Russell's Marriage and Morals (Reading group, meeting #1 notes)

This spring/summer I am running a reading group on Russell's Marriage and Morals.  Below are my notes/questions for the group's first meeting in April.

Russell reading group notes for meeting #1 (chapters 1-6) 

Background note:  Russell was married 4 times in his long life.  From age 22 till his death at age 97, there was never a year he was not married to a woman.  His marriages were always within a year of a divorce.  Perhaps the idea of being single for a few years was unpalatable to him, or perhaps that could not rival the joys of romantic companionship? Marriage #1 lasted 27 years, #2 lasted 14 years , #3 16 years years, and his final marriage lasted till his death (18 years later). If you are curious about Russell’s love life you can read this.

Below is a brief summary, with questions we can focus on to get the discussion going:

Chapter 1:  Why a Sexual Ethics is Necessary

Russell gets straight to the answer of this chapter by asserting that there is “no country in the world where sexual ethics and sex institutions have been determined by rational considerations" (exception might be Soviet Russia) p. 5).  The issue of which sexual morality would be best for the general happiness and wellbeing is complex, he contends, but certainly tradition and superstition are not the best guides.

Furthermore, Russell believes that the answer to this question must be context specific, and so will vary depending the circumstances of the society in question.  And there are 3 layers to the sexual morality of a community—that covered by the law; that the object of public opinion; and the domain where the individual has discretion to decide.

Question for discussion:  what ideals, norms and expectations about romantic and sexual relations were you raised with?  What were the common attitudes about sex? (e.g. wait till marriage?, something done primarily for offspring, love, out of service, etc.?).  Was there pressure to marry and have children?  What was the advice and expectations you received about picking a suitable mate?  How many children were you expected to have?  And what were the societal attitudes around things like divorce, parenting, etc.?  Was your family patriarchal?  Do you think things have changed within families since your childhood?

Meta-question to ponder:  Do you think tradition has served as a useful guide to the sexual morals of your community?  Why/why not?

Chapter 2:  Where Fatherhood is Unknown

Given the title of this section I did some research to find out the estimates of “cockoldry” – sexual behavior in which a pair-bonded female mates with a male other than her partner. Maternity is always 100% certain, but before paternity testing there was never certainty about paternity.  Credible historical estimates put the rate of cockoldry in Western societies at about 1%.

Chapter 3:  The Domain of the Father

Russell claims that a father’s feelings towards his offspring are driven by a love of power and a desire to survive death--  that his children are a continuation of his life.

He argues that jealousy is driven by the fear of the falsification of descent. 

Russell contends that marriage customs have been a blend of 3 factors—instinct, economics and religion.

Questions:  What are your thoughts on jealousy and celibacy/excess of sexual indulgence? What do you think about the pro and anti-sexual elements of religion?  The notion that sex is only for creating offspring is quite foreign to us now that birth control exists. Russell asks:  “what lead the church to condemn all fornication?  And was this condemnation valid? Are there other valid grounds for such condemnation”?

Meta-question to ponder:  is there a viable account of “sexual virtue”, and if so, what is it?

Chapter VI:  Romantic Love

Two quotes I noted:

p. 66 “The essential of romantic love is that it regards the beloved object as very difficult to possess and as very precious.  It makes, therefore, great efforts of many kinds to win the love of the beloved object, by poetry, by song, by feats of arms, or by whatever other method may be thought most pleasing to the lady.”  Thoughts on this?  Russell emphasizes how important it is that a woman be hard to get.  Is this a sign of those times?  Or perhaps an insight into Russell’s own attachment style/ideal of love? 

p. 76 “In romantic love the beloved object is not seen accurately, but through a glamorous mist; undoubtedly it is possible for a certain type of woman to remain wrapped in this mist even after marriage provided she has a husband of a certain type, but this can only be achieved if she avoids all real intimacy with her husband and preserves a sphinx-like secrecy as to her inmost thoughts and feelings, as well as a certain degree of bodily privacy”.

Questions:  what your thoughts on romantic love?  Is it a healthy / feasible ideal in the contemporary context?  What are the pros and cons of being “a romantic”?

 Looking forward to our discussions.

Cheers, 

Colin

Page Proofs

In the "home strength" to get this lengthy project finished...

Cheers, 

Colin

Daniel Dennett (RIP)

Daniel Dennett, one of the world's most prominent philosophers, passed away yesterday.  When I was a an MA student I took a graduate seminar in 1995 which was dedicated to a semester-long analysis of his 1991 book Consciousness Explained. 

The NY Times has a nice piece on the importance and influence of Dennett here.  A sample:

Daniel C. Dennett, one of the most widely read and debated American philosophers, whose prolific works explored consciousness, free will, religion and evolutionary biology, died on Friday in Portland, Maine. He was 82.

....He graduated from Harvard University in 1963 and two years later earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from Oxford University. His dissertation began a lifelong quest to use empirical research as the basis of a philosophy of the mind.

....Underlying the increasingly acrimonious debate between the scholars was a natural friction in the scientific and philosophical communities over which side merited more credibility on the subject of evolution.

A major loss for the intellectual enterprise. 

Cheers, 

Colin

Genetic Protection Against AD

 

EurekAlert has this news item about a study on the genetic variant which protects the brain from AD.

