[!quote]
1948 年 1 月 28 日，英国广播公司（BBC）邀请了本世纪两位最杰出的思想家就上帝是否存在展开广播辩论。可以肯定的是，这两位辩论者并非哗众取宠之辈，他们代表了当时知识界的精英。
伯特兰·罗素是英国著名的哲学家、数学家、历史学家，或许也是当时世界上最著名的无神论者。他撰写了许多怀疑论的文章和书籍，其中包括至今仍然流行的文集 《我为什么不是基督徒》。
弗雷德里克·查尔斯·科普尔斯顿神父（FC）是一位耶稣会神父、哲学家和哲学史学家，他最著名的著作是 11 卷本的巨著 《哲学史》。他曾在牛津大学学习，并在包括罗马宗座额我略大学在内的许多著名大学任教，并于 1970 年当选为英国科学院院士（FBA）。
英文 Transcript (可以用浏览器翻译功能查看)
Copleston: as we are going to discuss the existence of God it might perhaps be as well to come to some provisional agreement as to what we understand by the term God I presume that we mean a supreme personal being distinct from the world and creator of the world would you agree provisionally at least to accept this statement of the meaning of the term God
Russell: yes I accept this definition
Copleston: where my position is the affirmative position such a being actually possessed exists and that his existence can be prove philosophically perhaps you would tell me if your position is there to agnosticism or of atheism I mean would you say that the non-existence of God can be proved
Russell: no I should not say that my position is agnostic
Copleston: would you agree with me that the problem of God is a problem of great importance for example would you agree that if God does not exist human beings and human history can have no other purpose than the purpose they choose to give themselves which in practice is likely to mean the purpose which those impose who have the power to impose it
Russell: roughly speaking yes though I should have to place some limitation on your last clause
Copleston: well would you agree that if there is no God no absolute being there can be no absolute values I mean would you agree that if there is no absolute good that the relativity of values results
Russell: no I think these questions are logically distinct take for instance principia ethica where he maintains that there is a distinction of Good and Evil that both of these are definite Concepts but he does not bring in the idea of God to support that contention
Copleston: well suppose we leave the question of good till later till we come to the moral argument and I give birth the metaphysical argument I’d like to put the main weight on the metaphysical argument based on leibniz argument from contingency and then later we might discuss the moral argument suppose that I give a brief statement of the metaphysical argument and then we go on to discuss it
Russell: that gives me a very good plan
Copleston: well for clarity’s sake I divide the argument in interesting stages first of all I should say we know that there are at least some beings in the world which do not contain in themselves the reasons their existence for example I depend on my parents and now on the air on food and so on now secondly the world is simply the real or imagined totality or aggregate of individual objects none of which containing themselves alone the reason of their existence there isn’t any world distinct from the objects of its form it any more than the human race is something apart from the members therefore I should say since objects or events exist and since no objective experience contains within itself the reason of its existence this reason um the totality of objects must have a reason external to itself and that reason must be an existent being with this being is either itself the reason for its own existence or it is not if it is well and good if not then we must proceed further but if we proceed to Infinity in that sense then there’s no explanation of existence at all so I should say in order to explain existence we must come to a being which contains within itself the reason for its own existence that is to say which cannot not exist
Russell: this raises a great many points and it’s not altogether easy to know where to begin but I think that perhaps in answering your argument the best point with which to begin is the question of a necessary being the word necessary I should maintain can only be applied significantly to propositions and in fact only to such as our analytic that is to say such as it is self-contraductory to deny I could only admit a necessary being if there were a being whose existence it is self-contradictory to deny
Copleston: yeah I should like to know whether you would accept leibniz’s division of propositions into truths of reason and truths of fact the former the truths of reason being necessary
Russell: I certainly should not subscribe to what seems to believe in its idea of Truth and reason and truths of fact since it would appear that for him there are in the long run only analytic propositions it would seem that the leibniz truths of fact are ultimately reducible to truism reason that is to say to analytic propositions at least from an omniscient mind
Copleston: well I couldn’t agree with that for one thing it would fail to meet the requirements of the experience of freedom I don’t want to uphold the whole philosophy of leibniz I have made use of his argument from contingent to necessary being basing the argument on the principle of sufficient reason simply because it seems to me a brief and clear formulation of what is the in my opinion the fundamental metaphysical argument for God’s existence
Russell: but to my mind a necessary proposition has got to be analytic I don’t see what else it can mean and analytic propositions are always complex and logically somewhat late rational animals are animals is an analytic proposition but a proposition such as this is an animal can never be analytic
Copleston: well in fact all the propositions that can be analytic are somewhat late in the buildup of propositions take the proposition if there is a contingent being then there is a necessary being I consider that that proposition hypothetically expressed is a necessary proposition if you are going to call every necessary proposition an analytic proposition then in order to avoid a dispute in terminology I will agree to call it analytic though I don’t consider it a tautological proposition but the proposition is a necessary proposition only on the supposition that there is a contingent V that there is a contingent being actually existing has to be discovered by experience and the proposition that there is a contingent being is certainly not an analytic proposition though once you know I should maintain that there is a contention being it follows of necessity that there is a necessary being
Russell: the difficulty of this argument is that I don’t admit the idea of a necessary being and I don’t admit that there is any particular meaning in calling other beings contingent these phrases don’t for me have a significance except with inner logic that I reject
