Russell and Moore in 1922

How old was Bertrand Russell in 1922? Not ALL that old, surely, because he had a lot of life left in him.

The reason I ask (no reason to rush and look it up yourself, dear reader, I will do that for you shortly) is that Russell delivered a lecture in March 1922 that began with a rather supercilious reference to his age.

The lecture, with the title, "Is there an Absolute Good?," answers the title question with a resounding "no." Furthermore, the "no" is true even if one interprets "absolute" so that it means something rather less demanding that it sounds. Russell meant to say that there is no objective good.

Important subject, but not why I'm writing this post. It is inspired by the opening of the lecture, which is this:

When the generation to which I belong were young, Moore persuaded us all that there is an absolute good. Most of us drew the inference that we were absolutely good, but this is not an essential part of Moore's position, though it is one of its most attractive parts.

So, how old was that generation, how old was Russell himself, in March 1922?

Answer: he was born in May 1872. So he was 49 when he gave this lecture, two months short of 50.

Moore himself was a little younger than Russell -- Moore was born in November 1873.

So although the phrasing brought me up short (along with the weren't-we-all-terribly-full-of-ourselves back then? bit), it was fair. Moore had come out with PRINCIPIA ETHICA in 1903. Assuming that was mid-year (just for fun), Russell was then 31 and Moore was just 29. Both men underwent a good deal of intellectual development in the 19 years between that book and the lecture in question. And in between there they saw a generation younger than themselves sent off to war across the channel and killed en masse.

The jolt came simply because Russell lived until 1970, long enough so that in thinking about his life I personally tend to think of him as an old man (as one thinks of Tolstoy on the train). Thus, I telescope together his earlier decades in a way in which makes them untrue to someone who was living them.

Is there an Absolute Youth? is there even an Objective Youth?

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