Bertrand Russell

Ask only what the facts are and what truth the facts bear out. And remember that love is wise, hatred foolish. To survive, we must learn to tolerate each other.

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

Some have regarded the social contract as a historical fact, others as a legal fiction; the important matter, for all of them, was to find a terrestrial origin for governmental authority. They could not think of any alternative to divine right except the supposed contract.

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

Abraham Lincoln conducted a great war without ever departing from what I would call wisdom.

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

Elizabeth I in England and Henri IV in France lived in a world in which almost everybody was fanatical on either the Protestant or the Catholic side. Both remained free of the errors of their time, and by remaining free, were beneficent and certainly not ineffective.

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

If you hate those who do harm, it is only too likely that you will become equally harmful. And it is very unlikely that you will induce them to abandon their evil ways. Hatred of evil is itself a kind of bondage to evil. The way out is through understanding, not through hatred.

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

Remember the saying that the #Samaritan was our neighbor? We no longer have any wish to hate Samaritans, and so we are apt to miss the point of the #Biblical parable. If you want to get its point, substitute #Conservative or #Liberal, or #Democrat or #Republican, for Samaritan.

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

We are told on Sundays that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. On the six other days of the week, we are exhorted to hate him.

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

It may be - I am not saying it is - desirable, from a #utilitarian point of view, to reserve to each individual a certain sphere of personal #liberty. If so, the doctrine of the #Rights of Man will be suitable for appropriate laws, though these rights be subject to exceptions.

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

In its absolute form, the doctrine that an individual has certain inalienable #rights is incompatible with #utilitarianism, i.e., with the doctrine that right acts are those that do most to promote the general #happiness.

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

#Property is very prominent in #Locke's #political #philosophy: “The great and chief end of men uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under #government, is the preservation of their property; to which in the state of #nature there are many things wanting.”

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

Some parts of #Locke’s natural law are surprising. For example, he says that captives in a just #war are #slaves by the law of nature. He says also that by nature every man has a right to punish attacks on himself or his property, even by death.

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

Where most are in the state of nature, there may be some who do not live according to the law of nature, and #Locke held that the law of nature provides, up to a point, what may be done to resist such criminals. Every person, we are told, can defend herself and what is hers.

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

The great objection to the state of #nature is that, while it persists, everyone is the judge in her own cause, since she must rely upon herself for the defence of her #rights. For this evil, #government is the remedy, but this is not a natural remedy.

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

#Locke: The state of #nature has a #law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and #reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

#Locke held that #humankind’s natural state is one of #equality, wherein all the #power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same #species should be equal, without subordination or subjection.

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

To understand political power right [Locke says] we must consider that people are naturally in a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions as they think fit, within the bounds of natural law, without asking leave of any others.

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

#Locke’s “state of #nature” describes an imagined #community of #virtuous #anarchists, who need no #police or #law-courts because they always obey “#reason,” which is the same as “natural law,” which, in turn, consists of laws of conduct that are held to have a #divine origin.

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

The nearest thing to a definition of the state of #nature to be found in #Locke is the following: “Men living together according to #reason, without a common #superior on earth, with #authority to judge between them, is properly the state of nature.”

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

The belief in a #happy “state of #nature” in the remote past comes partly from the #biblical narrative of the age of the #patriarchs, partly from the #classical myth of the golden age. The general belief in the badness of the remote past only came with the doctrine of #evolution.

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

Regarding the state of #nature, #Locke was less original than #Hobbes, who regarded it as a war of all against all. Locke’s view cannot be freed from its #theological basis; where it survives without this, as in much modern #liberalism, it lacks a clear #logical foundation.

[Bertrand Russell @BrainyBertie]

As a rule, the person who first thinks of a new idea is so ahead of her time that every one thinks her silly. Then the world becomes ready for the idea and the one who proclaims it at the right moment gets the credit. So it was with Darwin; poor Lord Monboddo was a laughing-stock