Copleston: do you mean that you reject these terms because they won’t fit in with what is called modern logic
Russell: well I can’t find anything that they could mean the word necessary it seems to me is a useless word except as applied to analytic propositions not to things
Copleston: well in the first place what do you mean by modern logic as far as I know there are somewhat differing systems in the second place not all modern logicians surely would admit the meaninglessness of metaphysics we both know at any rate of one very eminent modern thinker whose knowledge of modern logic was profound but who certainly did not think that metaphysics are meaningless or in particular the problem of God is meaningless again even if all modern logicians held at metaphysical terms are meaningless it would not follow that they were right the proposition that metaphysical terms are meaningless seems to me to be a proposition based on an assumed philosophy the dogmatic position behind it seems to be this what will not go into my machine is non-existent or it is meaningless or it is the expression of emotion I’m simply trying to point out that anybody who says that a particular system of modern logic is the several Criterion and meaning is saying something that is over dogmatic he is dogmatically insisting that a part of philosophy is the whole of philosophy after all a contingent being is a being which has not in itself the complete reason for its existence that’s what I mean by a contingent being you know as well as I do that the existence of neither of us can be explained without reference to something or somebody outside us our parents for example the necessary being on the other hand means a being with must and cannot not exist you may say that there is no such being but you will find it hard to convince me that you do not understand the terms I am using if you do not understand them then how can you be entitled to say that such a being does not exist if that is what you do say
Russell: well there are points here that I don’t propose to go into with length I don’t maintain the meaning this metaphysics in general at all I maintain meaningless of certain particular terms not on any general ground but simply because I’ve not been able to see an interpretation of those particular terms it’s not a general Dogma it’s a particular thing but those points I will leave out for the moment and I will say that what you have been saying and brings us back it seems to me to the ontological argument that there is a being whose Essence involves existence so that his existence is analytic that seems to me to be impossible and it raises of course the question what one means by existence and as to this I think a subject named can never be significantly said to exist but only a subject described and that existence in fact quite definitely is not a predicate
Copleston: will you say I believe that it is bad grammar or rather bad syntax to say for example TS Elliott exists why not to say for example the author of Murder in the cathedral exists are you going to say that the proposition the cause of the world exists is without meaning you may say that the world has no cause but I fail to see how you can say that the proposition that the cause of the world exists is meaningless put it in the form of a question has the world a cause or does the cause of the world exist most people surely would understand the question even if they don’t agree about the answer
Russell: well certainly the question does the cause of the world exist is a question that has meaning but if you say yes God is the cause of the world we are using God as a proper name then God exists it will not be a statement it has meaning that is the position that I’m maintaining because therefore it will follow that it cannot be an analytic proposition ever to say that this or that exists and take for example suppose you take as your subject the existent round Square it would look like an analytic proposition that the existent ground Square exists but it doesn’t exist
Copleston: no it doesn’t then surely you can’t say it doesn’t exist unless you have a conception of what existence is as to the phrase exist in round Square I should say that it has no meaning at all
Russell: I quite agree
Copleston: then I should say the same thing in another context in reference to a necessary being where we seem to arrive that in pass to say that the necessary being is a being that must exist and cannot not exist has for me a definite meaning for you it has no meaning
Russell: well we can push the point a little I think a being that must exist and cannot not exist would surely according to you be a being whose Essence involves existence
Copleston: yes a being the essence of which is to exist that I should not be willing to argue the existence of God simply from the idea of his Essence because I don’t think we have any clear intuition of God’s Essences yet I think we have to argue from the world of experience to God
Russell: yes I quite see the distinction but at the same time for a being with sufficient knowledge it would be true to say here is this being whose Essence involves existence
Copleston: yes certainly if anybody saw God he would see that God must exist
Russell: so it I mean there is a being whose Essence involves existence although we don’t know that Essence we only know there is such a being
Copleston: yes I should add we don’t know the essence our priori it is only true of a stereotype through our experience of the world that we come to a knowledge of the existence of that being and then one argues the essence in existence must be identical because if God’s Essence then God’s existence were not identical then some sufficient reason for this existence would have to profound beyond God
Russell: so it all turns on this question of sufficient reason and I must say you haven’t defined sufficient reason in a way that I can understand what do you mean by sufficient reason you don’t mean cause
Copleston: not necessarily A causes a kind of sufficient reason only contingent being can have a cause God is his own sufficient reason but he is not cause of himself by a sufficient reason in the full sense I mean an explanation adequate for the existence of some particular being
Russell: the queen is an explanation adequate suppose I am about to make a flame with a mat you may say that the adequate explanation of that is that I rub it on the box
