Beland Honderich: A Tribute Paid By Ted Honderich The following speech was made by the British philosopher Ted Honderich about his brother the Canadian publisher Beland Honderich at a meeting in Toronto on December 5, 2005, attended by many people, notably political leaders and many from the newspaper The Toronto Star.     There is a Latin instruction some of you will know for occasions like this. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. Of the dead, say nothing unless good. Bee-Bee would have liked the neat words. He could write, and he could do what sometimes goes with that, which is think. But he would not have agreed with the instruction, for a reason to which I shall come.     Before then, let me say some other things, of which the first is that he was a judgemental and verdictive man. Perfection by his lights was not only perfection but the only tolerable option. There is a picture in a book of a 12-year-old brother standing looking up to him in the main street of the village of Baden, he a reporter of 26 for The Kitchener Record, maybe scowling down. The little brother stands up very straight.     He also hurt people, and also quite a few journalists. There wasn't quite enough excuse for this in his being in the right, which he mainly was, or in the fact that hard decisions fell to him, or the fact that he got things done. But he hurt people outside and inside a family, I think, partly for that same reason to which I shall come.     He was good to me. If he could still scowl, he got me started in life. Later on, for home improvements, such as a sun-roof in Hampstead, he made me some self-liquidating loans. An excellent kind of loan to have, the accountant rightly said. He delayed the expression of my love, but never lost it.     To speak of what I more or less saw, he had three marriages that had in them the best of feeling for at least a time, and also decency in adversity. Florence, Agnes and Rina. Sometimes they had to stand up straight too. But I certainly did see two new lovebirds, aged 81 and 85. Maybe a better picture for a book.     He stood up straight himself. He also was straight, not of the line of character of every newspaper publisher.     He never strayed far in the direction of the moral stupidity that the obligation of a board of directors, or a chief executive officer, is only to the shareholders, or even primarily to the shareholders.     He was also brave. If he had got the chance, and had not been shy, which he was, he would have taken his departure in something like the way of David Hume. The philosopher had himself carried around Edinburgh in a sedan chair to bid farewell to his friends.     I come now to the reason he would not have agreed with De mortuis nil nisi bonum, and also at least part of the reason that he hurt some people. He had in himself what he expressed and acted on. That is the imperative of truth, necessarily truth by one's own lights. It had to do in his case, I think, not only with honour and realism, but also an insecurity, as in the case of some of the rest of us.     Whatever the source, his following the imperative of truth was almost always more than admirable, but not always. He could sometimes forget that the imperative cannot be overwhelming on every occasion.     That is to say that almost always his following the imperative of truth was also in accord with an actually overwhelming moral principle, humanity. That principle, which can sometimes countermand truth, in the brevity that Bee-Bee would ask for, is that we must take actually rational steps to get and to keep people out of bad lives.     If he did not give away all his worldly goods, he did some of that, a lot by the conventions of our low societies, my own now lower than that of Canada. He did something else in line with the Principle of Humanity too. He did what hardly anyone has done. He did what has been done by no one else who comes to mind, no one whom a little historical research can turn up.     What he did was to improve what out of his good principle he preserved, the newspaper of indubitably the greatest value to his country. After he came to run it, The Star did not distract attention from its policies of humanity by its manner of presenting them.     There was a greatness in this. Some more Latin is needed. Death without another life to come did not make this life meaningless. Bye-bye, Bee-Bee.  --------------------------- For more, see The Principle of Humanity. There is also a C.B.C. obitruary and a report of the tribute meeting. For a few materials for a sketch of his life, see the index of Ted Honderich's book, Philosopher: A Kind of Life. HOME to T.H. website. HOME to Det & free website.