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Ethical Relativity

by Edward Westermarck. 304 pgs.

Contributors:

   Edward Westermarck

Publisher:

   Harcourt, Brace and company

Place of Publication:

  New York  

Publication Year:

  1932

Subjects:

Ethics, Ethics--History, Ethics, Evolutionary

	CONTENTS
	PREFACE	xvii
I.	THE SUPPOSED OBJECTIVITY OF MORAL JUDGMENTS	3
	What is meant by the objectivity of moral judgments assumed by "normative" ethics, p. --The diversity of opinion with regard to the principles underlying the various normative systems, p. sq .--The hedonistic principle supposed to be an analytical proposition, p. sq .--J. S. Mill 's arguments in favour of utilitarianism, pp. --H. Sidgwick 's attempt to vindicate the validity of utilitarianism pp. --His principle of "rational benevolence," supposed to rest on a fundamental moral intuition, pp. -- His axioms of prudence and justice, p. sq .--The general hedonistic principle also regarded by him as an object of intuition, p. --"Theological utilitarianism," pp. -- Egoistic hedonism and its relation to universalistic hedonism or utilitarianism, pp. --Herbert Spencer 's evolutionary utilitarianism, pp. --Leslie Stephen 's evolutionary utilitarianism, p. sq .--F. Paulsen 's energism, p --F. H. Bradley 's theory of self-realization, pp. - --H. Rashdall 's teleolog...	3
II.	THE SUPPOSED OBJECTIVITY OF MORAL JUDGMENTS (CONCLUDED)	35
	The supposed existence in the human mind of some "faculty" that enables us to pronounce objectively valid moral judgments, pp. --Called "moral sense," pp. --Or "conscience," pp. --Or "practical" or moral reason," or included under the general terms "reason" or "understanding," pp. --The presumed self- evidence of moral principles, pp. --The idea of moralists that moral judgments possess objective validity, adopted from the morality of common sense, p. sq .-- The common sense idea of the objective validity of moral judgments regarded as a proof of their really possessing such validity, p. sq .--The general tendency to assign objectivity to our subjective experience, p. sq .--The appearance of objectivity in moral judgments due to various circumstances, pp. --To the comparatively uniform nature of the moral consciousness, p. --To education, p. sq .--To the authority of public opinion, custom, and law, p. sq .--To the influence of some great teacher, p.	35
	III. THE MORAL EMOTIONS	62
	The moral emotions of two kinds: moral approval and moral disapproval or indignation, p. sq .--The moral emotions retributive emotions, approval, like gratitude, forming a subspecies of retributive kindly emotion, and disapproval, like anger and revenge, forming a subspecies of resentment, p. -- McDougall 's criticism of this scheme both in point of terminology and classification, p. sq .--His criticism of the author's view of the relation between anger and revenge, pp. --Dr. Steinmetz 's suggestion that revenge is essentially rooted in the feeling of power and superiority and originally undirected, pp. --Resentment a hostile attitude of mind towards a living being, or something taken for a living being, as a cause of pain, p. --Resentment, like reflex action, from which it has gradually developed, a means of protection for the animal, p. sq .--The close connection between moral disapproval and non-moral resentment, pp. --The agrressiveness of moral dis...	62
	IV. THE MORAL EMOTIONS (CONCLUDED)	89
	Refutation of the opinion that moral emotions only arise after and in consequence of an intellectual process through which the moral quality of a certain course of conduct has been discerned, p. sq . At the same time moral judgments, being definite expressions of moral emotions, can bel us to discover the true nature of these emotions, p. --Disinterestedness and impartiality, real or apparent, characteristics by which moral approval and disapproval are distinguished from other, non-moral, kinds of resentment or retributive kindly emotion, pp. --The analysis of the moral emotions attempted in this and the preceding chapter applies not only to such emotions as we feel on account of the conduct of others, but to such as we feel on account of our own conduct as well, p. sq .--We may feel disinterested resentment, or retributive kindly emotion, on account of an injury inflicted, or a benefit conferred, upon another person with whose pain, or pleasure, we sympa...	89
V.	THE MORAL CONCEPTS	114
	The theory of the emotional origin of moral judgments does not imply that such a judgment affirms the existence of a moral emotion in the mind of the person who utters it, p. --It implies that the qualities assigned to the subjects of moral judgments and expressed by moral concepts are generalizations of tendencies to feel either moral approval or disapproval, interpreted as dynamic tendencies in the phenomena which gave rise to the emotion, pp. -Our analysis of moral concepts to be concerned with such as are expressed in English terms, all of which have equivalents in other European languages, pp. --Moral concepts among the lower races, p. --Language a rough generalizer, p. sq .--Competition between the concept of "ought" or "duty" and that of "goodness," pp. -- Analysis of "ought" and "duty," pp. --Of "bad" and "wrong," p. --Of "right," as an adjective, pp. - --Of "right," as a substantive, p. sq .--Of the relation between "rights" and "duties," p. sq...	114
