticated sounds correctly corre-sponding to meanings.

So, we have to learn, and we are trained from our birth to know, how and what isRIGHT to feed ourselves, to cope with all the problems we have to face, and tounderstand what is best for us.

What I am saying is that, in my opinion, a humanist analysis of moral rules andregulations should start with a psychological enquiry, i.e. why do we have rules andregulations which we call moral?

Sincerely,David Ibry, London NW9

The Editor,The Ethical Record.

Dear Sir,

At a recent meeting it became apparent that some members had experienced 'paranormal'phenomena. I am researching the record of all such experiences and I would like to hearfrom any members who have personally had experiences of events that do not fit into thepattern of normal life.

I am particularly interested in 'time slips' and authentic cases of precognition. Ofextreme interest would be anybody who displays paranormal faculties or knows of aperson who does.

Perhaps I should mention that the research does not imply any belief in life after death.I can be contacted by telephone on 071-722 7877 or by letter at:

9A Sharpleshall Street, London NW I

Yours sincerely,Brian W. Haines

A PLEA FOR RATIONALITY

Europeans have been accused of dumping on Africa their old clothes and their old religions.Now worn-out theories are being dumped on the Ethical Record. The piece entitled "TheMiddle East: Myths and Facts" (ER March 1991), with its shock-horror charge of a "hiddenhand" at work does not glorify Stalin or "The Socialist Sixth of the World"; apart from that it

Ethical Record, May, 1991 19

reads like a leader from the Daily Worker of the 1930s. It falls blindly into the pit dug for

exponents of conspiracy theory, showing that these "hidden" activities are in fact on public

record. How else does the writer know of them? How else is she able to name a "secret" agent?

The theory that a rapacious minority secretly controls and manipulates the great majority

of innocent, hardworking people is a fantasy, a left-wing equivalent of the Protocols of the

Elders of Zion. Such thinking is dangerous, for it carries the implication that if only the

manipulators could be got rid of, all would be well. That leads to Tiananmen Square, the Pol

Pot deathmarch and the Gulag Archipelago.

In 1848, when Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto, the suggestion that our

social troubles are due to manipulation by a minority might have seemed reasonable, but

social development since then, together with experience in Russia, China and other countries

under communist government, has clearly shown its falsity. The course followed by our

society is set, in its main outlines, by the ordinary people in their thousands of millions. Their

desire for speedy, comfortable and private transportation has turned oil into the power it is.

Their persistent, almost unthinking concentration upon their private and family interests has

frustrated attempts to set up a society of common ownership.

And the workers with brain and hand who operate and control our social world are not

doing too badly The nearest we have to an absolute standard by which to judge a society is

the length of life it offers its members; over the past century and more that has increased;

world-wide, beyond anything previously known.

Our main problem today is unbalanced, unregulated success; humanity now wields powers

so great that they cannot be allowed free rein on this little planet. But the people who

developed those powers are also developing the means for controlling them.

George Walford, London N5 ILB

Has the production of a joint Humanist journal ever been considered and, if so, should

further action be taken to introduce such a united pubcation for general distribution to

members of the several Humanist organisations?

Yes, there are difficulties but there would be advantages too. If a common issue was to be

made, say every second month, then the cost of postage would be radically altered, hopefully

for the good of all involved. It would be possible for an organisation to take any number of

pages perhaps in every issue or perhaps only once a year as thought desirable.

To preserve the independence of the various participating bodies the seperate sections

could still have their own format (excepting use of a common page size), editorial, letters

etcetera if such segregation was deemed necessary.

Of course a common printing would be most economic and distribution could be organised

from one point or, if desired, could be done by a participating organisation from its own

office to its own members.

Naturally there would be some details which would be arranged to suit various

associations' own special requirements.

If such a scheme was to be implemented then every member of the participating

organisations would receive the compound journal which would serve to unite us all in what

is after all a common purpose.

With the wider distribution greater advertising returns could be sought by soliciting adverts

from a larger pool even from those who would not consider the smaller individual

publications.

Perhaps we (united) could afford to send a copy to the larger libraries, possibly even

occasionally to the leading phone-in radio programmes when something special appears.

We (united) might even introduce it to larger booksellers for availability to the public at large.

Ethical Record, May, 199/ 20

Please read this in the spirit in which it has been submitted. After all everybody may notwish to join the project but no doubt if a couple started it others would soon see theadvantages in a successful scheme usefully covering extended readership.

There must be something I have overlooked, so accordingly I await your consideredreply with great interest.

Yours in Humanism,Henry S. Rawlinson. Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE16 6DR

The Law Commissioners were established some time after World War II to update Englishlaw. Their office is in Theobalds Road.

