Page:Philosophical Review Volume 22.djvu/414

398 In order to be fully compatible with an ethics in this sense objective, Westermarck's psychological doctrine requires modification merely upon three points, none of which is essential to his main positions, or is involved in the rich mass of empirical data set forth by him. First, the hedonism assumed in his account must be eliminated. When, therefore, Westermarck says that "resentment may be defined as an aggressive attitude of mind toward a cause of pain," while "retributive kindly emotion is a friendly attitude of mind towards a cause of pleasure," and that all moral judgments are traceable to these two types of emotion, the statements, while probably true, need supplementation. To the follower of Stout and McDougall this can best be done by the further statement that the pain felt in resentment is due to the blocking or thwarting of some impulse that demands expression, while the pleasure is due to the free expression of such an impulse. In the second place, the instinctive nature of the emotions requires recognition. Each primary emotion is instinctive, and so an inheritance, to a large extent unmodifiable, from our animal ancestry. With this fact in mind, we are prepared to see that our moral emotions owe their derivation ultimately to an objective and unchanging basis in human nature. Thirdly, the emotions need classification with reference to the instincts, as the objective element in them is not clearly apparent when they are put under such general heads as "resentment," and "retributive kindly emotion." These modifications are quite compatible with the empirically observed facts set forth by Westermarck; and, embodying, as they do, a more minute analysis of the psychological foundation of the moral ideas, they facilitate the determination of an objective basis for ethics.

In the assertion that moral concepts and emotions owe their origin ultimately to instincts, it is not implied that morality itself is instinctive, but that a relatively stable and unchanging