Ethical Record The Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol. 106 No. 1 £1.50 Jan-Feb, 2001 AN AGENDA FOR THE 21ST CENTURY THE ETHICS OF CITIZENSHIP

On 14 December 2000 at Conway Hall, the 74th Conway Memorial Lecture entitled Ethics and Citizenship - A New Agenda for the Twentyfirst Century was delivered, beautifully and wittily, by the eminent writer on and professor of politics, Bernard Crick. Professor Crick was introduced by Gabby Rowberry of the Council for Education in World Citizenship. Photo: Martin Harris Gabby also chairs the Coalition for Conway Memorial Lectureh Emeritus Professor Citizenship, whose members are Bernard Crick and Chainnan Gabby Rowberrv at Conway Hall on the 14 December 2000. working with Professor Crick to implement the new citizenship order in education. The audience consisted of keenly attentive members of the Society and the general public, some of whom were former students of Professor Crick.

Professor Crick set out five principles which, he felt, underlie the curriculum of the citizenship order. They were: freedom (without which we won't know what other people's moral views were); toleration (I accept you, as a person, but not all your views and practices as being beyond criticism); fairness (preferable to 'the rule of law' - are the laws themselves just?), respect for truth (not truth as such); respect for reasoning (do not respect those who do not give reasons).

For those whose appetite may have been whetted by the above themes and would like to hear Professor Crick's exposition in full, a recording of the lecture will be played as part of the Ethical Society's Sunday programme on 25 March 2001.

THE ABORTION LAW STRUGGLE Diane illunday 3 R.M. HARE'S PRESCRIPTION Chris Bratcher 9 CHASING THE HARE: SEARLE & GEACH Chris Bratcher 14 ORIGINS OF GENIUS - Book Review Leslie Jones 18 DARWIN'S BLACK BOX - Book Review Roy Silson 21 PAT POTTLE MEMORIAL AT CONWAY HALL Barbara Smoker 23 ETHICAL IRONY Jennifer Jeynes 23 ETHICAL SOCIETY EVENTS 24 SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY . Conway Hall Humanist Centre • 25 Red Lion Square, London WCIR 4RL. Tel: 020 7242 8034 Fax: 020 7242 8036 website: www.ethicalsoc.org.uk email: [email protected]

Officers Chairman of the GC: Terry Mullins Hon. Rep of the GC: Don Liversedge Registrar: Donald Rooum

Editor, Ethical Record: Norman Bacrac

SPES Staff Administrative Secretary to the Society: Marina Ingham Tel: 020 7242 8034 LibrarianIProgramme Coordinator: Jennifer Jeynes. Tel: 020 7242 8037 Operations Manager: Frances Hanlon. Tel: 020 7242 8033 Lettings Manager: Peter Vlachos. For Hall bookings: Tel: 020 7242 8032 New Members Hyman Frankel, London SE17; Simon Hardman, Chorlton, Manchester; John James, London SE13.

SPES MEMBERS OPEN DISCUSSION MEETING, 25 FEBRUARY 2001

At 3pm on 25 February 2001, the General Committee invites members of the Ethical Society to engage in informal discussion on any matters of concern to do with the management of the Society and Conway Hall.

RUSSIAN HUMANIST VISITS LONDON Victor Shchekochikhin, of the Moscow branch of the Russian Humanist Society, visited London for a fortnight in January. He came with his wife, Irina, and children Maxim (11) and Anna (10). Besides SPES, Victor had talks with all the Humanist organisations here: IHEU, RPA, BHA and the NSS. He assisted in the production of the 1993 the Russian Constitution.

now wishes to encourage every citizen to take an active part in the social life of the country, which was not possible under communism, where one could not say what one thought. Victor believes strongly in the value of international contacts and would welcome visitors to Moscow, where he is organising a conference in April 2001 on the 40th anniversary of the first man in space.

SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY CONWAY HALL HUMANIST CENTRE 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL Reg. Charity No. 251396

Founded in 1793, the Society is a progressive movement whose aims are: the study and dissemination of ethical principles based on humanism, the cultivation of a rational and humane way of life, and the advancement of research and education in relevant fields. We invite to membership those who reject supernatural creeds and are in sympathy with our aims. At Conway Hall the the programme includes Sunday lectures, discussions, evening courses and the renowned South Place Sunday Concerts of chamber music. The Society maintains a Humanist Reference Library. The Society's journal, Ethical Record, is issued ten times a year. The annual subscription is £18. (£12 if a full-time student, unwaged or over 65). 2 Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 THE PERILS & PLEASURES OF HUMANIST CAMPAIGNING: THE ABORTION LAW STRUGGLE

Diane Munday Lecture to the Ethical Society, 3 December 2000

In 1967 when standing for election to Hertfordshire County Council, my Tory opponents were out on the pavements the night before with posters and loud hailers declaring `she is anti-Christ and pro-abortion'; indeed in 1969 when I was appointed a Justice of the Peace, the local newspaper had headlines on the front page to much the same effect. That, I suppose (except for the fact that I am pro-choice but not and have never been pro-abortion - an important difference that the anti abortion lobby has never been able or, more likely, willing to recognise) just about sums my life up from around 1960 to 1990.

Looking back - and preparing this talk has provided me with an unexpectedly vivid trip down memory lane; apart from the small matters of running a home, caring for a husband and bringing up three small sons, campaigning for a liberal abortion law and promoting Humanism dominated those three decades of my life.

However this talk is very different from the thousands of others I have given. It is somewhat ironic, after 40 years of stonewalling attempts to write about me personally, that now - among friends - I am talking about ME. I have always insisted that it is the subject that matters and have deplored the cult of the personality and here I am about to deliver what my notes suggest is a highly egotistical monologue!

Abortion Law Reformand Humanism Linked Certainly in the early days. abortion law reform and Humanism were closely linked (to my sorrow, less so today). You did not have to be a humanist to believe in reproductive choice - a number of religious people campaigned with us and many actively supported us (even more actually had abortions but that is a different story)

I never met anybody calling themselves a humanist/rationalist/freethinker who did not believe the law should be changed to abolish the 1861 prohibition on 'all attempts to procure miscarriage'. Indeed, resolutions passed at the conferences of various of our kindred bodies helped considerably to swell the numbers we were truthfully able to claim supported our standpoint.

Interestingly, the first meeting to discuss abortion that I ever attended was here in this building when Harold Blackham spoke on the subject in what then was the Small Hall. I would have been very heartened if, at that time, I had known how far society would move - both in adopting Humanist ideas and stances as well as in accepting legal abortion as a humane necessity - in the subsequent forty years

Equally I would have been disappointed if I had been able to foresee the continuing high number of abortions as, naively at that time, I thought, easy access to contraception and education about its use-was all that was needed to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. Also I suppose, it is true that I am disappointed about the lack of ground gained by Humanism in general in this increasingly godless society.

Conversely, the opposition to legalised abortion came almost 100% from those believing human life to begin at conception, to be God given and therefore sacred. Ethical Record, Jan-Feb. 2001 3 If I were asked to sum up my memories in one word, the word that comes immediately to mind is IRRATIONALITY - with HYPOCRISY closely behind - and I fear there is still a lot of both around. However this is not going to be an academic treatise on irrationality but a series of anecdotes which I suspect (and hope) will entertain rather than enlighten you.

My Abortion The story really starts when I was offered thalidomide during my third pregnancy - although there was a prologue. In the fifties 1 had known a young mother of three who had died as•the result of a back street abortion. During that pregnancy I came to the strong conclusion that, had I taken the drug, I would have wished to have an abortion rather than knowingly increase the risks of having a handicapped child. So I joined the moribund Abortion Law Reform Association. When faced with a fourth pregnancy in four years I decided I would end it - but I survived because I could wield a cheque book in Harley St. As I could not thank God I vowed in my muzzy state to spend the rest of my life campaigning for those who did not have a cheque book, or information.

I went to my first public speaking engagement in fear and trembling. This was the Townswomen's Guild, an audience of elderly ladies in hats and gloves. I admitted I had recently bought an abortion. The talk was met in absorbed silence but I did not sense hostility. At teaiime one by one these ladies came to me and said words to the effect - 1 have never told anybody before but 1 had an abortion in the 30s. Indeed some years later my mother told me that she had nursed her sister who had been to the backstreets in the 30s when she was the only bread winner in the family. Many years later that aunt (without ever telling me her secret) volunteered to be my spy in one of the anti-abortion organisations. Her name was Phoebe and she took great delight in referring to herself as Aunt P1-JIL13Y!