Copleston: well for practical purposes that theoretically that’s only a partial explanation an adequate explanation must ultimately be a total explanation to which nothing further can be added
Russell: then I can only say you’re looking for something which can’t be got and which are not to expect to get
Copleston: to say that one has not found it is one thing to say that one should not look for it seems to me rather dogmatic
Russell: well I don’t know I mean the explanation of one thing is another thing which makes the other thing dependent on yet another and you have to grasp this sorry scheme of things entire to do what you want and that we can’t do
Copleston: but are you going to say that we can’t or that we shouldn’t even raise the question of the existence the whole of this Scottish scheme of things of the whole universe
Russell: yes I don’t think there’s any meaning in it at all I think the word universe is a handy word in some connections but I don’t think it stands for anything that has a meaning
Copleston: whereas the word is meaningless it can’t be so very handy in any case I don’t say that the universe is something different from the objects which compose it I indicated that in my brief summary of the proof what I’m doing is to look for the reason in this case that in this case the cause of the objects the real or imagined totality of which constitute what we call universe you say I think that the universe or my existence if you prefer or any other existence is unintelligible
Russell: first may I take up the point of different word is meaningless it can’t be handy that sounds well but isn’t in fact correct take say such a word as the or then you can’t point to any object that those words mean but they’re very useful words and I should say the same of universe but leaving that point you ask whether I consider that the universe is unintelligible I shouldn’t say unintelligible I think it is without explanation intelligible to my mind is a different thing intelligible has to do with the thing itself intrinsically and not with its relations
Copleston: well my point is that what we call the world is intrinsically unintelligible apart from the existence of God you see I don’t believe that the Infinity of the series of events I mean a horizontal series or speak if such an Infinity group approve would be in the slightest degree relevant to the situation if you add up chocolates you get chocolates after all not a sheep if you add up chocolates to Infinity you presumably get an infinite number of chocolates so if you add up contingent being to Infinity you’ll still get contingent beings not a necessary being an infinite series of contingent beings would be to my way of thinking is unable to cause itself as one contingent being however you say I think that it is illegitimate to raise the question of what will explain the existence of any particular object
Russell: it’s quite all right if you mean by explaining it simplifying a cause for it
Copleston: well why stop at one particular object why shouldn’t one raise the question of the cause of the existence of all particular objects
Russell: because I see no reason to think there is any the whole concept of course is when we derive from our observation of particular things I see no reason whatsoever to suppose that the total has any cause whatsoever
Copleston: well to say that there isn’t any cause is not the same thing as saying that we shouldn’t look for a cause the statement that there isn’t any cause should come if it comes at all at the end of the inquiry not at the beginning in any case if the total has no cause then to my way thinking it must be its own cause which seems to me impossible moreover the statement of the world is simply there if an answer to a question presupposes that the question has meaning
Russell: no it doesn’t need to be its own cause what I’m saying is that the concept of course is not applicable to the total
Copleston: then you would agree with that that the universe is what he calls gratuitous
Russell: well the word gratuitous always suggests that it might be something else I should say that the universe is just there and that’s all
Copleston: well I can’t see how you can rule out the legitimacy of asking the question how the total or anything at all comes to be there why is something rather than nothing that’s the question the fact that we gain our knowledge of causality empirically from particular causes doesn’t rule out the possibility of asking what the cause of the series is if the word calls were meaningless or if it could be shown that kant’s view of the matter were correct the question would be illegitimate I agree but you don’t seem to hold that the word cause is meaningless and I don’t suppose that you’re a cantion
Russell: I can illustrate what seems to me to be your fallacy every man who exists has a mother and it seems to be your argument is therefore the human race must have a mother but obviously the human race hasn’t a mother that’s a different logical sphere
Copleston: well I can’t really see a parity if I was saying every object has a phenomenal cause therefore the whole series has a phenomenal cause there would be a parity but I’m not saying that I am saying every object has a phenomenal cause if you insist on the Infinity of the theories but the series of phenomenal causes is an insufficient explanation of the series therefore the series has not a phenomenal cause but a Transcendent cause
Russell: well let’s always assuming that not only every particular thing in the world but the world as a whole must have a cause for that assumption I see no ground whatever if you leave me a ground I listen to it
Copleston: well this is a series of events is either caused or it’s not caused if it is cause there must obviously be a cause outside the series if it’s not caused then it’s sufficient to itself and if it’s sufficient to itself it is what I call necessary but it can’t be necessary since each member is contingent and we’ve agreed that the total is no reality apart from the members therefore it can’t be necessary therefore it can’t because the uncaused therefore it must have a Cause and I should like to observe in passing that the statement the world is simply there and is inexplicable can’t be got out of logical analysis
Russell: I I don’t want to seem arrogant but it perceived me that I can receive things that you say the human mind can’t conceive as for things not having a cause physicists assures that individual Quantum transitions in atoms have no cause
