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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Ethics in Islam and in the Western World Chapter 7 : Concluding Remarks Strange that Bertrand Russell deemed it fit to emphasize the need for love in the serious sense almost in a moralist vein! His proposed new sexual freedom has not been fully clarified. For, he adjudged chastity and virtue to be dispensable for all sexual purposes. He construed marriage to be in no way obstructive to free sexual love.

He implicitly recommended free sexual relations even with persons other than legal spouses, provided legitimacy of conception is ensured. In short, he approved of all kinds of non - violent and harmless sexual relations. All these he advocated seemingly because he found no reason to uphold conventional sexual morality, except for comparing and coordinating one's. private and public interests.

With his extreme thinking, as indicated above, Bertrand Russell could not have been expected to project any correct image of morals, which would seek to regulate human sexuality, in order to nurture it on the basis of tender feelings of love and affection. In any case, it is very clear that Bertrand Russell and others like him have sought to introduce a kind of communal sexuality. Societies where free sexual love prevails can hardly promote any genuine love.

At any rate, in the permissive societies, love would not come to mean the same as interpreted by philosophers of old. We may recall that love has been represented as the zenith of one's life and of one's enthusiasm for living a teacher, trainer, inspirer and a catalyst. In fact, people who spend their entire lives without the benefit of love remain unfortunate enough not to deserve to be human. In the above context, two essential points are notable.

The first one concerns the position that love, from the points of view of quality and purpose, is distinct from animal concupiscence and sexual lust. Moreover, it belongs to the realm of spirituality, which aspect is incompatible with the principles of materialism. Yet, it is accept able for one who ponders over spiritual matters even in what would appear to be a materialistic perspective.

This much is admitted by Bertrand Russell himself when he says that "love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse" [^1] Furthermore, Bertrand Russell recognizes love and (ironically enough) sexual morality when he says: Love has its own proper ideals and its own intrinsic moral standards.