Speaking on local platforms soon gave way to frequent broadcasting. In the 1970s I, for a period, rejoiced in a reputation in the broadcasting media as 'the woman who put Jimmy Young down' Again I decided to be open about my abortion. I suspect I was the first person to announce on TV that I had terminated a pregnancy. The day after happened to be the day of the summer sports at the village primary school attended by my sons. As I walked in the chatter stopped. When we acquired a new (secondhand ) car friends reported it was being said we had bought it with the proceeds of the abortions I performed on the kitchen table.

'Respectability' It appears that a characteristic of those who do not think rationally is to believe that all those who do are IMMORAL. When I was made a JP in 1969 many people did not therefore know how to react. One woman who had shunned me for years greeted and congratulated me when I was walking through the village churchyard. Others suddenly found I was acceptable and seemed puzzled when I did not want to socialise with them.

During this period, there were a number of people who lived nearby whom I helped. One in particular - a 17 year old who was pregnant; her father was a pillar of the local community and as I learned, a martinet at home. Mother and daughter were distraught at the thought of his finding out. I arranged everything. Next time I met the mother whilst out, as with all the others I helped, she ostentatiously ignored me. I understand why now but at the time it hurt.

4 Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 Part of the reason why there are still so many teenage pregnancies - the highest rate in Europe - is that respectable middle class mums regularly used phrases like 'she is a good girl really. She hasn't been and got contraception'. 'She ain't a slut or a slag' - she didn't understand what it was all about - as if sexual ignorance was something to be proud of. I came to call this THE MOONLIGHT AND ROSES SYNDROME and believe until we become more realistic about teenage sexuality the situation will not improve.

Impact On My Family Of My Campaigning My husband to a degree did suffer, as did my sons. I was always very careful to protect them from the media, unlike Mrs Victoria Gillick. She used her ten children outrageously, allowing them to be photographed and even permitting a reporter to ask hcr eldest son whether he agreed with what his mother was doing. Last week I read an article in which Mrs G was complaining how the media had 'dragged her children into the limelight and behaved disgracefully by photographing them' etc while I know full well that she invited the reporters and the photographers in.

The impact on my family had its funny side. My husband worked for a large national company. Soon after I was becoming prominent, he lectured me all the way to the Directors' Xmas Party on what I could and could not discuss, pointing out that I could jeopardize his promotion or even his job. When we arrived I shook hands with the Director and then his wife who said - very loudly 'oh Mrs Munday I saw you on television and I do so agree with what you are trying to do. You must tell me how I can help'!

My sons reacted in different ways. The eldest usually had stomach ache the morning after a performance. The middle one said 'you are jealous because your mother isn't clever enough or pretty enough' to be asked to go on TV (told me by a teacher) and the youngest happily told everybody who telephoned while I was out 'mummy isn't here; she's out on abortion'. They became very accustomed to taking early morning cups of tea to the strange women who had turned up unannounced and spent the night in the living room.

My children were at the C of E village primary school. My husband and I, on balance, decided it was better to keep the boys at school in the community in which they lived. We also decided after consultation between ourselves and with the boys not to withdraw them from RE. They had been brought up knowing that we did not believe in God but that other people did.

My eldest son had been made to stand in front of the class with a dunce's hat on and read from the Bible. His crime (sin?) had been to describe germs, poisonous snakes and floods that killed people when required to write an essay on what God had made. His young teacher did her hilarious best to convert me as well.

Churches Change • l was asked to speak or debate at a number of schools and became a regular lecturer.at a number of local Teacher Training Colleges. Over the years I have found it more and more difficult to keep clear water between our philosophy and that of many religionists. It has everything to do with the churches abandoning much of their dogma, their holier than thou attitude and adopting a much more people centred, humane approach to many issues.

Don Cupitt was speaking once during a series of lectures with me at a Hertford teacher training College. There was not a lot of common ground. Now he is involved Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 5 with the Sea of Faith and most of the time sounds exactly like a Humanist! I suspect it started with Bishop John Robinson and his book Honest to God. He even became a vice president of the ALRA.

As did the Methodist Donald Soper - for whom I had a great affection. He provided one of those belly laughing occasions during the debates in the Houses of Parliament when he announced that over the years he-had been 'responsible for some hundreds of pregnant unmarried women'. Another such moment came at around 3am during a long talk out session in an somnolent and near empty House of Commons when Norman St John Stevas was droning on and suddenly a fruity deep voice intervened 'oh do shut up. You couldn't put a bun in anyone's oven'. That was Andrew FouIds. Childish perhaps but a welcome break in all the gloom - and not reported in Hansard.

Dublin Perhaps my greatest pleasure on this infantile level came from -a visit I made to Dublin in the mid 60s to debate at Trinity College on the motion 'abortion should be legal in Ireland'. At that time there was a long standing postal strike in England which had resulted in the regular supplies of condoms that were regularly sent in plain envelopes by the IPPF to individuals not arriving. With visions of a mini population explosion in the Republic, I volunteered to take the packages and post them in Dublin. So with a suitcase large enough to cope with a month's holiday I set off for my overnight stop in Dublin.

The Irish gentleman sitting next to me began making polite conversation. Having learned that a brother was a priest and a sister was a nun, I thought 'I know how to shut him up'. So when the inevitable 'and what are you going to Ireland for?' came up. I told him I was going to debate on abortion at Trinity College. Whereupon he shook my hand and offered to buy me a drink, assuming that I was on the 'right side'. I had to listen to a diatribe about the iniquities of abortion while crossing the Irish Sea. At Dublin airport I queued for my suitcase, turned to put it on the trolley only to find my Catholic friend standing behind me ready to take the case. I fear the sight of his walking past the customs notice forbidding the importation of contraceptives with a huge suitcase crammed full of French letters will live with me forever!

Demonstrations During the years I was in charge of parliamentary and press public relations for the BPAS I got very fed up, not to say cross, with those who demonstrated outside our nursing homes. It is hard enough for any woman to walk into such a place without being met by posters showing bloody fetuses and people shouting murderer. Often they needed police escorts through the pavement demonstrators.

When we were opening a new Nursing Home in Doncaster I got wind of a large demonstration being planned, and their large demonstrations could be large. I was once booked to speak at a meeting in Leamington Spa, arrived early to have a meal with a friend only to see on the forecourt of the hall some 5 or 6 large buses disgorging people shepherded by nuns and priests. (Very good tactic for keeping a large spread-out campaign going).

By the time I reached the hall they had filled it with most of our supporters left outside. The meeting started but every time I opened my mouth I was drowned by orchestrated chants of murderer, murderer. Eventually I took myself and the 6 Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 microphone outside and conducted an open air meeting front the steps - much to the glee of the press for it made a far better story.

But to return to Doncaster. I invited the press for a specific time and at the time I knew TV cameras and local paper reporters were about to arrive. I led a line of staff carrying trays with tea and coffee and home made scones. These we offered to the cold middle aged and elderly demonstrators. Obviously most of them had been nicely brought up and they did not want to appear rude and refuse.

So by the time the cameras and reporters arrived there they were tucking in to our refreshments with gusto. When interviewed I pointed out that they were either liars or hypocrites or totally without consciences as they were tucking into refreshments prepared and served by 'murderers and paid for with blood money'. We also managed another stunt which diverted the press.

Corriebund When John Corrie took his anti Abortion Bill to try to severely restrict the Abortion Act and outlaw the charities (this was the second most serious of the 16 threats to the Act between 1967 and 1990) a huge lobby of Westminster had been organised. A train had been chartered to come down from Glasgow; hundreds of coaches had been hired, the Methodist Central Hall was booked and 25,000 people were forecast.

We hired a large flatback lorry, set up a tableau of a patient with a drip on a trolley tended by numerous attractive young doctors and nurses (students from the London medical schools) and surrounded the lorry with placards stating 'this patient is Corriebund'. We discovered from friends when the TV cameras would be there and drove the lorry round and round Parliament Square at the appropriate time.

