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The Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Tor The Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol. 105 No. 7 . £1.50 - July/August, 2000 EDITORIAL - FROM DUALISM TO MATERIALISM THERE is a chronic confusion abroad concerning the alternative ways available of describing the cause of behaviour: roughly speaking we may use mental or physical language, referring to mind or brain respectively. This in turn stems from the dualistic theory that we have an immaterial mind which acts on the material body. Mental language sounds 'ordinary and not particularly scientific. For example, one might say of someone's anti-social behaviour that it was due to his mind having been influenced by his parents or his environment. The second way might go something like this: the cause of someone's anti- social behaviour is the presence in his brain of a particular neurological structure. Thus we have two apparently competing ways of talking about the problem. Dualism is unable to resolve this conflict, which, owing to the advance of science, is rapidly approaching a crisis. As scientists obtain ever more information about the detailed structure of the brains responsible for the variety Of human behaviour, they are able to locate the immediate cause of the behaviour in some particular part or process of the brain. For any machine, we have various ways of accounting for what takes place, different levels of description. For example, consider the action of a computer. We may choose to describe its actions in terms of how it has been programmed for its current task, or alternatively, from the point of view of the electronic engineer, in terms of its physics, eg thc tiny voltages in its various parts. However, when the computer operator keys a word or number into the computer, they are simultaneously changing the programme and causing a physical change in the computer. Similarly, the mind-brain conflict may be resolved by realising that the 'social' causes actually cause a physical change, albeit small and even reversible, in the brain. Materialism, whereby mind is dependent on the brain, thus emerges as the only coherent theory. "WHY ARE MORALS SO REPULSIVE?' Susmuiah Wright 3 HAS HUMANISM A FUTURE IN SOCIAL HOUSING? Peter Heales 8 THE STAKEHOLDER SOCIETY - BOON OR CURSE? Gerald Vinten 13 BUTLER AND RUSSELL ON GOD AND RELIGION David E. White 17 VIEWPOINTS C. Bratchel; B. Smoke,: T Rubens, P Rhodes, R. Awbefy, V Monger 21 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 protected] Officers Chairman of the GC: Diane Murray Vice Chairman: John Rayner Hon. Rep of the GC:Don Liversedge Registrar: Terry Mullins Editor, Ethical Record: Norman Bacrac SPES Staff Administrative Secretary to the Society: Marina Ingham Tel: 020 7242 8034 Librarian1Programme Coordinator: Jennifer Jeynes. Tel: 020 7242 8037 Operations Manager: Frances Hanlon. Tel: 020 7242 8033 Letthigs Manager: Peter Vlachos.For Hall bookings: Tel: 020 7242 8032 NOTICE OF THE SOCIETY'S ACM The AGM of the South Place Ethical Society will take place at 2.30 pm on Sunday I October 2000 in the lihrary at Conway Hall. Registration will commence at 2 pm. Note that members arc entitled to vote only if their subscriptions have been paid. There are IC vacancies on the General Committee this year, including 8 for 3 year terms. An information leaflet and nomination form accomPany this issue of the ER. ANNUAL REUNION OF KINDRED SOCIETIES 2.30pm Sunday 24 September 2000 at Conway Hall ALL WELCOME LIBRARY ACQUISITIONS The library has benefited from donations of books recently. The late Richard Condon bequeathed his collection of books, including many on anthropology. Thanks are due to his widow, Mrs Condon. Martin Page, author of a biography of J.M. Robertson. has donated his collection of books on J.M. Robertson. SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Registered 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 all those who reject supernatural creeds and find themselves in sympathy with our views. At Conway Hall there are opportunities for participation in cultural activities including discussions, lectures, concerts and socials. We have a library on subjects of humanist concern. All members receive the Society's journal, Ethical Record, eleven times a year. Funerals and Memorial Meetings may be arranged. Please apply to the Admin. Secretary for membership, .