Copleston: well I wonder now whether that isn’t simply a temporary inference
Russell: it may be but it does show the physicists Minds can conceive it
Copleston: yes I agree some of his scientists uh physicists are willing to allow for indetermination within a restricted field the very many scientists are not so willing I think that Professor jingle of London University maintains that the Heisenberg uncertainty principle tells us something about the success or the lack of it that the present atomic theory in correlating observations but not about nature in itself and many physicists will accept this View in any case I don’t see how businesses can fail to accept the theory in practice even if they don’t do so in theory I cannot see how science could be conducted on any other assumption than that of order and intelligibility in nature the physicist presupposes at least acidly that there is some sense in investigating nature and looking for the causes of events just as the detective presupposes that there is some sense in looking for the cause of a Murder the metaphysician assumes that there is sense in looking for the reason or cause of phenomena and not being a kanchan I consider the metaphysician is as justified in his assumption as the physicist when sad for example says the world is gratuitous I think that he hasn’t sufficiently considered what is implied by gratuitous I think there seems to be a certain unwarrantable extension here the physicist looks for causes that is not necessarily imply that there are causes everywhere a man may look for Gold without assuming that there is gold everywhere if he finds gold well and good if he doesn’t he’s had bad luck the same is true with the physicists look for causes
Russell: as for sir I don’t profess to know what he means and I shouldn’t like to be thought to interpret him but for my part I do think the notion of the world having an explanation is a mistake I don’t see why one should expect it to have and I think that what you say about the scientists assume what the scientist assumes is an urban statement
Copleston: well it seems to me that the scientist does make some such assumption winning experiments to find out some particular truth behind that experiment lies the assumption that the Universe isn’t simply discontinuous there is the possibility of finding out a Truth by experiment the experiment may be a bad one may lead to no result or not the result that he wants but that at any rate there is the possibility through experiment of finding out the truth that his use and that seems to me to assume an ordered an intelligible universe
Russell: I think you’re generalizing more than is necessary undoubtedly the scientist assumes that this sort of thing is likely to be found and will often be found he does not assume that it will always be found and that’s a very important factor in modern physics
Copleston: well I think he does assume all is bound to assume it passively in practice it may be that to quote Professor holdain when I light the gas under the kettle some of the water molecules will fly off as Vapor so there’s no way of finding out which will do so but it doesn’t follow necessarily that the idea of chance must be introduced except in relation to our knowledge
Russell: no it doesn’t at least if I may believe what he says he’s finding out quite a lot of things the scientist is finding out quite a lot of things that are happening in the world which are at first beginnings of causal genes first causes which haven’t in themselves got causes he does not assume that everything has a cause
Copleston: surely that’s the first cause within a certain selected field it’s a relatively first cause
Russell: I don’t think he’d say so if there’s a world in which most events but not all have causes he will then be able to depict the probabilities and uncertainties by assuming that this particular event you’re interested in probably has a Cause and since in any case you won’t get more than probability that’s good enough
Copleston: it it may be that the scientist doesn’t hope to obtain more than probability but in raising the question he assumes that the question of explanation has a meaning but your general point then Lord Russell is that it’s illegitimate even to ask the question of the cause of the world
Russell: yes that’s my position
Copleston: well if it’s a question for you has no meaning it’s of course very difficult to discuss it isn’t it
Russell: yes it is very difficult but you say shall we pass on to some other issue
Copleston: let’s well perhaps I might say a word about religious experience and then we can go on to moral experience well I don’t regard religious experience as a strict proof of the existence of God so the character the discussion changes someone but I think it’s true to say that the best explanation of it is the existence of God or by religious experience I don’t mean simply feeling good I mean a loving but unclear awareness of some object which irresistibly seems to the experience as something transcending the self something transcending all the normal objects of experience something which cannot be pictured or conceptualized but is the reality of which doubt is impossible at least during the experience I should claim that cannot be explained adequately and without residue simply subjectively the actual basic experience at any rate is most easily explained on the hypothesis that there is actually some objective cause of that experience
Russell: I should reply to that line of argument that the whole argument from our own mental states did something Outsiders is a very tricky affair even where we all admit its validity we only feel justified in doing so I think because of the consensus of mankind if there’s a crowd in a room and there’s a clock in the room they can all see the clock the fact that they can all see it tends to make them think that it’s not a hallucination whereas these religious experiences do tend to be very private
Copleston: yes they do I’m speaking strictly of mystical experience proper and I certainly don’t include by the way what are called Visions I mean simply the experience and I quite admit it’s indefinable of the Transcendent object or what seems to be a Transcendent object I remember Julian Huxley and some lecture saying that religious experience or mystical experience is as much a real experience as falling in love or appreciating poetry or not well I believe that when we appreciate poetry and art we appreciate definite poems or a definite work of art if we fall in love well we fall in love with somebody and not as nobody