Needless to say the distinguished speechifiers in Central Hall were not reported, nor the thousands queueing to lobby their MPs. We featured on every news bulletin. Democracy? I am not sure. But one must fight the voices of unreason with every weapon available. That was my justification.

SPUC Changed Stance I mentioned earlier how Christians with whom I debated, over the years, changed their ground. This was also true of the anti-abortion campaigners. At the formation of SPUC's (Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child) inaugural meeting in Caxton Hall I put leaflets on seats, I wore a hat; Peter Draper had a bowler hat and rolled umbrella. I vigorously nodded at anti abortion points.

Initially SPUC members took the high moral ground. Abortion was murder and it was wrong. I had some respect for them then. They are entitled to beliefs but not to force them on others, They moved so far from their absolutes that LIFE was formed. They even started calling themselves PRO LIFE instead of anti abortion.

However, when they realised that these arguments had no attraction for most of the population, they moved their ground, saying it was a dangerous operation. Statistics then showed that it was illegal abortion that was dangerous and legal abortion was safer than going through pregnancy and giving birth, so theY moved to claiming massive mental and emotional problems suffered by women 'who had murdered their babies'. Again statistics proved them wrong with more women admitted to hospital for post birth depression than following an abortion. Now we have claims of long term mental damage with breakdowns and life crises in middle age blamed on earlier abortions (what about the men who have crises and breakdowns?). Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 7 Abort ifacients In the early 60s, I wanted to show how widespread attempts at abortion were. I set up a scheme for buying abortifacients from herbal or rubber shops. I sent a young lecturer (still an active Humanist) with College scarf round his neck on a tour of shops to stammeringly explain 'my girlfriend has missed her period; can you let me have something to help'. In this way he purchased a large collection of pills and potions. We subsequently had them analysed and showed that many contained only laxatives whilst others had substances that in large enough quantities could harm a woman or a fetus - but would not cause an abortion. I obtained a lot of publicity for this study.

Untrue Stories Needed Detective Work Campaigns also involved much detective work as the stories became more and more far fetched. Particularly in the run up to a bill or a debate in Parliament, stories of fetuses left to die on draining boards and miraculously surviving to be baptised by staff surfaced over and over again. When these stories started appearing with remarkable similarites all over the world (there was a boy baptised Simon in England who became Simone when it appeared as happening in Switzerland), it was, clear the Catholic Church was passing the stories round.

I decided to investigate each one and involved members of Parliament and the hospitals allegedly involved. For example, in 1974 a Scottish newspaper reported that a Miss Eleanor MeDonachie, chief nursing officer at a Glascow hospital, had told 400 people at an anti-abortion meeting that nursing staff in Greenock were being victimised for their anti-abortion views.

I wrote to the hospital involved asking for details whereupon Miss McD said she had been misreported and denied the earlier story. I wrote to the Managing Director of the newspaper group concerned and asked whether she had retracted the story immediately after its prominent publication or only when investigations were started. He wrote back 'I am convinced that our initial story was accurate. We have not idea why Miss MeD changed her mind about her initial accusations of victimisation.' So I kept on probing.

At that lime Mother was a widely read and influential monthly magazine which we knew to be very unsympathetic to our cause. Following a virulent anti- abortion feature it printed a letter from a Mrs Dobson saying 'I myself have nursed a prematurely born baby weighing less than two pounds only 22 weeks after conception. This infant was discharged some weeks later lively and healthy'.

1 wrote to the Editor questioning this letter and she informed me she had no reason to doubt the truth of what had been said. After further protracted correspondence the editor eventually wrote to me that •Mrs Dobson has now informed me that on checking the records she discovered that she was mistaken and that the baby she nursed was in fact 28 weeks'. No comment.

Looking in my files I find 20 or so instances where BPAS threatened or started legal proceedings against people who were libelling the charity. This eventually slowed up the untrue filth that had been pouring out.

I cursed myself for agreeing to do this talk but in the event found it quite a fascinating exercise - although very self indulgent - blame Jennifer!

Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 R.M. HARE'S PRESCRIPTION:ETHICS: TIIE ANSWER TO 'WHAT ShALL I DO?'

Christopher Bratcher Lecture to the Ethical Society, 10 December 2000

Emotivisrn, we saw, broke through the assumption that value words stood for some property of the object or act to which they applied. It had seemed to be on the right lines in directing philosophers to what we actually do with ethical terms, but the accounts it gave were less than satisfactory. Emotivism presented ethics as an - essentially non-rational, disreputable, activity. Seen as expressive, it boiled down to 'letting off steam'; and seen as causative, it was reduced to a form of manipulation.

R.M. Hare (1919- ) held the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Oxford from 1966 to 1993. Hc started with the obvious but neglected fact that the function of ethics was to guide conduct and sought to put that activity into a logical and hence rational, context. Straight answers to 'what shall I doT questions take a particular mode: they are a form of what he called 'prescriptive' language, the simplest type of which are orders, or imperatives. The mode of the imperative 'voice' (to use an old-fashioned term of grammar) reveals, in Hare's view, the working of The Language of Morals: the title of his first book.'

If I tell you to 'shut the door', I will, as a matter of fact, be trying to get you to shut the door; but identifying prescriptive language as an attempt to cause events, as the emotivists did, ignores the particular means and mode I am using. Telling you to do it is not, as such, a form of cajolery. It also is not, as such, a disguised statement of what I want, or approve, or feel, however well you may infer this in some contexts. "Shut the door' seems to be about shutting the door and not about the speaker's frame of mind, just as instructions for cooking omelettes ('Take four eggs, etc') are instructions about eggs, not introspective analyses of the psyche of Mrs I3eeton.(p6). Equally, 'shut the door' does not unscramble (excuse the pun) to 'Either you are going to shut the door, or x will happen'; i.e., a disguised hypothetical statement of fact', even though a listener could often form such an hypothesis. In short, grammatical imperatives are perfectly themselves and not something else; attempts to reduce them to statements in the indicative mode do violence to their logic.

Imperatives can function in valid syllogisms (logical inferences). Hare outlines this at length. The important inference is that from universal imperative sentences, together with indicative minor premisses, to singular imperative conclusions: for example (p27): vosoU whealithe— ; " toCOOP'. "Take all the boxes to the station 114014'6 (or, 'If I point out a box to you, take it to the station') This is one of the boxes R.M.HARE Thereforc, take this to the station"

RAIMARE This is valid', unlike a syllogism with the major pretniss 'All the boxes need to go to the station'. This R.m HAZE latter is tempting, but it relies, if the inference is to be strict, on construing the statement of the need for all the R m. HARE boxes as itself a command to take them: which it is not.

It may explain the imperative conclusion; but it will not D Raoul?! Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 9 logically impel it. To end the syllogism with the predictive factual conclusion 'Therefore you are going to take this to the station' is more-obviously mistaken, as it assumes you will carry out the injunction: although this may be a fair inference in a (non-Ethical) society where commands are routinely obeyed, such as the Army.

So; logically valid (if boring) inferences can be made to imperative conclusions only if there is an imperative in the premisses. Hare argues that moral language must operate the same way if it is inherent in the function of a moral judgement that it prescribes or guides choices, with an end point `(You ought to) do so-and-so'. You cannot get an 'ought' conclusion from a series of 'is'-premisses alone'. You need a prescriptive premiss. Failure to appreciate this was the cardinal error of previous theories of ethics.

Hare argues that the mark of an ethical injunction is that its major premiss has universal form; that is to say, it is a principle, applying to anyone in the same circumstances. As with a doctor's prescription, we treat it seriously for this reason. Such a principle may fit into a hierarchy of increasingly general principles. We are back to rational inference and Kant (discussed last year); but a Kant without a dubious attempt to infer what we may only will (or adopt) as an ultimate principle.

