Bertrand Russell’s Ten Commandments for Dwelling Virtuously (1930)

Symbol through J. F. Horra­bin, by way of Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Bertrand Rus­promote can have lived his lengthy lifestyles con­cerned with large most sensible­ics in log­ic, math­e­mat­ics, pol­i­tics, and soci­ety, however that did­n’t stay him from assume­ing seri­ous­ly about methods to han­dle his personal day by day rela­tion­ships. That arduous­ly manner he han­dled each such rela­tion­send with in line with­fect aplomb: be mindful of his 3 divorces, the primary of which was once for­mal­ized in 1921, the yr he mar­ried his lover Dora Black. Pos­sessed of sim­i­lar bohemi­an-reformer beliefs — and, prior to lengthy, two chil­dren — the cou­ple discovered­ed the exper­i­males­tal Bea­con Hill Faculty in 1927, intent on encour­ag­ing their younger pupils’ devel­op­ment as no longer simply thinkers-in-train­ing however complete human beings.

A couple of years lat­er, Rus­promote pub­lished his in line with­son­al “ten com­mand­ments” in a cul­ture magazine­a­zine known as Each and every­guy, and you’ll learn it in complete in this 1978 factor of the Rus­promote Soci­ety Information. (Move to web page 2.)

“Each and every­frame, I sup­pose, has his personal record of virtues that he tries to prac­tice, and, when he fails to prac­tice them, he feels disgrace moderately inde­pen­dent­ly of the opin­ion of oth­ers, to this point at any fee as con­scious idea is con­cerned,” he writes by means of intro­duc­tion. “I’ve attempted to position the virtues that I must want to pos­sess into the type of a deca­logue,” which is as fol­lows:

1. Don’t lie for your­self.
2. Don’t misinform oth­er peo­ple except they’re exer­cis­ing tyran­new york.
3. Whilst you assume it’s your responsibility to inflict ache, scru­ti­nize your rea­sons shut­ly.

4. Whilst you want pow­er, examination­ine your­self shut­ly as to why you deserve it.

5. If you have pow­er, use it to increase peo­ple, to not con­strict them.
6. Don’t try to are living with­out van­i­ty, since that is impos­si­ble, however make a choice the precise audi­ence from which to hunt admi­ra­tion.
7. Don’t call to mind your­self as a whol­ly self-con­tained unit.

8. Be reli­ready.

9. Be simply.

10. Be good-natured.

Within the complete textual content, Rus­promote elab­o­charges at the assume­ing at the back of each and every of those virtues.  “Whilst you need to consider some the­o­log­i­cal or polit­i­cal document­trine which is able to building up your source of revenue, you’re going to, should you aren’t very care­ful, give a lot more weight to the argu­ments in desire than to these in opposition to”: therefore the impor­tance of no longer mendacity for your­self. Relating to mendacity to oth­ers, no longer handiest must gov­ern­ments inform the reality to their sub­jects, “par­ents must inform the reality to their chil­dren, how­ev­er incon­ve­nient this will likely appear.” And fam­i­lies as in states, “those that are intel­li­gent however vulnerable can­no longer be be expecting­ed to forego using their intel­li­gence of their con­flicts with those that are stu­pid however robust.”

Rus­sel­l’s 5th com­mand­ment additionally applies to rela­tion­ships between the previous and the younger, since “those that take care of the younger inevitably have pow­er, and it’s simple to exer­cise this pow­er in tactics pleas­ing to the edu­ca­tor somewhat than use­ful to the kid.” And through his 8th com­mand­ment, he manner “to sug­gest a complete set of hum­drum however nec­es­sary virtues, similar to punc­tu­al­i­ty, stay­ing promis­es, adher­ing to plans involv­ing oth­er peo­ple, chorus­ing from treach­ery even in its mildest paperwork.” Alas, “mod­ern edu­ca­tion, in much less­en­ing the empha­sis on dis­ci­pline, has, I believe, did not professional­duce reli­ready human beings the place social oblig­a­tions are con­cerned.”

This “pre­scrip­tive empha­sis — significantly the tension positioned at the mer­its of a few hum­ble virtues — can have been influ­enced then through his prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence of professional­gres­sive edu­ca­tion,” writes The Col­lect­ed Papers of Bertrand Rus­promote edi­tor Andrew Bone. However Rus­promote nonetheless revised his deca­logue lengthy after he left the Bea­con Hill Faculty in 1932, with global occasions of the sub­se­quent a long time inspir­ing him to make use of it within the ser­vice of what he regard­ed as a lib­er­al global­view. One ver­sion large­solid at the BBC in 1951 contains such com­mand­ments as “Don’t really feel absolute­ly cer­tain of any­factor,” “To find extra plea­certain in intel­li­gent dis­despatched than pas­sive agree­ment,” and “Don’t use pow­er to sup­press opin­ions you assume in line with­ni­cious, for should you do the opin­ions will sup­press you” — all of which extra of the previous couple of gen­er­a­tions of stu­dents will have executed neatly to inter­nal­ize.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Bertrand Russell’s 10 Com­mand­ments for Liv­ing in a Wholesome Democ­ra­cy

Bertrand Rus­promote: Writer­i­ty and the Indi­vid­ual (1948)