Russell: but may I interrupt for a moment here that is by no means always the case Japanese novelists never consider that they have achieved a success unless large numbers of real people commit suicide for love of the imaginary heroine
Copleston: well I almost take your word for the strange goings on in Japan I haven’t committed suicide I’m glad to say but I have been strongly influenced in The Taking of two important steps in my life by two biographers however I must say I see little resemblance between the real influence of those books on me and the Mystic experience proper so far that is as an outsider can obtain an idea of that experience well I mean we wouldn’t regard God is being on the same level as the characters were working for fiction and you admit there’s a distinction here
Russell: I certainly should
Copleston: but what I’d say is that the best explanation seems to be they’re not purely subjective it’s explanation because the subjectivist explanation is possible in the case of certain people in whom there’s little relation between the experience and the life in the case of deluded people hallucinated people and so on but when you get what one might call the pure tape season Francis when you get an experience that results in an overflow of dynamic and creative love the best explanation of that it seems to me is the actual existence of an objective cause of the experience
Russell: well I’m not contending in a dogmatic way that there is not a god what I’m contending is that we don’t know that there is I can only take what is recorded as I should take other records and I do find that very great many things are reported which I am sure you would not accept things about demons devils and whatnot and they’re reported in exactly the same kind of voice and with exactly the same conviction and the Mystic if he’s vision is political may be said to know that there are devils but I don’t know that there are
Copleston: but surely in the case of the Devils there’s the people are speaking mainly their Visions appearances Angels or demons and so on I should rule out these visual appearances because I think they can be explained apart from the existence of the object which is supposed to be seen
Russell: but don’t you think there are abundant recorded cases of people who believe that they’ve heard Satan speaking to him in their hearts in just the same way as the mystics are said God and I’m not talking now of an external Vision I’m talking of a purely mental experience that seems to be an experience of the same sort as the mystics experience of God and I don’t see that from what Mystics tell us you can get any argument for God which is not equally an argument for Satan
Copleston: I quite agree because the people have imagined or thought that they have heard or seen Satan I have no wish in passing to deny the existence of Satan but I don’t think that people have claimed to experience Satan in the precise way in which the mystics claim to experience God take the case of a non-Christian protonus he admits the experience is something inexpressible that the object is an object of love and therefore not an object that causes hotter underst then the effect of that experience is I should say born out or I mean the validity the experience is borne out in the records of the life of the kindness at any rate it’s more reasonable to suppose that he had that experience if we’re willing to accept Paul for his account of batina’s General kindness and benevolence
Russell: the fact that you believe has a good moral effect Upon A man is no evidence whatsoever in favor of its truth
Copleston: if it could actually but prove that the belief was actually responsible for a good effect on a man’s life I should consider it a presumption in favor of some truth at any rate in the positive part of the belief not its entire ability but in any case I’m using the character of the life as evidence in favor of the mystic’s veracity and Insanity rather than as a proof of the truth of his beliefs
Russell: but even that I don’t think is any evidence I’ve had experiences myself the devoted my character profoundly and I thought at the time at any rate that it was ordered for the good those experiences were important but they did not involve the existence of something outside me and I don’t think that if I thought they did the fact that they had a wholesome effect would have been any evidence that I was right
Copleston: no but I think that the good effect would test your veracity in describing your experience and please remember that I’m not saying that a Mystics mediation or interpretation of his experience should be immune from discussion or criticism
Russell: obviously the character of a young man may be and often is immensely affected for Good by reading about some great man in history and it may happen that the great man is a myth who didn’t exist but the boy is just as much affected for good as if he did there are for instance people in pukak’s lives take like kirkus as an example who certainly did not exist but you might be very much influenced by reading of like August under the impression that he had really existed you wouldn’t be influenced by an object that you loved but it wouldn’t be an existing object
Copleston: I agree with you because that a man may be influenced by a character in fiction without going into the question what it is precisely that influences him I should say real value I think that the situations of that man and the mistake are different after all the man was influenced by like kyrgus hasn’t got the resistible impression that he’s experienced in some way the Ultimate Reality
Russell: I don’t think you quite got my point about these historical characters these unhistorical characters in history I am not assuming what you call an effect on the reason I’m assuming that the young man reading about this person and believing him to be real loves him which is quite easy to happen and yet he’s loving a phantom
Copleston: in one sense he’s loving a phantom that’s perfectly true in the sense I mean that he’s loving X or way who doesn’t exist but at the same time it is not I think the Phantom as such that the young man loves he perceives a real value an ideal which he recognizes as objectively valid and that’s what excites his love
Russell: well in same sense we had preferred about the characters in fiction