Later in the book, Flare regards the activity of moral argument as instruction, akin to teaching someone to drive in accordance with the Highway Code. If you ask for a particular moral or prudential injunction, and the principle on which it is founded, to be justified, you would bring in the effects of both. "Thus, if pressed to justify a decision completely, we have to give a complete specification of a way of life of which it is a part... Suppose (however) we can give it. If the enquirer still goes on asking 'but why should I live like this?', then there is no further answer to give him, because we have already, ex hypothesi, said everything that could be included in this further answer. We can only ask him to make up his own mind which way he ought to live; for in the end everything rests upon such a decision of principle. Ile has to decide whether to accept that way of life or not; if he accepts it, then we can proceed to justify the decisions that are based upon it; if he does not, then let him accept some other, and try to live by it. The sting is in the last clause. To describe such ultimate decisions as arbitrary, because ex Ilypothesi everything that could be used to justify them has already been included in the decision, would be like saying that a complete description of the universe was utterly unfounded, because no further fact could be called upon in collaboration of it." (p69)

As a student, I was perhaps absurdly moved by this appeal to ultimate choice. As so often philosophers do, I defended the logic of it, because I related to the conclusion. It is a very English rerendering of existentialism, without the metaphysics. In Freedom and Reason, Hare's defence of prescriptivism a decade later, he selectively quotes Sartre' with approval. He agreed, in cases of really tough decisions, with Sartre's view, in L'Existentiaisme est un Humanistne (1946), that we do not have a determining set of antecedent principles, from which we can reason a conclusion ('qui petit en decider a priori; aucune morale inscrite ne petit le dire). Sartre also says 'I bear the responsibility of the choice which, in committing myself, also commits the whole of humanity', 'in this sense we may say there is a human universality, but it is not something given; it is being perpetually made'. Hare cited this as evidence that Sartre endorsed his central contention that when we do morally make up out minds, our judgement is universal (i.e., principle-making) in form.

Thirty odd years on, I am still moved by the context Hare gave to moral activity, which has been glossed over as irrelevant to his core argument by his

10 Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 philosopher critics. Because we are not academic philosophers here, it may be worth pausing to consider it.

"The question klow shall I bring up my children?' ..is one to the logic of which, since ancient times, few' philosophers have given much attention....Perhaps I shall try to bring them up like thcir father, and shall fail; perhaps their new environment will be too strong for me, and they will repudiate my principles. Or I may have become so bewildered by the strange new world that, although I still act from force of habit on the principles I have learnt, I simply do not know what principles to impart to my children... It is the powerlessness of the parent to make for his son those many decisions of principle which the son during his future career will make, that gives moral laneuaee its characteristic shape. Certain generations of parents have had no doubts about this question.. and the result has been to turn their- children into good intuitionists, able to cling to the rails, but bad about steering around corners. (But without the imparting of a stable way of life).., the children of such a generation arc likely to grow up opportunists, well able to make individual decisions, but without thc settled body of principles that is the most priceless heritage... The dilemma between the two extreme courses of education is plainly false.., if we recall what was said earlier about the dynamic relation between decisions and principles. It is very like learning to drive. To teach only the principles, without giving thc opportunity of subjecting them to the learner's own decisions of principle, is like teaching science exclusively from textbooks without entering a laboratory. On the other hand, to abandon one's child or one's driving pupil to his own self-expression is like putting a boy into a laboratory and saying 'Get on with it'." (Editor, and supporters of Summerhill: please discuss!).

'The subjectivist says 'but surely, when it comes to the point - I have in the end to decide for myself what I ought to do. To deny this is to become a conventionalist; for both common moral notions and my own intuitions are the legacy of tradition, and - apart from the fact that there are so many traditions in the world - traditions cannot be started without someone doing what I now feel called upon to do - decide. If I refuse to make my own decisions, I am, in merely copying my fathers, showing myself a lesser man than they; for whereas they must have initiated, I shall merely be accepting.' This plea of the subjectivist is quite justified. It is the plea of the adolescent who wishcs to be adult. To become morally adult., is to learn to use 'ought'-sentences in the realisation that they can only be verified by reference to a standard or set of principles which we have by our own decision accepted and made our own." (pp74 -78).

You may wonder, unphilosophically, what experience prompted this rather solemn cri-de-coeur from a young, public-school educated, former Indian army subaltern: one not long married, who was appointed to a university lectureship immediately on taking his degree. Richard Hare had ben a Japanese prisoner of war from the fall of Singapore. Forgive the gender assumptions of father-to-son, and the homespun home counties educational theorising: maybe Hare was struggling to fight personal battles won more effortlessly in my own generation.

So far in the book, Hare's analysis has been in terms of what I ought to do. He then turns to evaluate terms that are not obviously in the prescriptive mode. He deliberately first picks non-moral examples. 'This is a good strawberry (or whatever)' has as its common meaning, 'If you want a strawberry, choose this one'. The hypothetical imperative again! Verily, 'Pick your own'. However, presented with identical strawberries, I cannot judge one to be good, and the other not. I also cannot say that something is good, without potentially being able to offer some account of it by virtue of which I hold it to be good of its kind, or to a purpose. Arbitrary bestowal of 'good' brings incomprehension, that suggests that the meaning of 'good' does not simply analyse out as an injunction to choice, however that may seem to be the common factor. The nature that I consider the object to have, by which I account for its being good, is somehow built into the meaning. Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 11 This set of features tends to vary with the object in question: 'good', in Hare's schema, carries such as its unstated variable particular descriptive meaning. It is, on first encounter, a strange idea that a word can have a variable meaning, as well as reference. However, in most contexts, we presume an understood standard of excellence, and so the descriptive meaning .is clear, lf, in fishing around at the bottom of the punnet, I say 'there is still a good one left', you know the sort of strawberry I have found. That standard will vary with context. If you know I am hunting for ones that will keep to next week, you may infer that ripeness may not be what I am judging by.

But suppose I have singular tastes, and can't abide juicy soft fruit, which, as far as I am concerned are 'rotten'. I would still refer to my discovery of one as 'good', if my aim is merely to describe what I have found to you, with your regular standard in strawberries. However, I could state my preferences, which I would do by calling my sort of strawberry 'good'. In the moral context, a follower of Nietzsche', or D.H. Lawrence, may consider gentle, 'soft' people 'rotten', through being corrupted by a Christian slave morality. Asked to sum up such a person's character, the Nietzscheian may well refer to him as a good man; but verbally, no doubt, this judgement would be delivered with an ironic tone or grimace. In the next sentence, he may endorse his sort of 'man's man' as 'good'. The Shakespearean villain's injunction, 'Evil, be thou my Good', is an extreme example of such a juxtaposition. It appears a paradox, but its meaningfulness is explained by the ever availability of value terms to set, as well as deploy, standards.

The use of 'good' without endorsement can become institutionalised in language, where the standard referred to is no longer deployed, but is still useful as a form of shorthand: the Frenchman who describes someone as 'un (petit) bonhomme', is usually putting that person down, rather than referring to them (let alone holding them up) as a model. By contrast, some originally descriptive terms have become almost exclusively evaluative in use; to the extent that one can hardly divine the user's standard. 'Brilliant', and 'fabulous' are examples. They have historically, and I would say, correctly, a limiting general descriptive meaning that should make them a particular form of endorsement. Hare's analysis is as much about prescriptive use, as meaning.

His exposition of the commonplaces of evaluative language bites, when he sets it against all thc moral philosophies that have equated the goodness of, say a good action or person, with some set of consequences or characteristics: say, with an action conducive to the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or with a person who realises, or acts according to, his (usually) God-given nature, or the prescripts of some guru. Equation here means 'exhaust the meaning of'. Whatever the consequences or characteristics may be, we will call them c. If a good x only means an x which is c, then, when we come across 'an x which is c', then it will be impossible to conunend it for being c, in calling it good. To go back to strawberries. We want to say a strawberry is a good onc because it is sweet, juicy, firm etc (c). Equation theories by their nature create a tautology between the good and the c. Such theories, if you will pardon the pun, are 'all at sea'.

I find this tautology test persuasive; some critics', however, grant that value terms have commendatory meaning, but have wanted to say that the descrptive meaning (the criteria, c) are so compelling, that they determine what we may meaningfully commend. We will look at such an objection next time. Ultimately, as with all philosophical analysis, we are down to what we can, from our own Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 perspective, make sense of, in the present use of our language. For societies, or individuals, with set moral views, divergent evaluation may be incomprehensible, or even unexpressable. And as Hare put it (F&R, p75) 'One cannot study language, in a philosophical way, without studying the world that we are talking about'.

Freedom and Reason is in some ways a better book for you to read, because it is a defence and enrichment of views already expounded. Beyond the first couple of chapters, there is less formalised logic, and more engagement in real moral examples. You might even find it lively bedtime reading, whilst you admire its rigour!

