Introduction
Ethics is this study of what is good and what is bad and throughout the course
of history it had also its shares of disputes and animosities. But beneath all
of it is that ethics is a means in order to arrive at happiness or the good
life. Because we have to act correspondingly or in a certain manner wherein we
can get to attain harmony within ourselves especially regarding to our
conscience or in harmony with others in order to keep relationships or
ultimately to preserve one’s self or to attain such security whether externally
and that is in relation with others or internally or personal satisfaction. Our
actions are guided by principles of which we take actions correspondingly but
the question lies what then are these principles and sometimes we go back to
our way of understanding or our metaphysical assumptions wherein we garner from
these in order to make way into how we conduct ourselves in our actions. In
this paper then, I will explicate Bertrand Russell’s Conquest
of Happiness wherein laying down that metaphysical assumption of
happiness will direct man’s actions accordingly in the attainment of it, but
although it will be the same of the Aristotelian plea also of the virtuous life
wherein it also presupposes a goal of happiness for its attainment and the
means to get there is by choosing a middle way in given extremes of actions,
but as for Bertrand Russell, he follows a different maxim wherein it may not
sound so romantic because he is a positivist, a man of science wherein the
principles he has is guided by materialism. But what I will lay stress here is
on the portion regarding to the Sense of Sin wherein sin has been a huge issue
in morality whether in the realm of religion or of society which has certain
norms. Sin is this so called transgression wherein one is against the code of
ethics given to society, or simply what is a so called bad act or a act which
is forbidden, such is deemed negative because its inherent nature is to do
harm. As how philosophers viewed morality back then, it was tied to
metaphysical assumptions, to mean metaphysical is to mean that it has grounds
that is not in this world liken to the example of connecting it to God and the
beyond. Sin has been treated differently because in some other ways not only
does it cause harm but it has some tendencies to go against the metaphysical
aspect of the good set upon and that is of sin being close to materiality. As
how the ancient philosophers condemned the body as the origin of change and
therefore the root of corruptibility to which it is in this body wherewith the
bad things arise in contrary to the alter pair of the soul which is the seat of
goodness. Even St. Augustine condemns the body as wicked and the negative pull
of the body is what is driving man to sin and thus by the exercise of his
rational powers i.e. the soul will help him to be morally upright, but then
again, the body suffered an ill treatment, to generally speak of, materiality
suffered an ill treatment as the cause of which one is led to sin. Therefore if
one commits sin, one is then led to the unhappy life because he has done wrong
and is therefore degraded by doing such and even the concept which one is
driven at to leads him to a sense of negative attitude because he has lived in
a preconception of sin as something negative wherewith it then will bring him
no happiness at all in the long run. Especially to that of someone who has been
so dictated and engrossed in moral uprightness that one has become so righteous
to the point that he has sold his materiality to the beyond and thus he is led
into the demise of this world wherewith and thus every partake of his
materiality especially to the excess of which will lead him to despair.
Therefore one then cannot be happy because he has a certain sense of sin wherein
one is fixated into its scheme and thus one is trapped in guilt once he has
committed transgression and therefore the most important of all is that he is
no longer happy. Bertrand Russell explicated this situation and this is what I
am going to tackle in this paper.
The Sense of Sin
Sin in any religious context is definitely which is abhorred because of it
being the opposite of good to which not only it is against the moral
establishment of the idea of good but also of it causing harm to humanity in
general. Sin is just like a bad act from a point from of which there is no
religion, it is either moral depravation or like a moral transgression or an
immoral act. But tied with religion, it has a meaning that is in relation to a
divine but still a divine that is assumed to be good. During the ancient
Greeks, morality is revolving around the relation of morality with knowledge
that according to Socrates that “knowledge is virtue” and thus it is of
ignorance that one is lead into a state of being in wrong because when one has
the knowledge of the good, one then leads into the fulfilment of the good, but
if one does not know what is right and wrong, then one is therefore ignorant
and thus is lead into being in wrong. Later on Aristotle propounded on the
issue of morality into virtue ethics wherein in order to do something which is
good has to be in relation of which to something as a middle path between
extremes because if an action is either overdone or is in lack, it results into
both as being vices which is in contrary to virtue. But the end of which
of doing the good is happiness and that is the same with Socrates, that the
ends of the good is for one to be happy. But the moral depravation of Socrates
due to ignorance and that to Aristotle’s moral overdoing and or lack both
results into a negative line morality wherewith it results again to something
which is bad, definitely it harms. Later on during the Medieval times, the idea
of morality was further improved with the juxtaposition of divine elements
especially of the Christian influence of the thought back then. Wherein
religion became in due part inseparable in the current trend in whether any
aspects thereof present, whether in epistemology, ethics, politics and etc. To
speak for an example then of epistemology is to relate the acquisition of
knowledge to that of its divine source namely God and so much more with ethics
dealing with the good and the bad and to speak of the ultimate good is to point
to God and to speak of evil is against Him. Here is then the most obvious of
all causes of the “strange” morality we have according to Bertrand Russell
especially when morality is based in a metaphysical realm to the point of
already abstracting the current materiality and thus when abstracted, the
materiality is condemned such as something negative.
