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Ethical Record The Proceedings of the South Place Ethical Society Vol. 117 No. 6 £1.50 June 2012 GUEST EDITORIAL – NOT SO JUBILANT! The last thing I anticipated when the Editor commanded (sorry, politely suggested) my jaundiced (sorry – absolutely objective) observations on the UK’s elderly, ballot-dodging (sorry – unelected), despot-dining, definitely, head of state’s celebration of 60 years of mass subservience – was a good laugh. However, there have been several opportunities for a giggle. It was amazing that the monarchy’s unofficial, full-time, taxpayer-funded propaganda machine – the BBC – thought so little of the unusual spectacle in the Thames Pageant - 1000 boats floating down the Thames behind the monarch and consort... that it asked unbelievably inexpert commentators to tell us about it, well away from the river. Not often that I wonder where Jennie Bond, the retired royalty prime know-it- all is ........ They didn’t know the difference between a boat’s bow and stern, called a Dunkirk veteran named John ‘Jim’ throughout, had a mock ‘knighting’ ceremony for some obscure reason, said a milliner had made Nelson’s headgear for Waterloo (as all ER readers know, Nelson died at Trafalgar 10 years before ksffffffffj Editorial continues on page 3 RAWLS’ CONTRACTUALISM v. BENTHAM’S UTILITARIANISM Sam Fremantle 4 THE RIGHTS OF ATHEISTS AT THE UN Leo Igwe 7 THE ETHICS OF VOLUNTARY AMPUTATION Moheb Costandi 8 VIEWPOINTS Edmund McArthur, John Dowdle, Sue Mayer 11 POLITICS AND NEO-DARWINISM by Tom Rubens REVIEW by Chris Purnell 14 “A PERVADING SPIRIT CO-ETERNAL WITH THE UNIVERSE”: 200 YEARS OF THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM Graham Allen 15 FILM PROGRAMME (LOOKING IN LOOKING OUT) 23 ETHICAL SOCIETY EVENTS 24 SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY Conway Hall Humanist Centre 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL. Main phone for all options: 020 7405 1818 Fax (lettings): 020 7061 6746 www.ethicalsoc.org.uk or www.conwayhall.org.uk Chairman: Chris Purnell Vice-chairman: Jim Herrick Treasurer: Chris Bratcher Editor: Norman Bacrac Please email texts and viewpoints for the Editor to: [email protected] Staff Chief Executive Officer: Jim Walsh Tel: 020 7061 6745 [email protected] Administrator: Martha Lee Tel: 020 7061 6741 [email protected] Finance Officer: Linda Alia Tel: 020 7061 6740 [email protected] Librarian: Catherine Broad Tel: 020 7061 6747 [email protected] Hon. Archivist Carl Harrison [email protected] Programme Co-ordinator: Ben Partridge Tel: 020 7061 6744 [email protected] Lettings Officer: Carina Dvorak Tel: 020 7061 6750 [email protected] Caretakers: Eva Aubrechtova (i/c) Tel: 020 7061 6743 [email protected] together with: Angelo Edrozo, Sean Foley, Alfredo Olivo, Rogerio Retuerma Maintenance: Zia Hameed Tel: 020 7061 6742 [email protected] New Members We welcome to the society: Darius Amini, Clapham, London; Paul Dewhurst, Manchester; John McNeill, Edinburgh; Cathy Louise Olmidillas, Hackney, London DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN NOW RECEIVE ETHICAL RECORD ONLINE? Every new issue of the Society’s journal will be added to the members’ area of the Conway Hall website in PDF format - easily viewable by PC, laptop or tablet reader. We are also uploading back issues! If you’d like to help us save paper and printing costs please consider opting out of receiving hard copies of Ethical Record. Email now to opt out and you will receive an email notification every time a new version of Ethical Record is uploaded. Jim Walsh, CEO SOUTH PLACE ETHICAL SOCIETY 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 and freethought 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 programme includes Sunday lectures, discussions, evening courses and the Conway Hall Sunday Concerts of chamber music. The Society maintains a Humanist Library and Archives. The Society’s journal, Ethical Record, is issued monthly. Memorial meetings may be arranged. The annual subscription is now £35 (£25 if a full-time student, unwaged or over 65) 2 Ethical Record, June 2012 Waterloo in 1815)..... Even better was the display of the (I kid you not) monarch- shaped ice-cream scoop, solar-powered waving monarch (not doing much waving in the constant drizzle) – and the diamond jubilee sick bag with the instruction, ‘bling it up’, above the picture of the queen ...... There were thousands of complaints – from monarchists! The phrase which will be indissolubly associated with the whole weekend – and please don’t blame me – will be bladder infection. I lost count of how many times I read or heard it. The queen’s husband was diagnosed with one of these and spent several days in hospital. He missed the service at