A chapter is given over to 'backsliding', which Hare felt was potentially a particular difficulty for his theory. How is it that I muSt prescribe to myself, yet not take the prescription? I find this no more puzzling than a doctor not taking his own nasty medicine. A medical prescription is no less a genuine prescription for being junked.

The last half of the book applies the theory to Nazism and racism. In my talk, I read much of the closing chapter. Hare's point is that it is easy to universalise a racist attitude as a principle, such that it applies to anyone (say) who is white. All moral arguments have this weakness. You cannot force someone to see the object of discrimination under just the same description (say, simply as persons) as you do. It is, in theory, more difficult to accept that if the tables were turned, and I were to find myself black, I should prescribe My own discrimination. In fact, racists can wholeheartedly assent to this, because the tables would appear irreversible. Flare could not imagine that the South African supremacists would change. It would be nice to think that, in some tiny part, his passionate rigour had effect. But I doubt it.

OUP, published 1952. It drew on an article, 'Imperative sentences' (Mind, 1949). Quotations from it are in double inverted commas.

Hare says: 'This theory is parallel to ethical theories of the sort which equate 'A is right' with 'A is conducive to Y.' How close is the parallel is open to debate. To anticipate; Hare says that such a theory may be plausible if Y is a value word like 'satisfaction' or 'happiness'; but at the cost of postponing the day of analysis of Y in turn.

A strange sort of validity, perhaps. I am here expounding Hare. You may like to try out syllogisms in other voices, e.g. 'Is this a box I see before me...?'!

Next time, we will consider counter-examples to this analysis.

The above translations are by Kaufmann.

6 I commend Richard Norman's The Moral Philosophers for its excellent account of Nietzsche. I depart from his 'naturalistic' critical stance on Flare.

7 SeeHare and critics: essays in moral thinking, ed. Seanor, Oxford 1998.

Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 13 CHASING THE HARE

Summary of a Talk to be given on 4 February 2001 by Christopher Bratcher in his Ethical Thinkers Series

My last talk (10 Dec 00) put Richard Hare's case against the possibility of logically inferring value judgements from any set of facts alone. Whether this was true, become known as the 'Is/Ought question'. The issue dominated Anglo-Saxon moral philosophy in the third quarter of the C20th, despite dissenters from the whole enterprise, as can be seen in a trio of overlapping paperback collections of papers in Ethics, compiled at the end of the 1960s.'

This talk gives an account of two of the 'is/ought' fronts on which, largely male, horns were locked. My apologia for doing so is that many histories of philosophy, or accounts of philosophers, read like estate agents' details or National Trust guides: philosophical edifices arc presented as so many intellectual 'des res's'; some charming, and some difficult to live in now. What tends to be forgotten is that, when constructed, they were the equivalents of military architecture. Probably only military historians will be interested in its C2Oth forms; and the same, you may feel, applies to C2Oth ethical redoubts. The philosophic exchanges that the articles record were like any other war in some respects. The terrain became rapidly entrenched, heavily trampled, and infertile. Maginot lines of defensive argument were bypassed; attempts to sap them either undermined them, or emerged in no-man's land, according to your mapmaker. At the time, the battle appeared a matter of life and death: morality, or alternatively, the autonomy of moral judgement, was at stake, if a particular semantic analysis went unchallenged! There is something absurd about this, but it seems intuitively the case that you have to take sides on the is/Ought question', before moving on. Which philosophers simply did, when the firing stopped, to joust in more congenial moral fields.' We will do likewise; but sample one of the article collections if you want to understand the conduct of philosophy at an academic level. You may find the arguments sterile; the protagonists did not. John Searle John Searle holds the chair of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is better known today as a pre-eminent philosopher of mind3; this last draws on his lifelong preoccupation with the nature of meaningfulness (semantics], first expounded in book form in Speech Acts [Cambridge 1969]. This includes a reprise of a famous paper titled 'How to derive ought from is". Searle's case is that, by their very meaning, certain utterances constitute acts. Stating that 'I hereby promise to pay five dollars', makes a promise, which places one under an obligation, with 'ought' consequences. As is customary with philosophical writing at this level, much of the paper is taken up. in careful protection against counter-argument to an apparently simple and compelling series of inferences.

As he says, 'one feels there must be some trick involved somewhere: how can my granting a mere fact about someone, that he uttered certain words or he made a promise, commit me to the view that he ought to do something'. If the transition is valid, then it would seem that the intuitive chasm between objective descriptive and subjective evaluative statements disappears. Searle is happy with this, because he considers that the descriptive category is too wide for the distinction that is supposed to rest on it.

'Getting married', 'making a promise' and 'hitting a home run' [in baseball] can all be objective facts, but are of a particular kind. They make sense only within 14 Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 their respective institutions or games: they are not 'brute' facts, such as would be descriptions of the same events framed in terms of my hitting a ball with a stick [or mouthing sounds (which happen to be marriage vows)]. The moral world of obligations, commitments, rights and responsibilities can, he thinks, be read off from the constitutive rules of the social institutions invoked by my actions within them. In the case of verbally operated institutions, like promising, the fact of saying 'I promise' entails an obligation, that Searle thinks, as a matter of meaning, you ought to fulfil, and that a third party has to recognise; and he suggests there are countless other such is/ought transitions. He also suggests, en passant, that recognising that something is someone else's property generates a tautology that one should not steal it, as the right of retention is a constitutive rule of the institution of private property.

The alternative is to reject the institution. Searle claims [in a reply to critics], that he does not deny that one may verbally position oneself outside such institutions and say without logical absurdity, that one should not keep promises - or not recognise private property. He would insist on an outsider referring to 'so-called' promises and property; in the same way that Hare suggested we might refer to doing the 'right' thing, when we wished to give a shorthand description of a conventionally approved response, from which we dissociated ourselves.

He concludes: 'If you like, then, we have shown that 'promise' is an evaluative word, but since it is also purely descriptive, we have really shown that the whole distinction needs to be re-examined'. On the one hand there is a distinction between different kinds of speech acts [things done with words]: describing and evaluating; and another between utterances involving claims that are objectively decidable, and those that are matters of personal decision or opinion. It has been assumed that the former distinction is (must be) a special case of the latter; that if something has the force of an evaluation, it cannot be entailed by factual premises. Part of the point of my argument is that this conclusion is false...'. In short, too much has been put on the distinction between describing and evaluating; 'they are only two amongst hundreds of kinds of illocutionary force [doings by uttering]; and 'Jones ought to pay Smith five dollars' would not characteristically fall in either class'. I hope you will say what do you think of this in our question-time. Have we got hung up over just two speech acts? Semantically, Searle may be right; but since when has the number of members in a family had anything to do with the importance of differences between them?

Attacks have been made on Searle's derivation at each stage of transition from 'is' to 'ought'. Searle, to my mind, presents a false choice between having to follow the semantic consequences of the promise to the 'ought' point, and rejecting the institution as a whole. This is only plausible of games proper, where there is nothing but the rules of the game to consider. I think that one can always grant one is under a conventional, and perhaps semantic, obligation or duty, and yet meaningfully, morally decide it should not be complied with for other than rejectionist reasons. The 'ought' question potentially lets us judge the contents and consequences, not just the form, of the promise.

If Searle allows this, his case is lost. It is that, all things being equal', we, tautologically, ought to keep a promise. His example of all things not being equal, is, deliberately, one of convention; where one is released from the promise, or there was a prior contrary obligation. In the case of the trivial and unexacting promise to repay five dollars, there is likely to be nothing else in practice to consider before coming to judgement; if, indeed, we bother. But consider a promise to commit an evil act, which we ought not to do. If 'all things' include the rightness of the action, Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 15 then evaluation is smuggled in at that point. If they do not, and are just about the appropriate conditions for a promise to be made, then he has to claim that his 'institutional" 'ought' is somehow strictly entailed, but able to be overridden, even when we are not saying that there is anything 'so called' about the promise.'

Of course, a promise, or the notion of property, would not have meaning, if a society in which the concepts arose did not generally subscribe to consequential obligations, as a maxim. But this falls short of the rigorous semantic point he claims. Our language enables us to refer to an utterance as a promise, and even to acknowledge that 'a promise is a promise', yet morally decide it should not be kept.

