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was russell a secular humanist? Many members of the Russell Society seem to think so; others disagree. Francis Mortyn of the American Humanist Association reports that the term ‘secular humanism’ was first used by the Moral Majority in the 60s and 70s as a form of disparagement and only gained currency among humanists when Paul Kurtz adopted the term in 1979 or 1980 to refer to his own humanist group, which today is the Council for Secular Humanism. Mortyn further claims that the concept of secular humanism “offers no philosophical advance” over that of humanism, that is, there is no theoretical difference between the two terms.1 There is some justice to the claim that there is no philosophical difference between humanists and secular humanists. What American humanists have meant by ‘humanism’ from at least 1933 on can be seen in their 1933 Humanist Manifesto. Comparing this document to the description of secular humanism at the website of the Council of Secular Humanism shows that both humanists and secular humanists reject theism (belief in a supernatural being) and accept naturalism (the view that it is only within science itself that reality can be described). Both reject a supernatural creation of the earth, both accept evolution theory as best accounting for the creation of human beings, both seek moral values that will make people’s lives better, and both think it is by reason and experience that such values will be found.2 The difference between humanists and secular humanists, if any, seems to be an emotional one. Though rejecting theism and accepting naturalism, the humanists of the 1933 manifesto quite astonishingly called themselves ‘religious humanists’ – the majority of the signatories of the manifesto were in fact Unitarian clergy! Essentially, they were naturalists committed to using reason to improve people’s lives who liked religion and so wanted to call this view religion too. In contrast, secular humanists are naturalists committed to using reason to improve people’s lives who, according to their website, are people who “typically describe themselves as non-religious”, that is, they are people who don’t like religion. So where does Russell belong in all of this? While he was a member of the British Humanist Association (at one time presided over by A.J. Ayer), he tended to call himself either a rationalist or a skeptic. Still, it seems fair to say that he was some sort of humanist. But what kind? He valued what he called “personal religion” by which he seems to have meant ecstatic religions experiences and strong moral intuitions, though he refused to infer from these experiences to belief in a supernatural being, much like the religious humanists, and so would have fit well among them. At the same time, he never passed up an opportunity to kick organized religion and so would have also fit in well among the secular humanists. Then again, humanists are naturalists, so if Russell was not a naturalist it would not be right to call him a humanist of any kind. Was Russell, then, a naturalist? in this issue Andrew Lugg argues, in ‘Russell as a Precursor of Quine’, that yes, Russell was indeed a naturalist in his philosophy from at least 1914 on. Lugg argues this point by comparing Russell’s views on philosophy with Quine’s naturalism, showing that Russell and Quine agree on most fundamental issues, and concludes that the best way of viewing Russell is as a precursor of Quine’s naturalism and the best way of viewing Quine is as a follower of Russell. And if Lugg is correct, then given Russell’s other likenesses with humanism, perhaps it is most fair to say that on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays Russell was a religious humanist and on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays a secular one. I leave it to the reader to decide what Russell was on Sundays.
The nature of Russell’s views on naturalism are not all that are examined in this issue. Alongside these matters,chad trainer explores the nooks and crannies of russell's views on world government in his essay ‘Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish and Short: Russell’s Views of Life without World Government’. Trainer begins by noting that Russell’s views on world government were nearly the same as Hobbes’s views on national ones and then fleshes this observation out, exploring the details of their similarities and differences, ending with an assessment of the pertinence of Russell’s views on world government for today’s world.
2 The 1933 Humanist Manifesto and the Council of Secular Humanism’s description of secular humanism can both be found on the web.
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