St Paul’s but then we many non religious weren’t included either, only people of various ‘faiths’ were included in the prayers. In these ecumenical times, I rather fancied a Roman Catholic or Jewish Jubilee. A jubilee set by the pope is a year of indulgence (not that sort of indulgence, obviously, the sort the sale of which was implicated in the Reformation); traditionally every 25 years, sins are forgiven in return for acts of piety or repentance. The Jewish one is a year of restoration or restitution every 50 years, proclaimed by a countryside blast of trumpets (Hummel? Walton?) Not only that, during this time land is left uncultivated and land that had been sold reverted to its former owner. Perhaps we could get back all the land that has been taken from citizens by monarchs down the centuries..... Slaves are also emancipated – if only those many in Britain who are still slaves to the myth of monarchy could be so released. It may not be so long. Princess Diana was intentionally excluded by name and photograph – the large one on the banks of the Thames showed the royal family’s four children at the time of the Silver Jubilee, so Charles was not married. Is that not rude, not to say cowardly? Many Diana fans will not forgive Charles his callous treatment of her and bringing his mistress into the family since and in line to be queen. Again, it is royalists who loathe the thought of this. The couple are still not legally married; royalty cannot marry in a register office. It isn’t even Republicans casting such aspersions, we have better ones. The Telegraph, no lefty leaning organ it, was quick off the mark on Monday 11th June: ‘Prince of Wales presents a real danger to the monarchy’, claimed its columnist, Allison Pearson: ‘We know far too much about Prince Charles’ foibles and past errors to revere him as we revere his mother’. Her column also includes another infelicitous term we are destined to hear regularly I think in the forthcoming debate, ‘What will it feel like to have a monarch who is on public record as wanting to be reincarnated as his mistress’s Tampax?’ It was the C19 political commentator, Walter Bagehot, who defined the monarchy as the ‘dignified’ part of our (unwritten) constitution. Monarchists have already given ground on the issue of choosing our next head of state theoretically as there are numerous public opinion polls asking whether people want William instead of Charles. So the idea of choice is becoming more familiar. Yet the one essential quality Charles needs to be monarch is already lost beyond recall, I venture to suggest – his dignity. Jennifer R. Jeynes Ethical Record, June 2012 3 RAWLS’ CONTRACTUALISM VERSUS BENTHAM’S UTILITARIANISM Sam Fremantle Lecture to the Ethical Society, 4 December 2011 It is fair, I believe, to say that before the publication of John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice that the predominant stance in moral and political philosophy was some sort of utilitarianism. It is also fair, I believe, to say that since the 1971 publication of A Theory of Justice, utilitarianism has been on the back foot in moral and political philosophy and that Rawls’ book was largely responsible for its retreat. More popular nowadays is some form of egalitarianism or contractualism, of which Rawls’ theory supplies only one version. So should Rawls’ book have been so influential? In what follows I can only offer a tentative sketch of an answer to that question. As shall become apparent my answer will be no – roughly speaking, there was nothing wrong with utilitarianism, it wasn’t broke, and there was no need for anyone to try to fix it. Two Rival Conceptions of Society Rawls’ theory is not a simple one; utilitarianism is, comparatively so, so I shall start by explaining that, and stick to its simplest form – classical, hedonistic utilitarianism. This holds that all our individual moral behaviour, and the organization of the institutions of society, should be directed at one aim, and one aim only, maximizing happiness (it’s the fact that it aims at happiness that leads to its description as ‘hedonistic’). To illustrate by an example: supposing the British government is considering whether to build a new motorway. To make that decision they obviously need to weigh up the benefits to the motorists against the costs to local residents in terms of the impact on their happiness. But it doesn’t stop there; they also need to weigh up the likely impact on future generations in terms of pollution and global warming. Finally, when all the possible costs and benefits to all the people that might be affected by the decision are taken into account, that decision should be taken which would lead to the most net happiness.
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