During most of his long philosophical career, Bertrand Russell was a strong moral subjectivist or emotivist who argued that ethics, because it cannot hope to arrive at truth, is not properly a part of either science or philosophy. In several works, however, most notably Philosophy and Politics and Human Society in Ethics and Politics, he attempted to bring his empiricism and his philosophy of science to bear on moral and other axiological questions. In these writings, he appears to seek and to hope for the "imperium" of the title of this article, which contrasts these two positions, drawing on the former to critique the latter.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Aiken, Lillian.1964. Bertrand Russell's philosophy of moralsNew York: Humanities Press.
2.
Barber, Benjamin R.1988. The conquest of politics.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
3.
Berlin, Isaiah.1969. Four essays on liberty.London : Oxford University Press.
4.
Flathman, Richard E.1989. Toward a liberalism.Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
5.
—. 1992. Willful liberalism.Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
6.
Russell, Bertrand.1962. An inquiry into meaning and truth.Baltimore: Penguin.
7.
—. 1944. Reply to criticisms. In The philosophy of Bertrand Russell, edited by Paul Arthur Schlipp. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
8.
—. 1947. Philosophy and politics.London : Cambridge University Press.
9.
—. 1954. Human society in ethics and politics.London: Allen & Unwin.
10.
Ryan, Alan.1988. Bertrand Russell: A political life.New York: Hill and Wang.
11.
Schultz, Bart.1992. Bertrand Russell in ethics and politicsEthics102(3): 594-634.