Sometime in the 'seventies I wrote to them on behalf of South Place to draw theirattention to the antiquated state of the law in relation to the solemnisation of marriageand to commend its modernisation to their attention. A wedding is in law a civil matterbut had to take place in a church or a registrar's office. This led to two anomalies. MostBritons were by now happy pagans (only 12% going to Church) yet they still went tochurch to be married because a wedding there had style and tradition behind it — but itinvolved self-evident hypocrisy. Others chose the civil ceremony in the Town Hall,competently done in ten minutes, but hardly romantic or celebratory.

The Australians had recently changed their law to permit any qualified and recognisedOfficiant to conduct the ceremony wherever and in whatever manner he and the intendingcouple pleased, provided the requirements of the law were met with.

Might we not do likewise?The Commissioners wrote back to me to say that they took my case but that they did

not propose to do anything about it for the time being because there was no public demandfor it

This was about the time that South Place had lost its right to conduct weddings becausesomeone had challenged our religious identity, on the strength of which the Hall had beenregistered for the solemnization of marriages in the first place.

I had myself conducted some fifty wedding ceremonies on humanist lines and foundthat these added substantially to the character and public recognition of the Society

they were certainly A Good Thing.In the last Ethical Record I see notice of the 131-1A's FUNERALS WITHOUT GOD and

of a new book on funerals by Dr Tony Walter. There is also reference to a Humanist PeaceCouncil set up by the various humanist associations. May I suggest a new item for thebroader humanist agenda — to wit a new look at humanist weddings? The reason fordoing so is, of course, that the Law Commissioners have at last caught up with the timesand changed the law over weddings. I have not enquired as to details but they willpresumably include the possession of a fire-proof safe, the licensing of OfFiciants andperhaps the registering of buildings (although this last is not required in Australia

where a wedding can take place on a beach!)

Yours sincerely,Peter Cadogan London NW6

21 Ethical Record, May, 1991

SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY

wishes to appoint an energetic Humanist (age 21-60 pref)

as Secretary to the Society

in flexible 35 hr/wk post to:

- compile lecture programme

develop Society's activities

service committees (inc some evenings)

- carry out bookkeeping and general office admin.

must have secretarial and WP skills

SALARY c £11000

Application form and further details from:

Lesley Dawson, Acting Secretary.

South Place Ethical Society

25 Red Lion Square

London WC1R 4RL

Tel: 071-831 7723

THE WAY I LIVE

A talk given at South Place on Sunday April 14th 1991

by Hi. BLACKHAM

Under this title, I want to speak about how one might try to live, not about my own daily

routine. For an ordered programme, a governing principle is needed. The first law of

nature, when people thought there was such a thing, was said to be self-preservation. In

practice, that tends to become self-gratification, and is liable to turn into total

preoccupation with petty concerns. The human perspective in individual terms is

in finitely myopic. We are self-centred, concerned not only with what is around and at

hand, but also with how it affects us. In spite of our TV screens. I therefore think the

governing principle should be self-transcendence. That sounds religious, but need not

mean anything outside the material universe. What I have in mind is a radical policy in the

investment of energy. In practice, I see this under five heads which I have used.

(I)Achievement. There are things one wants to do, and things one tries to bring about.

Early in life these are day-dreams. As we grow up and become more realistic, they fade

out. Perhaps we settle for what comes along or turns up. My point is we should not be

content to let go and settle down, to renounce goals and set aside plans. There should be

dominant in our lives selected ends to be attained or striven for, whatever the

commitments we may be involved in. Such ends may be ambitious, or more modest.

Clearly, they should not be wholly unrealistic. Whatever they may be, they will require

concentration and impose a discipline; and will take time. It is important to recognize that

achievement is incremental, a deferred attainment, a cumulation of instrumental

achievements. Also, selection of a particular end entails sacrifice of other possibilities.

The conditions and consequences of achievement have to be understood and accepted if

there is to be any chance of success. Failures on the way are almost inevitable, and one has

Ethical Record, May, 1991 22

to learn to deal with them, by not repeating what one has done to bring about failure,which one is always inclined to do. One cannot be casual about achievement. I amsuggesting that the pursuit of some chosen end should be a dominant theme in anyone'slife. This has nothing to do with fame or reputation, but simply the investment needed todo something one wants to do or to bring about something one feels is of some good Inthis way, a selected achievement is a defining and organizing principle within one'slife-cycle.