Copleston: yes in one sense a man loving a phantom perfectly true but in another sense he’s loving what he perceives to be a value
Russell: aren’t you now saying in effect I mean by God whatever is good or the subtotal of what is good the system of what is good and therefore when a young man loves anything that is good he is loving God is that what that what you’re saying because if so it wants a bit of arguing
Copleston: yeah yes it runs a bit of arguing I don’t say of course that God is the same is the sum total or system of what is good in the pantheistic sense I’m not a pantheist but I do think that all goodness reflects God or in in some way and proceeds from him so that in a sense the man who loves what is truly good loves God even if he doesn’t avert to God but still I agree that the validity of such an interpretation of a man’s conduct depends on the recognition of God’s existence obviously
Russell: yes but that’s the point to be proved
Copleston: quite so well I regard the metaphysical argument is property but there we differ
Russell: you see I feel the things that are good and things that are bad uh I love the things that are good that I think are good and I hate the things that I think are bad I don’t say that these things are good because they participate in the Divine goodness
Copleston: yes but what’s your justification for distinguishing between good and bad or how do you view the distinction between them
Russell: I don’t have any justification any more than I have when I distinguish between blue and yellow what is my justification for distinguishing between blue and yellow I can see they’re different
Copleston: well that is an excellent justification I agree you distinguished blue and yellow by seeing them so you distinguish good and bad by what faculty
Russell: by my feelings
Copleston: by your feelings well that’s what I was asking you think that good and evil have reference simply to feeling
Russell: well right is one type of object you alone another look blue I can more or less give an answer to that thanks to the physicists and that’s why I think one sort of thing good in another evil and probably there is an answer of the same sort but it hasn’t been gone into in the same way and I couldn’t give it you
Copleston: well let’s take the behavior the commandant of bills that appears to you as undesirable and evil and to me too to Adolf Hitler he suppose it appeared as something good and desirable so I suppose you’d have to admit that for Hitler it was good and for you it is evil
Russell: no I shouldn’t go quite so far as that I think people can make mistakes in that as they can in other things if you have jaundice you see things yellow that are not yellow
Copleston: no making a mistake yes one can make mistakes but can you make a mistake if it’s simply a question of reference to a feeling or emotion surely Hitler would be the only possible judge of what appealed to his emotions it would be quite right to see that he defeated his emotions
Russell: but you can you can say various things about that among others that if that sort of thing makes that sort of appeal to Hitler’s emotions then hit that makes quite a different appeal to my emails
Copleston: granted where there’s no objective Criterion outside feeling then for condemning the conduct of the coming down to Belgium in your view no more than there is for the colorblind person who’s in exactly the same state why do we intellectually condemn the colorblind man isn’t it because he’s in the minority
Russell: well yes he’s lacking in a thing that normally belongs to Human Nature
Copleston: yes but if he was in the majority we shouldn’t say that then you’d say that there’s no Criterion outside feeling that will enable one to distinguish between the behavior the commandant of Belson and the behavior say is a static Crypt so the Archbishop of Canterbury
Russell: well the feeling is just a little too simplified you’ve got to take account of the effects of actions and your feelings towards those effects you see you can have an argument about it if you say that certain sorts of occurrences are the thought you’d like and certain others that’s what you don’t like and then you have to take account of the effects of actions you can very well say the defects of the actions of the commandant of Belgian were painful and unpleasant
Copleston: they’re certainly aware I agree very painful and unpleasant to all the people in the camp yes not only to the people in the camp but to Outsiders contemplating them also
Russell: yes quite true in imagination um but that’s my point I don’t approve of them and I know you don’t approve of them
Copleston: but I don’t see what ground you have for not approving of them because after all to the commandant of Belgian himself they’re they’re present
Russell: yes but you see I don’t need any more ground in that case than I do in the case of color perception there are some people who think everything is yellow there are people suffering from jaundice I don’t agree with these people I can’t prove that the things are not yellow there isn’t any proof but most people agree with me that they’re not yellow and most people agree with me that they’re coming down to bills and was making mistakes
Copleston: well do you accept any moral obligation
Russell: I should have to answer considerable links to answer that practically speaking yes theoretically speaking I should have to Define moral obligation rather carefully we’ll do things that
Copleston: the word ought simply has an emotional connotation
Russell: no I don’t think that because you see as I’ve seen a moment ago when it has to take account to be fixed and I think right conduct is that which will probably produce the greatest possible balance of intrinsic value of all the acts possible in the circumstances and you’ve got to take account of the probably effects of your actions in considering what is right
Copleston: well I brought in moral obligation and because I think that one can approach the question of God’s existence in that way the vast majority of the human race make and always have made some distinction between right and wrong the vast majority I think have some consciousness of an obligation in the moral sphere it’s my opinion that the perception of values and the consciousness of moral law and obligation a best explained through the hypothesis of a Transcendent ground of value and of an author the moral law I don’t mean by author the moral law an arbitrary author the moral law I think in fact that those modern atheists who have argued in the converse way there is no God therefore there are no absolute values and no absolute moral law they’re quite logical
