Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1941, Side 283

EDWARD WESTERMARCK
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agreement should be so radical, and the question arose, whence
their diversity of opinion? Was it due to defective knowledge,
or had it a merely sentimental origin? And the problem gradually
expanded. Why do the moral ideas in general differ so greatly
and, on the other hand, why is there in many cases such wide
agreement? Why are there any moral ideas at all? The work of
The Moral Ideas was the answer. Fifteen years of solid work lie
behind that book.
The first part of the book is devoted to theoretical questions
in the sphere of ethics and an evolutionary historical survey going
back to Adam Smith and David Hume, on whose theories Wester-
marck builds up his own. Here he deals with abstract moral
ideas such as right, wrong, duty, justice, virtue, merit. Then
follows an examination of the phenomena to which these ideas
apply, in other words of the objects of moral judgement. These
consist in part of acts affecting the life, integrity and welfare
of other people, in part to acts affecting the individual’s own
welfare, in part to the relations between man and animals, and
man’s relations to dead and supernatural beings. Westermarck
studies these problems in their general and particular aspects; he
attempts to answer the question why certain facts are made the
objects of moral evolution, and others not. And his investigations
are not confined to feelings and manifestations in a specific com-
munity or a specific stage of culture, but include human moral
consciousness in general. Westermarck bases his investigation pri-
marily on ethnological material, but also seeks parallels in Greek
and Roman classical antiquity and among the Northern peoples.
He gives both a descriptive account of different conceptions,
manners and customs and an analysis of these. And he comes to
the conclusion that in the last resort the moral ideas are based
on emotions of disapproval, or indignation, or approval, further
that emotions lie behind moral judgements, which are therefore
inevitably subjective. Morals, according to Westermarck, are thus
always subjective and fluctuating: consequently that is also the
state of our conscience. This does not leave the field open for
lawlessness or arbitrariness in the sphere of morals. Conscience
possesses no absolute truth in itself but it preserves its power of
making the individual feel obligation. Westermarck discloses how
the moral emotions have their source in the social community,
which is the school where people learn to distinguish between
right and wrong. The teacher is custom. The circumstances which