£18 p.a Concesions (Over 65, unwaged or full-time student) 12 p.a. The views expressed in this Journal are not necessarily those of the Society. Ethical Record, JulylAugast, 2000 'WHY ARE MORALS SO REPULSIVE?' The turn of the century moral crisis and the solution of ICJ. Gould Susannah Wright School or llomanities, Oxford Brookes University Lecture to the Ethical Soder); 12 March 2000 This quote is taken from Frederick James Gould's regular column in the Ethical World, 'The Armchair Philosopher'. Gould did not believe that morals were repulsive, quite the opposite. The statement is part of a comment on the lack of popular support for his efforts to introduce moral instruction into the country's elementary schools. Gould's work is interesting as a historical curiosity, but also worth analysing for what it has to offer to current educational and cultural debates. England's Moral Condition First, it is important to look at widespread concerns in England at the turn of the last century because these provide a wider context for Gould's thought and work. People were deeply concerned about England's moral condition. Social investigators, politicians and educators, amongst others, felt that the country had reached a nadir of depravity and was in need of salvation. Intellectual and political developments - in particular the rise of mass democracy and advances in science - led to the questioning of previously unquestioned principles. Many also felt that the structural changes of industrialisation and urbanisation had eroded the stability that family and commtmity ties had once provided, and that the church was becoming less influential and consequently less able to guide and control. Gould was not alone in his belief that schools would reinforce morality and change society for the better. Universal elementary education, introduced by the 1870 Education Act, was fairly new. All Christian denominations were optimistic that religious training in schools would redeem the rising generation. Yet others insisted this was inadequate to the task and instead advocated a programme of moral instruction independent of religious belief and doctrine. Gould fell into this camp. He was a key publicist and organiser within the movement for moral instruction, which originated in the Ethical Movement in the 1890s. (The Moral Instruction League was founded on an initiative of the Union of Ethical Societies on 8 December 1897.) Gould's views were criticised by Christians and even his secularist colleagues, but they were a significant part of the drive for moral regeneration. Gould's Early Piety Frederick James Gould was born in Brighton in in 1855. He was educated at St George's Chapel, Windsor and then in the village school at Chenies, Bucks. Gould absorbed the religious fervour of his Anglican Evangelical upbringing: he was by his own account a pious teenager. This piety characterised his early teaching career in the village school where he was criticised for dragging Christ into every lesson. However, after a few years his faith started to waiver. Because of his unbelief he resigned from his second teaching post in 1879 and moved to the anonymity of London. As a schoolteacher in I3ethnal Green, London, Gould started to campaign for reformist and secularist causes. In the early 1880s he came into contact with the National Secular Society and the Positivists who were to be so important in his later career. However, it was his work with the Ethical Movement that enabled him to Ethical Record, July/August 2000 3 escape from board school teaching; Stanton Coit recognised Gould's abilities and persuaded him to work for the Ethical Movement full-time. Three years later Gould moved to Leicester where he served as secretary and organiser of the Leicester Secular Society till 1908. Gould's teaching experiences undoubtedly convinced him of the need to develop new educational methods and programmes. He had nothing good to say about the system of payment by results, which, he argued, let to conditions of 'slavery' for pupils and 'turned education into a dull mechanism and starved the soul of young England'. He was also furious at his treatment by the authorities when he was transferred to Limehouse and barred from giving religious instruction after criticising the Bible in the secularist press. His farewell letter to the London School Board condemned the 'morally, intellectually and historically unsound' methods of religious instruction, and called for more attention to moral training. Gould felt that his early teaching experience taught him how to hold the interest of the child. but it was at the East London Ethical Society, free from school board regulations, that he found the space to experiment with ideas and techniques. The evangelical zeal of Gould's early years was transferred to his promotion of moral instruction. He was a prolific writer who produced numerous books, pamphlets and articles to publicise his cause. While secretary of the Leicester Secular Society he got himself elected onto the school board, a feat that few secularists achieved, and, once that had folded, onto the town council's education committee.
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