Christianity and Morals

Abstract

PROF. E. WESTERMARCK requires no introduction to the reader; his earlier works on ethics and sociology are well known, and anything that he says commands attention and respect. Several of his previous books have an important bearing on the present volume and in two of these, “The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas”, and “Ethical Relativity”, he states his objections to the view of Rashdall and others on the objective validity of moral judgments. The present reviewer dealt with this subject less than two years age in “Free Will or Determinism”, and though his line of attack was somewhat different from that of Westermarck, his conclusions were the same, that belief in the objectivity of our moral judgments is untenable. In “Ethical Relativity”, Westermarck argues that the predicates of all moral judgments, all moral concepts, are ultimately based on emotions. There are two moral emotions—moral approval and moral disapproval; the first of these is a form of retributive kindly emotion, and the second is a form of resentment. They are characterized as moral emotions, as distinguished from non-moral emotions, by the fact of disinterestedness.

Christianity and Morals

By Prof. Edward Westermarck. Pp. xvi + 427. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd., 1939.) 21s. net.