Peter Geach Searle properly acknowledges Elizabeth Anscombe [footnote 2] as the source of his notion of an obligation as a brute fact relative to an institution. Her husband, Peter Geach, logician, and fellow Aristotelian devout Catholic at odds with then modern moral philosophy, put up an objection to general identifications of 'good', and to Hare's analysis in particular.

Peter Geach became professor of Philosophy at Leeds. He and his wife are perhaps most readily remembered for their distinct half-decent cases for the validity of the Ontological Argument for God, and for their analyses of intentionality as central to 'Mental Acts'. But they were decidedly individualistic: I think of the pair in the light of Ms Anscombe's early feminist comment: 'There is no Mrs Geach, and if there were, I would be the first to know about it!' - they had seven children!

Geach's article' is a very mixed bag. His starting point is a logical distinction between sorts of adjectives. Take the statement 'this is an AB', where A is the adjective, and B the noun: e.g., 'this is a big flea' and 'this is a red car'. Adjectives like 'red' enable you to analyse 'this is an AB into two propositions, of the form 'this is a car' and 'this is red' - whatever 'this' happens to be. This because 'red' is a quality independent of the nature of the car: If I am short-sighted, and my friend is colour-blind, we may both peer at a distant object and separately identify the colour and the motor. Other adjectives are not of this type: in the big flea example, one cannot derive a 'stand-alone' proposition 'this is big'. Adjectives like 'big' are, in Geach's terminology, attributive, and not predicative like 'red': they only make sense in the context of what they qualify. G.E Moore, and the Utilitarians, made the mistake of thinking 'good' operated like 'red'; and respectively identified it with a stand-alone property, be it happiness/pleasure, or something logically like a colour- word, but 'non-natural'. 'Good', he asserts, is like 'big': 'there is no such thing as being just good or bad, there is only a good or bad so-and-so', as so-and-so's go.

One may question this last inference, even with an adjective like 'big': galaxies come in big and small sizes, but in another sense, they arc all big, and I do not have to know that an object x light-years across is a galaxy before I can size it. But let us see what he makes of his distinction. Hare, he thinks, has inferred that 'good' has 'evaluative meaning' from the false assumption that there must be a common predicative-type meaning across all the attributions of 'good', from say 'good knives' to 'good people'. If we know what so-and-so is in question, then the need to posit a double meaning for 'good' disappears. Granted, 'there is no one description to which all things called 'good so-and-so's' answer; but it does not follow either that 'good' is a very ambiguous expression, or that calling a thing good is different from describing it.'

16 Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 Geach's example is, believe it or not, 'a good hydrometer' ; and the sub-text to the argument is that if, and only if, you know what the so-and-so is for, you can read off what is a good one. Geach, wisely, concedes that this is much more difficult to do so for a person, and leaves it for another day. His personal answer doesn't need spelling out: the presumption of the functional nature of all things, including humans, in a created Catholic universe, is waiting in the wings. Indeed, he quotes with approval Aristotle's dictum, that acting well is a man's aim, qua man, as part of the explanation of why, on his terms, the purely descriptive statement that such-and- such an action is a good one, should guide one. As Hare remarked, anyone who feels attracted by Geach's line of reasoning should first read Aristotle's Politics, where a similar [functional] prennss is used to justify slavery and the subjection of women.

Hare was readier than I am to accept that 'good' is attributive. He also agrees that in most instances, calling a thing 'good' is a way of describing it. Paradoxically, he even concedes that it is wholly the case in applications to functional words, because the latter include an in-built evaluative standard as part of their meaning. But 'good' is applied to patently non-functional words, such as 'sunset', where the term determines nothing of the aesthetics of sunset-choosing. The crunch is the nature of 'man'.

Flare makes the very good point that it is one thing to say that, by calling a creature a man, we imply he has certain capacities, and quite another to imply that he belongs to a species whose specific good is of a certain kind. The move is like using the word 'horse' as if it meant 'mount'. If a horse that had just shed its rider could speak, it might say, 'I'm not trying to be a horse in that sense'. As Hare says, the question of what horses ought to do with themselves remains open, because the horse cannot choose but be a horse, but can choose to be a mount. Philosophy would be easy if we could define humans as the functional equivalent of mounts. At which point we are conveniently close to existentialism, the topic of my next talk.

The 'IslOught question'; subtitled, The central problem in moral philosophy; ed W.D.Iludson. Macmillan 1969. It contains Searle's reply to criticisms of his argument. Theories of Ethics, ed Philippa Foot, Oxford 1967 The Definition of Morality, ed Wallace & Walker, Methuen UP, 1970 The roots of distaste with 'Is/Ought' as the summation of Ethics, go back to a magnificent paper by G.E [Elizabeth].M.Anscomhe, Modern Moral Philosophy of 1958, reproduced in the first of the above collections. We will revert to it in this series, in looking at 'virtue' Ethics: the contribution of Oxford's women philosophers. Ms Anscombe, who was one of Wittgenstein's professional executors, became Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge from 1970 to 1986. She died on 5th January this year. In particular, for his case against extreme models of 'the brain as computer' that would reduce consciousness to nothing but the implementation of a potential computer (or similar rule following) program ['strong' Al] Reprinted in the first two collections, above; originating in the Philosophical Review, 1964.

Philosophically, customarily referred to as a 'ceteris paribus' condition.

The argument parallels debates between so-called rule and act utilitarianism. 7 'Good & Evil; Analysis, 1956; replied to in the following ycar by Hare in 'Geach: Good and Evil'.

Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 17 ORIGINS OF GENIUS Origins of Genius: Danvinian Perspectives on Creativity by Dean Keith Simonton OxIbrd University Press (1999)

Book Review by Leslie Jones

Origins of Genius is a contribution to the burgeoning discipline of evolutionary psychology. The exponents of this young science have been busy reinventing the wheel. Not surprisingly, then, there is much that is true and much that is new in Dean Keith Simonton's book. The problem is finding anything that is both.

Simonton remarks that Darwin stood on the shoulders of giants, in that he (Darwin) was indebted to the labours of Lamarck, Lyell, Malthus etc. The author could be said to occupy a no less lofty position, for other thinkers have anticipated his key ideas. Herbert Spencer and Henry Thomas Buckle both maintained that a division of labour is the prerequisite of intellectual progress. This notion is re- discovered by Simonton in chapter six. And Francis Galion provides the author with his criterion of genius, which is eminence. Professor Simonton upholds the long suspected link between mental instability and genius. So did the anthropologist and criminologist, Cesare Lombroso and his admirer Max Nordau (the author of Degeneration). More recently, the late Hans Eysenck concluded that in addition to high intelligence, geniuses tend to have high levels of 'trait psychoticise. Those that are 'extremely active in mind' are likely `to become crazy at times', as Francis Galion observes in Hereditary Genius. Finally, Simonton is convinced that the rapid decline of certain historic civilisations disproves Galton's view that nations decay because of miscegenation. Like Richard Dawkins, Simonton holds that cultural evolution is based on the spread of ideas rather than the replication of genes.

The author considers creativity a Darwinian process. He draws an analogy between the emergence of variations by the recombination of genes and the establishment of rich new associations between ideas. Innovative and influential ideas are compared to adaptive variations. Some original concepts and theories were accidentally discovered when looking for something else. Simonton finds this reminiscent of the way adaptive variations arise randomly, by mutation. But analogies arc only analogies. And many of Simonton's explanations are stock ideas re-formulated in Darwinian terminology. Witness the 'variation selection procedure' which he claims is immanent in creativity.

