GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

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ETHICS
Ideas, takes the familiar subjectivist view, that, when we
say X is right, what we mean and all that we mean is
that we approve of X,' and approve of it because we think
that it will bring us pleasure. "Every ethical theory,
he writes, "that regards any course of conduct which
promotes the attainment of a desired end as good, and any
course of conduct which obstructs it as bad, is so far in
agreement with my view that moral judgments are
ultimately based on emotional reactions against pleasure
and pain." His reasons for this view are derived from a
study of social custom. For what communities have habitu-
ally done over long periods there is gradually, he argues,
built up a sentiment of approval. Those who depart from
the accepted code consequently experience feelings of
guilt analogous to, because derived from, the experiences
of our ancestors who transgressed a tribal taboo. Now
tribal taboos were not purely arbitrary. They had a social
basis in utility, conduct being pronounced to be wrong
which was prejudicial to tribal welfare or unity. In the course
of generations customs grew up which embodied socially
useful conduct, and for those who violate these customs
men feel an instinctive disapproval, which is directly
derived from the indignation which members of savage
societies have been wont to vent upon those who were
felt to endanger their safety by the transgression of tribal
taboos. "Custom," writes Westermarck, "is a moral
rule only on account of the disapproval called forth by
its transgression. In its ethical aspect it is nothing but a
generalization of emotional tendencies." In other words,
we feel an emotion ofmoral approval for what is customary,
and what is customary is determined by what was once
found expedient.
The final stage of the process is the ethical; it is the stage
at which we call " good " and " right " that for which we feel
an emotion of moral approval. Similarly moral disapprobation
springs from the desire to inflict pain upon those
who have offended us, by breaking the rules which we
have come to regard as right because they are customary.