Contemplation. Anyone is at some time casually transfixed by something seen.'Empathy' is an unnecessary neologism which is defined in the Penguin dictionary as'power of losing one's sense of identity in contemplation of a work of art, person, orobject'. That definition is open to criticism, as is the word itself. But contemplation is anage-old form, of self-transcendence .that involves a conjunction of observation andreflection. A person is said to be observant, or more often unobservant. This is mistaken.No one is either one or the other, in general. One observes only what one is interested in orinformed about; and cannot see anything else. Walk round a garden with an expert, andunless you are as knowledgeable, he will see and point out what you could not have seenfor yourself. Armed with rudimentary information, one may cover the same ground insuccessive walks that are in turn, geological, topographical, botanical, arboreal,agricultural, zoological, insectological. With a different focus of attention and a differentrange of observations, the same walk will be a differenr walk each time. There aredifferent ways of looking at the same landscape, according to the way in which the eyeorganizes it, as landscape paintings show. One may select a line of trees, or any otherfeature, to attract the eye or dominate the scene. Natural history programmes on TV havetaught us that the natural world is infinitely more astonishing than anything supernatural,which can only be produced by humans. Contemplation is not limited to physicalobjects.Ideas can be contemplated or the state of the world or the way people live or timesgone by. People who think in abstractions, for whom unemployment is a matter offigures, are said to be unimaginative. People can contemplate war because they don'tcontemplate it. The observant element is complemented by reflection. What is looked at,actually or in the mind's eye, is taken into a context where it helps to form experience.Contemplation should not be merely casual, nor half-baked. It can be cultivated.

Gratification. There is the biblical injunction not to muzzle the ox that treads outthe corn. Self-transcendence should allow some self-indulgence. It does not imposeasceticism. If a rule is wanted, it can be found in self-respect; which is not the same as'self-esteem'. A motorist respects his car by driving it considerately and providing duemaintenance. Self-respect means due attention to the conditions of physical and mentalhealth, and due compliance with ethical and civil rules and expectations. In our time,there is probably overdue public attention to some of these things, such as diet andexercise; just as the resort of the young to drink and drugs is conspicuously excessive. Thisraises serious social questions of deprivation. Abstractly, gratification is qualified byself-respect, which itself requires self-transcendence.

Communication. Any organism in nature is a network of communications, as is anyeco-systena The brain is pre-eminently such a network; and self-consciousness is only amystery in the impossibility of tracing the nervous interconnexions that make it possible.At a personal level, communication is not necessarily a good thing. Games People Play isthe title of a once famous book in which Eric Berne analysed human relationships in termsof some dozen ritualistic ways in which we tend or try to avoid real relationships. That isusing communication to escape communication. These are stand-off positions that keepone from having to come to terms with intimacy and truth. We are most human in sharingexperiences, opinions, thoughts; in being in touch with one another. One of the greatesthardships of bereavement is to think of what one did not say to the lost one, and can neversay. Dr Johnson said, 'one should keep one's friendships in repair'. Friendship was a

23 Ethical Record, May, 1991

main classical ideal, as charity is the Christian one. If we are members one of another, that

is because of the social nexus in and by which we exist, a nexus that becomes personal in

communication. Communication can always be extended, deepended, made more

truthful, and more lively.

(5) Sevice. Despite the Social Service State which has turned a good turn into a right,

'entitlement to benefit', voluntary organizations abound to raise money and enlist service

in a good cause. The scope is vast. An ocean of misery laps every shore. When one's eyes

light on a wretch, one should always say, 'There but for the luck of the draw go 1'; for it is

always more than half chance — even that we exist at all. Need is a bottomless pit, and the

cost escalates. The government devises forms of privatization to work the miracle of

making a burden into a profit. It is perfectly proper to share part of the burden fairly by

progressive taxation, in order to make the claim a right. It is equally proper to leave part

to be supported voluntarily, as by charity in the old days. Otherwise, one has no active

personal role; one's citizenship is apt to be sterile. Tom Paine boasted of being a citizen of

the world. That was rather a vain claim at the time. Today it has present meaning, in so far

as one takes personal responsibility for conservation and other such global programmes.

There are a thousand ways in which one can give service, nationally and internationally,

as well as domestically in helping those around one. The medieval ideal of chivalry was

the use of strength for the protection of the weak instead of merely or mainly for

aggression and domination. It was more evident in the pages of fiction than in the redress

of real wrongs; but in a world of good and bad fortune, it is no ,more than reasonable that

those who happen to be better off in some respects should find ways of using their

advantage to help others less fortunate.

The headings I have used help one to keep track of how one is living; and to use oneself

for access to the world, instead of making oneself the world. Indirectly, it is a cultivation

of one's humanity, that will pull out the stops of joy and anger, and enable one to endure

without acceptance the awfulness of what happens, because one makes oneself part of it.

Jung says that those who are not strong enough to stand alone, who cannot achieve

autonomy and the self-determination that comes from detachment, find their identity in

membership of a group. That is infinitely better than drifting or withdrawal. However it

may be, one has to transcend oneself to live to some purpose.

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