Turning Giftedness Into Genius Like intelligence (Spearman's g), giftedness is a latent variable to be inferred from its effects. In The Abilities of Man, Charles Spearman remarked that for an individual to succeed, a certain level of intelligence is necessary but not sufficient. Eysenck, likewise, pointed out that it is perfectly possible to be highly intelligent but not creative. Professor Simonton's exegesis of the environmental factors that possibly turn giftedness into genius was for this reader the most rewarding section of the book. Adversity, enriched home environments, social/ethnic marainality, and birth order (the latter being a non-shared environmental factor) are each considered in turn. By a process of compensation, adversity may help to establish the driven personality that is often associated with creative thinking. Apparently there have been a disproportionate number of orphans amongst eminent mathematicians, great writers and notable scientists. Social and ethnic marginality might encourage non- conformity, since the capacity for divergent thinking is arguably fuelled by diverse experiences. One study found that 44% of eminent Americans were newcomers. 18 Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 As for birth order, a concept introduced by Galton, this has been a key factor in history, according to Frank J. Sulloway (see his I3orn To Rebel). For revolutionaries in various domains have been overwhelmingly later-borns, he maintains. Later-horns are more open to experience, more given to divergent thinking, Sulloway believes. For openness is conducive to finding a niche in the family system in which each later-born must compete for finite parental resources. First-borns, however, tend to identify with authority, so that acceptance or rejection of Darwin's theory, for example, was intimately related to birth order. Your reviewer is not convinced that Sulloway's theory will survive what Simonton calls 'the ...rigors of sociocultural selection'. This theory is to sociology what the 'nasal reflex neurosis' (posited by Wilhelm Fliess) was to psychiatry. Simonton's endorsement of Sullowav's thesis, however tentative, does not bespeak a judgement of the highest order.

Simonton suspects that some of the supposedly environmental factors that encourage creativity could really be genetic. Parental loss, which seems to be a spur to creativity, may really reflect the tendency of very intelligent parents to delay childbirth. The gifted child will make demands on its home environment, so that the enriched home environment is an indirect expression of the gifted child's genotype (genetic constitution) and of those of its parents. Again, people with innate ability tend to emigrate, as Galton pointed out in Hereditary Genius, when referring to the influx of foreigners to ancient Athens.

Ethnic Group Differences Alleged Origins of Genius is dedicated 'to all Darwinists'. Yet the latter group is deeply divided. Consider that avowed Danvinist, J. Philippe Rushton, whose evolutionary racial theory Simonton gingerly addresses. Rushton. Professor of Psychology at the University of Western Ontario, is one of the world's most cited social scientists. As Simonton reminds us, some influential commentators, including (Louis) Agassiz, Gobineau, Hegel, Hume, (Thomas) Huxley, Kant, Spencer and Voltaire assumed that geniuses are confined to certain ethnic groups. Rushton upholds this now unfashionable view. He believes that the taucasoids' and 'Mongoloids' have made a disproportionate contribution to high civilisation. He also discerns multifarious behavioural differences between these groups and the 'Negroids'. Rushton's explanation for these alleged differences is that different reproductive strategies, with allied traits, were conducive to reproductive success in the ancestral environments of the aforementioned groups*. Rushton has applied Danvin's principle of divergence to Homo sapiens. This principle states that a species will diverge in character because this will enable it to occupy various ecological niches (a process called adaptive radiation). Professor Rushton, who is not given to understatement, has described race as 'the most politically incorrect topic in the world today' (Race, Evolution, and Behaviour).

Although sceptical about an evolutionary explanation of ethnic group differences, whether in average IQ or in sporting achievement, Simonton considers Rushton 'a competent, dedicated and responsible researcher'. Rushton has undertaken 'the most responsible and thorough attempt to explicate supposed racial differences in intellectual ability according to Darwinian concepts', in his

*Thus, species that produce large numbers of offspring, which receive minimal parental support, are said to be r strategists. Those that have comparatively few offspring but provide intense parental support are called K strategists. In practice, there is a continuum from r to K and K strategies are said to vary both within and between species. Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 19 judgement. But as the author notes, some influential individuals and institutions are determined to 'disallow rational discussion' of ethnic differences (see also 'Animals Occupy Zoo', Ethical Record, December, 1999). Another Danvinist, the geneticist Steve Jones, has asserted that Rushton 'is lying to himself, to the population at large or he's a fool' (comments made during 'The Faster Race', BBC 2, broadcast 8 September 2000). In the same television programme, Professor Jones questioned the scientific credentials of those who think like Rushton. Nor is the latter the only eminent psychologist to have incurred Jones' disapproval. In another memorable outburst, Professor Jones (who works in the Gallon Laboratory, established thanks to the financial generosity of Francis Galton) reportedly called the latter 'a fascist swine' (see interview with Valerie Grove, The Sunday Times, 17 November 1991). The auto-da-fé still has its aficionados and its Torquemada. Is The Genius A Fortuitous Freak? Your reviewer is not persuaded that the unique concatenation of abilities that is the genius has been satisfactorily explained in terms of natural selection. Alfred Russel Wallace pointed out in Darwinisin that no organs, markings, instincts or habits can exist unless they are useful to the individuals or species that possess them*. Wallace could see no connection between the possession of artistic or musical ability and the reproductive fitness of individuals or groups. Fle emphasised the fact that characteristics developed by natural selection are maintained at a general level of efficiency and are present in all members of any given species. The rarity of individuals endowed with high artistic, mathematical or musical ability was evidence for Wallace that such abilities are independent of natural selection. Enter spiritualism.

Randolph Nesse (an evolutionary psychologist working at the University of Michigan) has suggested that the 'genes that predispose to schizophrenia' might be linked to creativity. Paradoxically, such genes might therefore be maintained by natural selection, despite their costs (see The Maladapted Mind, ed. Simon Baron- Cohen). This cost-benefit explanation of genius is hard to reconcile with the process that David Lykken calls emergenesis, however. An emergenic trait 'requires the simultaneous presence of several separate traits, each of which is inherited independently' (Simonton). The author seems persuaded that genius is just such a composite, emergenic trait. This would explain why geniuses are so rare and why, contra Galton, some geniuses, including Beethoven, possessed no pedigree.** A propos emergenesis, Simonton remarks that the '...greater the number of requisite genes, the less the lucky-conjunction of these genius-generating genes will be under the control of natural selection'. The creative genius, then, is a 'fortuitous freak'. So much for the contention (page 248) that Darwinian theories can account for this phenomenon! Evidently nature is harder to play on than a pipe.***

*This is recognisable as dogma. Why could not a spontaneous mutation in neural architecture (evidenced as high artistic or musical ability) be subsequently rewarded by reproductive advantage because of enhanced sexual selection? [Ed.]

**Although his father was a musician. [Ed.]

***Is it not part of Darwinism that variation is spontaneous or 'fortuitous"? [Ed.] n

20 Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 DARWIN'S BLACK BOX - Review by Roy Si!son

Darwin's Black Box; The Biological Challenge to Evolution by Michael J. Belie (New York, Touchstone, Simon and Schuster, 1998) £8.99 ISBN 0-684-83493-6.

Michael Belie, a professor of biochemistry and a Roman Catholic, discusses, intelligently and at great length, the pros and cons of the widely accepted concept that life results from design rather than evolution.

The cover blurb asks 'Was Darwin Wrong?' Inside, the author, whose comments indicate a comprehensive knowledge of relevant Darwinian principles, produces much evidence that questions neo-Darwinism: the modern theory that combines Darwin's original ideas with the science of genetics. Although, at first glance, he appears to present a strong case, a closer study discloses weaknesses: despite an immensity of detail, his arguments ignore some relevant evidence: they are, nonetheless, likely to convince many.

The 'Black Boxes' Of Life Many Darwinian arguments discuss the survival value of one or more visible differences between individuals. Behe rightly comments that all easily observable differences are remote from the real questions. These arise within the 'black boxes' of life: the billions of tiny cells with their complex and invisible biochemical activities. He, repeatedly, provides examples of biochemical activities, directly relevant to improved survival, each of which involves interactions between large numbers of different complex molecules. Behe also emphasises that, in some cases, the various component interactions, to work correctly, must occur in a strict sequence of priority. He further discusses, at some length, the principle relevant to the initial irreducible number of different molecules that might be necessary for a specific purpose: he states that some cases may involve a minimum of several hundred different molecules.

A basic Darwinian concept is that new complex qualities gradually develop, step by step, from insignificant beginnings: a single useful mutation produces a small advantage that is increased over time, little by little, by further relevant mutations.

Contrarily, Behe's arguments, for some complex qualities require that every type of necessary molecule must be present before that quality can begin to emerge. He claims that, in these cases, since the separate presence of any one of the necessary molecule types can produce no useful effect, a step by step evolution cannot occur.