VI.	THE SUBJECTS OF MORAL JUDGMENTS	148
	Analysis of the term "conduct," pp. --The mean- ing of the word "act," p. --There can be only one in- tention in one act, p. sq .--The moral judgments pro- nounced on acts relate intrinsically to the intention and not to the event, p. .--Deliberate wishes also objects of moral praise or blame, p. sq .--The meaning of the word "motive," p. --The motive of an act may be an	148
	intention, though only an intention belonging to another act, or a deliberate wish, and falls then within the sphere of moral valuation, p. --But even motives that are neither intentions or deliberate wishes may indirectly exercise influence on moral judgments, pp. --Moral judgments intrinsically passed not on intentions or deliberate wishes in the abstract, but on the persons who have them, p. --Many moral judgments, particularly those the predicates of which express no tendency to feel either approval or disapproval if the act is performed, take notice only of the intention of an act and say nothing about its motive, p. --There is in this respect a difference be- tween acts called "right" and those called "wrong," p. sq .--Forbearances morally equivalent to acts, p. -- Distinction between forbearances and omissions, p. -- Moral judgments refer not only to willing but to not-willing as well, not only to acts and forbearances, but to omissions, p. sq .--Ne...	150
	VII. THE VARIABILITY OF MORAL JUDGMENTS	183
	Whether the variety of moral judgments justifies the denial of objective validity depends in the first place upon the causes to which it is due, p. --Such denial not justified by cases where the diversity of moral opinion depends on insufficient knowledge of facts, or insufficient reflection, as regards the general subjective conditions of the modes of conduct to which the moral judgments refer, p. -sq . --Or where it depends upon different ideas relating to the objective nature of similar modes of conduct and their consequences, arising from different situations and external conditions of life, of which the customs of killing or abandoning old parents and of killing or exposure of new-born children serve as examples, pp. --Or where it originates in different measures of knowledge, based on experience of the consequences of conduct, or in different beliefs, pp. --The beliefs in supernatural forces or beings and in a future state have led to an extraordinary ...	183
	VIII. THE EMOTIONAL BACKGROUND OF NORMATIVE THEORIES	220
	The general recognition of moralists that there is some connection between moral valuation and the production of pleasure or pain, due to the retributive character of the moral emotions, p. sq .--Egoistic hedonism, pp. - --Self-regarding duties and virtues, pp. --From the point of view of common sense utilitarianism has greatly exaggerated the duty of promoting one's own happiness, and underrated the right to do so when some other person's happiness is lessened thereby, p. sq .--Utilitarianism in the first place due to the nature of the moral emotions, but its universalism not a mere expression of their disinterestedness and impartiality: it is closely connected with a corresponding expansion of the altruistic sentiment, pp. --Criticism to which utilitarianism has been subjected, p. --The commensurability of pleasures and pains assumed by it not found in the general moral valuation of conduct, p. sq .--Utilitarianism insists on the necessity of acting ac...	220
	IX. THE EMOTIONAL BACKGROUND OF NORMATIVE THEORIES (CONCLUDED)	264
	Kant founds his ethics on conceptions of pure reason without any appeal to experience of any kind, p. --All moral laws must be valid with absolute necessity for all rational creatures, "in so far as they have a will, that is,	264
	a power to determine their causality by the conception of rules"; and a law which must carry with it absolute necessity cannot be explained by experience but must be based on reason, pp. --Kant found the idea of the validity of the moral law, which he shared with common sense, in his moral consciousness in the form of a categorical imperative preserving the mysterious awfulness of the old "Thou shalt," as an echo from another world, p. sq .--This emotional response to the notion of duty, together with some other factors, led him to the theory that there is no moral worth in any act that is not done simply for duty's sake, out of respect for the moral law, pp. --His view that all human inclinations are desire for pleasure, p. sq .--His aversion to ethical hedonism and eudemonism, p. --His notion that the doing of a dutiful action necessarily involves a conscious resistance to inclination, p. --For Kant "duty" is an expression of admiration and reverence, of...	264
	INDEX	291

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