SIR,—May I please ask Dr. Ritchie the following questions ?
SIR,—May I please ask Dr. Ritchie the following questions ?
Why can no value be discovered in a situation unless it is seen against a background to which it is related ? Why must the humanist create an absolute at all ? How can a value or duty possibly be derived from something other than a value or duty ? What sense does it make to talk about the ' source' of values, or ' what makes them valuable' Why (for anyone but a psychological hedonist) should it be either impossible or improbable for men to behave like brothers quite irrespective of the existence of a God as father ? If they don't behave like brothers in the absence of God, why should the existence of God make them any more likely to do so '? What effect on this -could the existence of God have that a belief in his existence, though false, could not have ?
Moral or value experiences, like other experiences, are part of the given matter of the world. I cannot see why any explanation of them is necessary, nor what sort of an explanation has been (liven when we say that ' God exists.'—Yours faithfully, Bedford College, N.W.1
A. R. LACEY
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