Russell: I do like the word absolute I don’t think there is anything absolute whatever the moral law for example is always changing at one period in the development of the human race almost everybody thought cannibalism was a duty
Copleston: well I don’t see the differences in particular moral judgments or any conclusive argument against the universality of the moral law let’s assume the moment that there are absolute moral values even on that hypothesis it’s only to be expected the different individuals and different groups should enjoy varying degrees of insight into those values
Russell: I’m in trying to think with odd the feeling one has a bad odd is an echo what has been told one by one’s parents or once nurses
Copleston: well I wonder if you can explain away that idea of the art merely in terms of nurses and parents I really don’t see how you can be conveyed to anybody in other terms than itself it seems to me that if there is a moral order bearing upon the human conscious conscience that that moral order is unintelligible apart from the existence of God
Russell: then you have to say one or other of two things either God only speaks to a very small percentage of mankind which happens to include yourself or he deliberately says things that are not true in talking to the consciences of savages
Copleston: well you see I’m not suggesting that God actually dictates moral precepts to the conscience the human being’s ideas of the content of the moral law depends certainly to a large extent on education and environment and a man has to use his reason in when he’s assessing the validity of the actual moral ideas of his social group with the possibility of criticizing the accepted moral code presupposes that there is an objective standard that there is an ideal model order which imposes itself I mean the obligatory character of which can be recognized I think that the recognition of this ideal moral order is part of the recognition of contingency it implies the existence of a real Foundation of God
Russell: but the law Giver has always been it seems to me what one’s parents or someone liked there are plenty of terrestrial law givers to account for it and that would explain why people’s consciences are so amazingly different in different times and places
Copleston: it helps to explain differences in the perception of particular moral values which otherwise is inexplicable well I mean it will help to explain changes in the matter of the moral law in the content of three precepts as accepted by this or that Nation or this or that individual but the form of it what can cause the categorical imperative the ought I really don’t see how bad can possibly be conveyed to anybody by nurse or parent because there aren’t any possible terms as far as I can see with which it can be explained it can’t be defined in other terms in itself because once you define it in other terms in itself you’ve explained it away it’s no longer moral or it’s something else
Russell: well I think the sense of ought is the effect of somebody’s imagined disapproval it may be God’s imagined disapproval but it’s somebody’s Imaging disapproval and I think that is what is meant by odd seems to me to be external customs and taboos and things of that sort which can most easily be explained them simply through environment and education
Copleston: but all that seems to me to belong to what I call the matter the law the content the idea of the ought as such can never be conveyed to a man by the tribal Chief or by anybody else and because there are no other terms in which it could be conveyed seems to me entirely
Russell: but I don’t see any reason to say that I mean we all know about conditioned reflexes we know that an animal is punished habitually for a certain sort of act after time we refrain I don’t think the animal refrains from arguing within himself Master will be angry if I do this he has a feeling that that’s not the thing to do that’s what we can do with ourselves and nothing more
Copleston: I see no reason of course to suppose that an animal has a Consciousness a moral obligation and we certainly don’t regard an animal as morally responsible for attacks or disobedience but a man has a consciousness of obligation and a moral values I see no reason to suppose that one could condition all men as one can condition an animal and I don’t suppose you’d really want to do so even if one could if behaviorism were true there will be no objective moral distinction between the emperor and Nero and Saint Francis of Assisi I can’t help feeling Lord Russell you know that you regard the conduct of the commandant of Belson is really morally reprehensible in itself and the view yourself would never under any circumstances act in that way even if you thought or had reason to think that possibly the balance of the happiness of the human race might be increased through some people being treated in that abominable manner
Russell: no and I wouldn’t imitate the conflict of a Mad Dog the fact that I wouldn’t do it doesn’t really bear on this question we’re discussing
Copleston: no but if you were making a utilitarian explanation of right and wrong in terms of consequences it might be held and I suppose some of the Nazis the better type would have held but although it’s lamentable to have to act in this way yet the balance in the long run leads to Greater happiness I don’t think you’d say that would you I think you’d say that that sort of action is wrong and in itself quite apart from whether the general balance of happiness is increased or not if you’re prepared to say that then I think you must have some criteria in a right or wrong that is outside the Criterion of feeling at any rate and to me that admission would ultimately result in the admission of an ultimate ground of value of God
Russell: yeah I think we’re getting perhaps into a confusion it’s not direct feeling about the act by which I should judge but rather feeling as to the effects and I can’t admit any circumstances in which certain kinds of behavior such as those you’ve been discussing would do good I can’t imagine circumstances in which they would have a beneficial effect I think the persons who think they do are deceiving themselves but if there were circumstances in which they would have a beneficial effect then I might be obliged however reluctantly to say well I don’t like these things but I will acquiesce in them just as I acquiesce in the criminal law although I profoundly dislike punishment