A sample from the news item:

The researchers discovered the protective variant in people who never developed symptoms but who had inherited the e4 form of the APOE gene, which significantly increases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. 

“These resilient people can tell us a lot about the disease and what genetic and non-genetic factors might provide protection,” says study co-leader Badri N. Vardarajan, PhD, assistant professor of neurological science (in neurology, the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center, and the Taub Institute), who is an expert in using computational approaches to discover Alzheimer’s disease genes. 

"We hypothesized that these resilient people may have genetic variants that protect them from APOEe4.” 

To find protective mutations, the Columbia researchers sequenced the genomes of several hundred APOEe4 carriers over age 70 of various ethnic backgrounds, including those with and without Alzheimer's disease. Many participants were residents of Northern Manhattan who were enrolled in the Washington Heights/Inwood Columbia Aging Project, an ongoing study that has been conducted by Columbia University’s Department of Neurology for more than 30 years.

Cheers, 

Colin

Loneliness and the Brain

Nature news has this interesting piece on the impact of loneliness on human health.  A sample from the article:

The COVID-19 pandemic might ["editorial snark:  ya think!"] have exacerbated loneliness by forcing people to isolate for months or years, although “that data is still emerging”, Kotwal says. Older adults have long been thought of as the demographic most heavily affected by loneliness, and indeed it is a major problem faced by many of the older people that Kotwal works with. But the Cigna Group’s data suggest that loneliness is actually highest in young adults — 79% of those between the ages of 18 and 24 reported feeling lonely, compared with 41% of people aged 66 and older.

Historically, staying close to others was probably a good survival strategy for humans. That’s why scientists think that temporary loneliness evolved — to motivate people to seek company, just as hunger and thirst evolved to motivate people to seek food and water.

In fact, the similarities between hunger and loneliness go right down to the physiological level. In a 2020 study, researchers deprived people of either food or social connections for ten hours. They then used brain imaging to identify areas that were activated by images of either food — such as a heaping plate of pasta — or social interactions, such as friends laughing together. Some of the activated regions were unique to images either of food or of people socializing, but a region in the midbrain known as the substantia nigra lit up when hungry people saw pictures of food and when people who felt lonely saw pictures of social interactions6. That’s “a key region for motivation — it’s known to be active whenever we want something”, says Tomova, who is an author on the study.

Cheers 

Colin

Winter term winding down

The 2023/24 academic teaching year is winding down this coming week.  I taught 4 courses this year, servicing approximately 580 students.  This year is actually year 25 of my academic career, and I have to say that teaching remains a joy and real privilege for me.  In fact, I have volunteered to teach a 4 week online course on the ethics of biomedical enhancement this summer for the Faculty of Education.

My forthcoming textbook on the history of Western political thought is in the final production stages.  I expect to get the proofs in a few weeks.  And I have a series of papers on the ethics of translational gerontology in the works.  So I am keeping busy on the research front. 

As the warmer weather of spring arrives my thoughts always shift towards:

(a) outdoor cooking (I will get my coveted "Green Egg" fired up hopefully this week); 

(b) more time playing sports outside (my beach volleyball league starts in May); and 

(c) outdoor gardening.   

Last year the garden suffered as I did not return from sabbatical until late June, which was too late to get a decent harvest.  So this year I aspire to make a more serious go of growing a variety of vegetables and herbs. 

So many things to do and contemplate, so little time!  Such is the predicament of life I suppose.

Cheers, 

Colin

   

Political Theory and Open-Minded Thinking

An interesting study in Cognition which examines how explaining contentious political issues can promote open-minded thinking.  The abstract:

Cognitive scientists suggest that inviting people to explain contentious political issues might reduce intergroup toxicity because it exposes people to how poorly they understand the issue. However, whether providing explanations can result in more open-minded political thinking remains unclear. On one hand, inviting people to explain a political issue might make them more impartial and open-minded in their thinking. On the other hand, an invitation to explain a contentious political issue might lead to myside bias—rationalization of one's default position. Here, we address these contrasting predictions in five experiments (N = 1884; three pre-registered), conducted across a variety of contexts: with graduate students interacting with an actor in a laboratory setting, with US residents at the peak of the 2012 and 2016 U.S. presidential elections, with UK residents before the highly polarized 2019 Brexit vote, and with gun-control partisans. Across studies, we found that explaining politically contentious topics resulted in more open-minded thinking, an effect that generalized across coded (Studies 1–4) and self-report (Studies 3–4) measures. We also observed that participants who were made to feel like their explanations were welcomed felt closer to their discussion partner (Studies 3–4), an effect that generalized to all outgroup members with whom they disagreed with about the politically contentious issue (Study 4). We discuss the theoretical implications of these findings, and the potential for explanations to foster open-minded political engagement.

I believe this kind of empirical research has significance for how and why we teach political theory.

Cheers, 

Colin 

Parental age at death and age at first birth

Interesting study published in Experimental Gerontology which examines the age of death for parents and the age they had their first offspring.  

The abstract:

People age at different rates and the available evidence suggests that the rate of aging is partly inherited from previous generations. This heterogeneity in aging is evident already in midlife, but to what extent aging is associated with the timing of events earlier in life is not fully known. Here we aim to shed light on this topic by investigating the trade-off between reproduction and aging postulated by evolutionary theories of aging.

Cheers, 

Colin