The morality back then of the medieval period was a product also from the
ancient Greek’s conception of ethics wherein there is a relation of the divine
and the primacy over the transcendental aspects. Like to that of the famous
dichotomy set by the Greeks of the world that is categorized into the ideal and
the material, and thus the proceeding of which that materiality is abhorred
because of its nature being changing and when a thing changes it is thus so
referred as imperfect because they gave so much primacy on intelligence which
encapsulates things into a still motion. Wherein the perfect is therefore is in
relevance to it being capable of being grasped by the intellect and what is grasped
by the intellect remains something as unchanged therefore static but left
untouched, just like how the conception of God is established wherein God is
that unmoved being, bereft of motion therefore bereft of imperfections because
he does not change. In the metaphysical construction then of the world as two
leads also to the formulation of dividing everything into two as well, but the
conclusion arrived at by the thinkers of that time as that there is something
that is more value or of importance and the other is something left out. Coming
then from that kind of metaphysical set up, everything then is divided into two
and thus therefore so as with ethics. Even to the ascribing of the source of
morality, to which the soul or the intellect which is transcendental is aimed
already towards the good and that of the body is bad or evil because of its
nature towards imperfection and changes and of its nature it is thus therefore
pointed as the culprit of the evil in man. Even during Plato’s time, the body
is something to be abhorred at because of its very nature and that is change,
and then when the soul combined with the body, then the soul forgets its
existence or simply was affected by the nature of the body which is contingent
and thus therefore came man, which has a sense of intelligence which can know
of things but has a tinge of imperfection of which man can know and man tends
to forget, but still he is capable of recuperating from his loss. Of such view
did Plato view the origin of man and thus the so called condemnation of the
body or of the material element of man. The role of the body as of which the
source of evil was then elevated especially in St. Augustine’s philosophy
wherein the body has its own drives to which man thus is then led to evil but
the practicing of the rational aspect within man will certainly lead him into
the arrival of the knowledge of good to where then he is lead into the move in
acting it. Take note of the primacy of the rational aspect that which has to be
cultivated for one to reach and to do the good and thus leaving the body into
the ditch for being the source of evil. This kind of thought then
continues to persevere because Christianity remained to be the most influential
and widespread religion in the West and thus this had a long reign in the
thinking of the times. The morals set upon by the dominance of the Christian
influence remained and thus is already embedded in the culture of the people
and even is the basis of morality of which then is taught to the children and
even the education mostly then was particular of the kind of morality of which
Christianity has established.
But there is now a shift in paradigm occurring when materiality has been
re-evaluated and thus paved a way to which there has been now a reassessment of
values. Especially when the deathblow to metaphysics has been given,
challenging God and the likes of him which carries the proud name of it. When
the body has something to speak and it is not anymore the reign of the soul
which must be given primacy, there has now been a change in view so as with a
change in moral perspectives. Bertrand Russell then establish a materialistic
frame wherein he even pointed out that thinking has to do with the material
configurations of the body that is of the brain; and that the origin of
religion is not on a metaphysical plain but on the materiality of the emotions
of fear and others. What we therefore deem as metaphysical is not metaphysical,
but has its origin in the material facticity of reality. Thus to further
supplement his claim over the topic of the Sense of Sin, what was mentioned
above about the slight history of morality being influenced by Christianity
will serve as the springboard of our understanding on how he formulated his
conception of the sense of sin.