Copleston: well perhaps it’s time I summed up my position I’ve argued two things first at the existence of God can be philosophically approved by a metaphysical argument and secondly it is only the existence of God which will make sense of man’s moral experience and a religious experience personally I think that your way of accounting for men’s moral judgments leads inevitably to a contradiction between what your theory demands and your own spontaneous judgment moreover your theory explains moral obligation away and explaining a way is not explanation with regards to metaphysical argument we are apparently in agreement that what we call the world consists simply of contingent beings that is a beings no one of which can account for its own existence you say that the series of events needs no explanation I say that if there were no necessary being no being which must exist and cannot not exist nothing would exist the Infinity of the series of contingent beings even if proved would be irrelevant something does exist therefore there must be something which accounts respect a being which is outside the series of contingent beings if you’re admitted it we could then have discussed whether that being is personal good and so on the actual point discuss whether there is or is not a necessary being I find myself I think in agreement with the great majority of classical philosophers you maintain I think that existing beings are simply there and that I have no justification for raising the question of the explanation of their existence what I’d like to find out that this position cannot be substantiated by logical analysis it expresses the philosophy which itself stands in need of proof I think we reached an impasse because our ideas of philosophy are radically different seems to me that what I call a part of philosophy that you call the hole in so far at least this philosophy is rational it seems to me it will pardon my saying sir that besides your own logical system which you call Martin in opposition to Antiquated logic but tendentious adjective you maintain a philosophy which cannot be substantiated by logical analysis after all the problem of God’s existence is an existential problem whereas logical analysis does not deal directly with problems of existence so it seems to me that to declare that the terms involved in one set of problems are meaningless because they are not required in dealing with another set of problems is to settle from the beginning the nature and extent of philosophy and that is itself a philosophical act which stands in need of justification
Russell: well I should like to say just a few words by way of summary on my side first as to the metaphysical arguments I don’t admit the connotations of such a term as contingent or the possibility of explanation in Father couples and sins I think the word contingent inevitably suggests the possibility of something that wouldn’t have this what you might call accidental character you’re just being there and that I don’t think is true except in the purely causal sense you can sometimes give a causal explanation of one thing as being the effect of something else but that is merely referring one thing to another thing and this new to my mind explanation for other couples and sins of anything at all nor is there any meaning in calling things contingent because there isn’t anything else they could be that’s what I should say about that but I should like to say a few words about for the couples and sex accusation that I regard logic as all philosophy that is by no means the case I don’t by any means regard logic is all philosophy I think logic is an essential part of philosophy and logic has to be used in philosophy and in that I think here they are at one when the logic that he used uses with new namely in the time of Aristotle there had to be great he’ll first made about it Aristotle made a lot of fuss about that logic nowadays it’s become old and respectable and you won’t have to make so much fuss about it the logic that I believe in on is comparatively new and therefore I have to imitate Aristotle in making a fuss about it but it’s not that I think it’s all Philosophy by any means I don’t think so I think it’s an important part of philosophy and when I say that I don’t find the meaning for this or that word that is a position of details based upon what I found out about that particular word from thinking about it it’s not a general position that all words that are used in metaphysics are nonsense or anything like that which I don’t really hold as you got the moral argument I do find that when I studies anthropology or history there are people who think it’s their duty to perform acts which I think complement-able and I can’t therefore attribute a divine origin to certainly the matter of moral obligation which father couples doesn’t ask me to but I think even the form of moral obligation when it takes the form of in joining you to eat your father or whatnot it doesn’t seem to me to be such a very beautiful and Noble thing and therefore I cannot attribute to divine origin to this sense of moral obligation which I think is quite easily accounted for in quite other ways.
AI 总结：
1. 关于上帝的定义与双方立场
- 初步共识与立场： 双方同意将 上帝 暂时定义为独立于世界之外且创造世界的最高位格存在。Copleston 主张可以从哲学层面证明其真实存在，而 Russell 则认为宇宙不需要解释，并拒绝接受可以通过逻辑证明上帝的存在。
2. 形而上学论证与偶然性
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偶然性与必然存在： Copleston 提出了 偶然性论证 来支持其观点。他认为世上存在诸多被定义为 偶然实体 的事物，这些事物的存在依赖于外部因素。因为宇宙是所有偶然对象的总和，所以必然需要一个外在于宇宙的 必然存在 来解释这一切，这个存在本身即是其自身存在的原因。
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反对整体归因： Russell 拒绝接受 必然存在 这一概念。他主张 必然性 这一词汇只能用于描述逻辑上的 分析命题 属性，而不能用于描述实际存在的客体。他认为去追问整个宇宙的 原因 是毫无意义的，因为宇宙「仅仅是在那里」而已。他指出前者的论证存在逻辑谬误，即部分拥有原因并不意味着整体也必然拥有原因。
3. 宗教体验的客观性
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神秘体验与超验对象： Copleston 认为，当人们产生纯粹的 神秘体验 时，会产生一种动态且富有创造力的爱。这种体验最好用存在一个真实的 超验对象 来解释，而非将其视为主观的幻象。
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精神体验的私人性： Russell 反驳说这些体验是极其 私人的 感受，无法像物理客体那样被普遍验证。他认为即便某种信仰对人的道德品质产生了极好的 积极影响 效果，也绝不能反过来证明该信仰在客观事实上是 真实的 状态，因为虚构的事物同样能对人产生深刻影响。
4. 道德法则与绝对价值
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绝对价值的超验基础： Copleston 指出人类普遍拥有区分善恶的能力以及强烈的 道德义务 意识。如果没有上帝作为绝对的价值根基，就不存在 绝对的 道德法则，一切人类的价值判断都将沦为相对主义。
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道德的非神圣起源： Russell 拒绝承认存在绝对的道德法则。他认为人们对善恶的区分仅仅源于个人的 感觉 以及对行为 效果 的理性评估。所谓的道德法则和 条件反射 类似，只是环境与教育以及对他人不赞同的恐惧所形成的产物，完全不需要归因于一个神圣的立法者。