Each type of molecule implies a different single gene which will, on its own, not be favoured by natural selection. On the other hand, the probability, for any potential new quality, that new mutations for all necessary molecule types might happen to occur, wholly randomly, in one individual at the same time, is negligibly small. Bette, on this basis, argues that some of the more complex cell activities could never have arisen randomly but must have been designed. The Role Of Neutral Genes Overlooked By Behe This otherwise valid argument overlooks some important facts. A new mutation may have positive, negative or zero effects. A gene with a zero or neutral effect is unlikely to be affected by natural selection even if the presence of each unused single gene Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 21 does involve a small energy cost. When individuals carry neutral genes any adverse selection will relate only to differences between individual overall energy costs rather than the cost for each gene. On this basis the number of neutral genes might increase indefinitely. It is relevant to this point that bacteria produce thousands of complex chemicals whose purpose is completely unknown: our present knowledge does not allow us to state whether all or any of these are essential to survival or merely the accidental results of random mutations. Even more relevant is the fact that the cells of different species contain widely different amounts of DNA: total DNA content varies over a range greater than 1000 to one: the minimum is still adequate for survival. Much of this excess DNA appears to have no obvious purpose. Although most mutations are adverse, some will be useful or neutral. It seems probable that all individuals will carry numerous apparently neutral genes: amongst these, from time to time, potentially useful gene mixes could occur. On this basis even a highly complex new biochemical process does not necessarily imply an instantaneous coordinated multiplicity of essential mutations.

The fossil evidence suggests that only single-celled organisms existed for the first few billion years of evolution. Bacteria can have 20,000 or more generations each year: their worldwide total numbers are unimaginable. However difficult the problem, early life, within this period, using chance variation alone, would have had an immense opportunity to test and perfect numerous complex component biochemical systems. The potential for success becomes much greater in sexual species: over a few tens of generations, each and every single pedigree has, potentially, access to every one of the genes carried by every individual of the largest worldwide population. Behe's Misguided Arguments Some of Behe's more general arguments are misguided. He discusses the major biological problems associated with producing controlled movement in fast moving water but ignores the much greater problems that are likely to occur when primitive life, completely lacking any swimming ability, attempts to survive in stagnant water. In this situation any movement ability, however incompetent, could improve access to food and assist survival: we can have a basis for Darwinian evolution. Explanations that do not imply a designer are not immediately obvious for some of 13ehe's examples. The reader should not assume that they do not exist: other, apparently very difficult, questions have been found to have unexpected, often simple, answers: we need to avoid preconceived ideas. For about 100 years the consensus of experts has been that new species can be explained only by genetic isolation. Contrarily, recent work, starting from a different argument, shows, consistently, how several new species could easily develop within a single fully interbreeding population. What alternative angles of view could explain Behe's examples?

Behe raises many important points which have yet to be answered by those with whom he disagrees. His book should be read by all who question the claims of religion. If there are no logical explanations for his problems, these claims become less easy to dismiss: it will then be necessary to investigate the further problem of who or what did the designing and the greater problem of how that designer was itself designed.

The views expressed in this Journal are not necessarily those of the Society.

22 Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 PAT POTTLE MEMORIAL AT CONWAY HALL Barbara Smoker

The homeliness, as well as the historical associations, of Conway Hall make it the most popular venue for secular memorial meetings - which are often very happy, as well as sad, occasions. Such was the memorable celebration in our main hall on Sunday, 10 December, of the life of the peace activist, Patrick Brian Pottle, who had died at the early age of 62.

I met Pat almost forty years ago in the Committee of 100* - which had been founded by Bertrand Russell as a more radical, less law-abiding, body than the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The original idea behind the 100-strong committee was that it would be difficult for the authorities to put so many on trial together - but the assumption that British justice was above the arbitrary selection of exemplary victims was mistaken. In December 1961, Pat Pottle was one of the six picked on to stand trial for organising an illegal demonstration at a USAF base at Wethersfield, Essex, for which he and the other four men were sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment; the one woman to 12 months.

In Wormwood Scrubs, Pat and another of the Wethersfield Six, Michael Randle, got to know the double agent, George Blake, who was serving a monstrous 42-year sentence. When he was sensationally 'sprung' in 1963, it was generally assumed that it was the work of professional KGB agents; actually, it was Pat and Mike who, horrified by the inhumanity of the length of Blake's sentence, had cleverly planned his escape, carried it out after their own release, harboured the escapee, then smuggled him out to Berlin and thence to Moscow. Not until 25 years later did they stand trial for it, again at the Old Bailey - and were acquitted by the jury, despite the judge's virtual direction to convict.

It was Mike Randle who, appropriately, chaired Pat's Memorial Meeting: a well-chosen mix of spoken reminiscences, music, poetry and evocative peace songs - plus a generous buffet, with the opportunity to renew old friendships, some of decades past.,One of the scheduled speakers was Pat's twin brother - who, strangely, is named Brian Patrick. Interestingly, their parents first met on the Jarrow Hunger March. Another speaker was George Blake's son, who had turned up unexpectedly, in gratitude for Pat's part in giving his father a life, instead of life.

*Other members included Nicolas Walter, Peter Cadogan and Neil Collins. ETHICAL IRONY

On perusing William Kent's book, London for Heretics (1932), at the various ethical societies in existence around the turn of the 19th century, I found myself catching my breath in horrified amazement to read that the South London Ethical Society met in Peckham. This sounds innocuous of course - but the venue was the Oliver Goldsmith School and this school has been in the news very recently. It was attended by Damilola Taylor, the studious ten year old boy recently arrived from Africa who was stabbed to death on his way home from the splendid new Peckham Library. It appears he was caught up in the violent bullying activities of teenage youths who roam lawlessly nearby.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774) was the playwright (She Stoops to Conquer), poet (the Vicar of Wakefield) and writer who said, 'Don't let's make imaginary evils when we have so many real ones to encounter'. J. Jeynes Ethical Record, Jan-Feb, 2001 23 PROGRAMME OF EVENTS AT THE ETHICAL SOCIETY The Library, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, Holborn, WC1R 4RL. Tel: 020 7242 8037/8034 Registered Charity No. 251396 Website: www.ethicalsoc.org.uk email: [email protected] No charge unless stated JANUARY 2001 Sunday 21 11.00am 'EXISTENTIALISM IS A HUMANISM' Peter Heales discusses J.P. Sartre's assertion 3.00pm HITLER THE MAN: the abstemious megalomaniac. TV Video. Sunday 28 11.00am RESEARCHING THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION'S HISTORY. Dr. Bill Cooke, New Zealand Rationalist. 3.00am CHARITIES AND THE PUBLIC INTEREST Prof. Gerald Vinten illustrates his talk from his personal experience of charities. FEBRUARY 2001 Sunday 4 11.00am 'CHASING THE HARE' next in the Series of Ethical Thinkers by Chris Bratcher. He discusses objections to LH. Hare including those of John Searle and Peter Geach. 300pm TOPICAL TOPICS bring those burning issues to discuss. Chairman Edmund McArthur. Sunday 11 11A0am KURT TUCHOLSKY (1890-1935) & THE STRUGGLE AGAINST GERMAN FASCISM. Illus. with recordings of his songs sung by Ernst Busch. Dr Ian King 3.00 pm FROM THE HASHISH TRAIL TO EVEREST: illustrated talk by Glen Gerber. Sunday 18 11.00am MURDER: ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW. Dr Peter Haydn Smith informs us. Consultant in Criminal Lunacy/Alienist. 3.00pm SCIENTIFIC TOPICAL TOPICS. Mike Howgate. SCIENCE WEEK (British Association for the Advancement of Science) 3.00pm Sunday 11 March INTRODUCING THE ICE AGE. Mike Howgate ASPECTS OF THE ICE AGE jointly with WEA. All day meeting. Free tickets for SPES members. am & pm Saturday 17 March

PFA (Philosophy For All) 7.30 pm Wednesday 7 February at Kant's Cave, Cellar Bar of•the Penderel's Oak, 283-8 High Holborn. Dr Eric Frankel & Dr Stephen Szanto. Brainwashed Youth - A Neuroscienttfic and Philosophical Appraisal.

SOUTH PLACE SUNDAY CONCERTS AT CONWAY HALL. 630pm. Tickets £5 (8-22yrs free)

Published by the South Place Ethical Society, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, WC1 4RL Printed by 1.0. Bryson (Printer) Lid. 156-162 High Road, London N2 9AS ISSN 0014 - 1690