As for Bertrand Russell the sense of sin is of relevance because it has a huge
impact to the person especially in psychological aspects. As he says, “. . .
since it is one of the most important of the underlying psychological causes of
unhappiness in adult life.” [1] Why then is this the case? Because we have been
brought up by a society of Christian morals that we have already developed a conscience
wherein whenever we have done wrong or committed sin, then we are tortured by
this sense of guilt resulting from it. A psychology, that kind of psychology
sprang up because of a reli gious background that has
dominated the consciousness since it came to be. Thus to point one “. . .
protestants, that conscience reveals to every man when an act to which he is
tempted is sinful, and that after committing such an act he may experience
either two painful feelings, one called remorse, in which there is no merit and
the other called repentance, which is capable of wiping out his guilt.”[2] Dug beneath man’s psychology are these senses of
remorse and the need to be repented for which he is troubled when he
experiences the impact of sin. But the dilemma is that why do even feel
such? To ascribe it to sin then will be a probable cause but sometimes what we
commit are just mere acts which base its categorizations of absurd causes or
even causes that are even outside of our nature to the point of hallucination
to call something as God is talking to you. Or even the reason behind was just
from a product of semantics from tradition that the previous people just agreed
upon but without even proper justifications. Laying the grounds then of an
absurd line of reasoning to which metaphysical claims are even without real
basis to really derive something of a sufficient justification for.
But why does he feel any sense of remorse or guilt? What does he greatly fear?
Man is inevitably in a society and therefore he cannot escape that society will
also be the judge of his actions. Not to mention the fear of being found out is
one great thing that one fears. Not only does he feels the pressure of being
known of his misdeeds but he feels the negative attention he receives from
being found out. Why is such the case? It is because the society is constructed
in a ethical set up that despises the sin and also a tinge of or maybe a huge
fraction of the blame and of the shame goes to the sinner, and for that he is
either left out or ostracized for that matter. One finds comfort being with the
crowd and that to go against the crowd is to go against his comfort zone. “. .
. but the man who entirely accepts the morality of the herd while acting
against it suffers great unhappiness when he loses caste, and the fear of this
disaster, or the pain of it when it has happened, may easily cause him to
regard his acts themselves as sinful.”[3] When man accepts then the ethical norms laden by
society is lead into the burden of experiencing guilt or remorse once he is in
the dilemma of committing against the norms, but the next question is that when
one introspects of the cause of the morals constructed by society one is lead
into confusion because there can be nothing to be pointed at to be a source of
which. Also one is lead to appreciate the man who is pure, of which he refrains
from the commitment to sin or any moral transgressions. We value more the saint
who surpasses his material or bodily leanings for a cause beyond his matter.
That is why even the saint is someone of whom we cannot understood because he
is not ordinary because the ordinary thing to do is to lean on to our
materiality. But such is not the case with the saint nor for the person who
promotes moral perfection or purity and having these kinds of persons as ideals
makes one who is in the ethical situation pressured into fulfilling these
ideals. “He wishes he were the kind of man who could abstain from what he
believes to be sin. He gives moral admiration only to those whom he believes to
be pure in heart.”[4] But to constrain one to such a kind of thinking
will thus lead one to frustration for the demand of moral purity is
extra-ordinary especially to that when one starts to dedicate oneself outside
materiality. Being ordinary or let us say in respect to materiality is to
follow the hedonistic principle to which pleasure is to be promoted and pain is
to be avoided and there is no other receptacle in man wherein pain and pleasure
is made manifest other than the body itself. To be a saint as we all know tends
to forget his material condition and that he is lauded for his rejection or to
say in their terms “transcending” the materiality. That is, he is not anymore
governed by the material construct of pleasure and pain, but it has now become
a quest of pleasure outside the bodily concern. Wherewith one ventures into
being ascetic or simply one takes pain immensely for the grant of a pleasure in
the afterlife. To which the afterlife is nothing to a materialist perspective
and of which to work towards it is to work towards nothing.
Simply Bertrand Russell simply puts down that the concern of man, especially in
morals is that most morals are based on metaphysical assumptions that is bereft
of material concreteness and therefore the ethics followed is left unfounded.
Therefore there is the psychological strain and stress of following a dictum
that is contrary to our concrete material existence and to which the demand is
too high that it tends to destroy the carnality and the principles of morality
and of sin is based in those assumptions. The body or the materiality is
stressed and disturbed because of an ethics that tends to remove the body. That
is why the saint is too much of a difficult thing for an ordinary man, for the
ordinary man follows the call of his body. This kind of ethics, this kind of
sense of sin is the cause of which many men are unhappy since they are
restricted of what is close to them and that is their body.
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