MORALS WITHOUT MYSTERY: A LIBERATING ALTERNATIVE TO ESTABLISHED MORALITY BASED ON BERTRAND RUSSELL'S VIEWS APPLIED TO CURRENT PROBLEMS.

By Lee Eisler '30. New York: PhilosophicalLibrary, 1971. 118 pp. $4.95.

Mr. Eisler is a retired businessman (food, watches, and advertising), who produced his first book at 60. If he refers to the ancient Spartans' approval of homosexuality, cites St. Thomas' arguments against divorce and incest, and alludes to Uzzah's sacrilegious hand, is the learning of Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) on which he relies. Mr. Eisler was eager to rewrite Russell because many Americans associate Russell only with immorality (teaching mathematical logic at CCNY, he might corrupt the young) and because too few are cognizant of Russell's "enlightening and liberating" ideas.

Relying chiefly on Human Society inEthics and Politics, Mr. Eisler in fewer than 118 printed pages attempts to simplify complexities. The Eisler tone is accordingly different from Russell's, "less like a book on philosophy and more like one on applied navigation."

Is conventional morality acceptable in the light of present-day knowledge? Answer: no. One may no longer believe in the literal truth of the Bible. We must discard conscience as a basis for workable right and wrong. Morality must be established as a means rather than an end. Happiness should be the criterion of conduct. "The happiness of all men impartially" should be our goal. "Rational morality (based on an ethic of happiness) accommodates selfish motives (as well as altruistic ones), and seems likely to serve everyone's (primitive) self interest, and is conducive to survival in an H-bomb world." Happiness is not, however, a question for ethics or morals but for science to instruct us how to "aim at the target," and morality would simply approve of what science tells us. An action would be judged moral or right "if it seemed likely to produce the most happiness (or the least unhappiness), no matter whose." Mr. Eisler then evaluates the desires for possessions (the necessities of life), the incompatible desires (acquisitiveness, rivalry, vanity, and love of power), and the possibilities of controlling and refining them.

Concrete questions of varying importance about morality must be asked, and Mr. Eisler asks them. Was it immoral to drop the A-bomb on Japan? To practice euthanasia? To buy liquor from a bootlegger? To ignore someone's cry for help? To take drugs? Cheat on exams? On taxes? Punish criminals? Build high-powered automobiles? Is pleasure morally good or bad? Can human nature change? How many of the Ten Commandments must be scrapped?

Russell has complemented Eisler by stating that Morals Without Mystery is a well-written presentation of the kind of morality he [Russe11] believes in and advocates. Eisler compliments Russell by suggesting that Morals Without Mystery may perhaps even tempt some persons into reading Russell in the original.