The origin and development of the moral ideas

In Short

This monumental comparative study traces the psychological origins and global evolution of human morality. Rather than treating ethical codes as divine revelations or abstract logical deductions, Edward Westermarck grounds them in basic retributive emotions—retaliatory anger on the one hand, and sympathetic gratitude on the other. Across fifty-two detailed chapters, the work moves from psychological foundations to an exhaustive survey of historical and anthropological evidence, examining how customs become law and how moral ideas take shape across civilizations. It details the rules surrounding blood-feuds, capital punishment, international warfare, property rights, slavery, family duties, hospitality, truthfulness, and religion. By gathering global evidence from early legal codes, classic literature, and global folklore, it demonstrates how human societies gradually refine raw instinct into impartial moral duties. The treatise endures as a foundational landmark in scientific ethics, pioneering evolutionary psychology and comparative ethnology long before those fields achieved formal recognition.

The Story

The investigation opens with a foundational thesis: moral judgments are fundamentally emotional reactions. The author rejects the notion that morality exists as an objective, independent entity. Instead, moral concepts spring directly from two types of retributive emotions: moral resentment (a desire to cause pain for a pain received) and moral approval (a desire to bestow pleasure for a benefit conferred). These primitive reactions are initially personal and immediate. Over time, as human intelligence and social organization expand, these individual impulses undergo a crucial transformation. Through sympathy and reflective thought, personal anger and personal gratitude broaden into disinterested, impartial judgments, forming the communal customs that serve as the earliest laws of mankind.

From this psychological base, the argument moves into an examination of responsibility and intent. In early human societies, retribution operates indiscriminately. A blow is returned for a blow, regardless of whether the injury was accidental or intentional. Primitive legal customs punish the unconscious actor, the child, or even an inanimate falling object just as severely as the deliberate murderer. As social life matures and reflection deepens, the moral consciousness begins to distinguish between deliberate malice, negligence, and pure accident. Human communities gradually restrict punishment to actions driven by a free, conscious will, acknowledging temporary states like insanity, extreme youth, or involuntary intoxication as mitigating factors.

The focus then expands to the boundaries of the moral community, tracing how the valuation of human life evolves. In early stages, the duty to protect life applies almost exclusively within the narrow circle of the tribe or clan. Outside this group, war, plunder, and slaughter are frequently regarded as neutral or even noble pursuits. Through an extensive catalog of custom, the work traces how the protective shield of morality gradually widens. War becomes subject to rudimentary "international laws," captives of war are granted quarter or adopted rather than slain, and infanticide or the killing of the sick and elderly—once practiced out of economic necessity or superstitious fear—slowly yields to broader humanitarian sympathy.

This expanding sympathy is tested in the treatment of outsiders, captives, and unfree populations. The practice of slavery offers a striking illustration of moral development. Originally arising as a merciful alternative to the summary execution of war captives, slavery establishes a rigid division of moral rights based on social standing and group identity. The narrative tracks how intra-tribal solidarity and moral reflection gradually undermine the institution, shifting society toward universal legal protections. Concurrently, the study explores the rise of hospitality, where strangers—once viewed with dread as dangerous sorcerers or enemies—are transformed into sacred guests protected by ritual curses, blessings, and divine guardians.

As economic and social institutions grow more complex, moral ideas adapt to govern property, labor, and personal truth. Industrial labor, long scorned by warlike or nomadic tribes as the humiliating duty of women and slaves, gains respectability when agriculture becomes essential to survival. Property rights evolve from collective clan ownership to individual inheritance, with rules favoring agnatic lines or primogeniture. The duty of truthfulness undergoes a similar refining process. While early custom often tolerates deceit against outsiders or enemies, higher religious and civil codes attempt to elevate truth into an absolute obligation, even as legal systems struggle with the practical limits of casuistry, mental reservation, and judicial oaths sworn upon sacred weapons.

Finally, the narrative reaches the intersection of morality and supernatural belief. Religion does not generate moral ideas, but it powerfully reinforces them. Early gods are born of fear—malevolent forces that must be propitiated through sacrifice, ritual covenants, or human victims to avert drought and calamity. As human reflection advances, men project their own growing moral standards onto their deities. Gods are transformed from capricious powers into guardians of justice, champions of the poor, and punishers of wrongdoers. In the end, moral development emerges as an ongoing historical process: a gradual purification of natural human emotions, guided by expanding sympathy, self-reflection, and critical thought.

How It Unfolds

The emotional origin of duty Moral judgments begin in basic retributive feelings of anger and gratitude. These personal emotional reactions are gradually transformed through social sympathy into disinterested, universal concepts of right, wrong, duty, and justice.

The evolution of intentionality Early law and custom punish injuries indiscriminately, treating accidental harm and intentional violence identically. Over time, reflection forces societies to recognize motives, distinguishing deliberate malice from accident, negligence, insanity, or involuntary drunkenness.

The protection of human life The obligation to respect life is initially confined to the immediate tribe, leaving outsiders unprotected. Through historical stages, infanticide, human sacrifice, and blood-feuds are gradually suppressed as human sympathy expands across tribal boundaries.

The ethics of warfare and captivity Primitive warfare operates without restraint, viewing all outsiders as potential enemies. Gradually, customs of mercy emerge, transforming the slaughter of prisoners into ransom, adoption, or slavery, which establishes the earliest foundations of international law.

Hospitality and the stranger Strangers are initially feared as hostile threats or magical dangers. Through fear of their potent curses and desire for their ritual blessings, societies construct sacred customs of hospitality that grant travelers protection and shelter.

Property, labor, and social rank Manual labor and trade, initially despised as servile tasks fit only for women or slaves, gain moral respectability as settled agriculture transforms society. Property rules evolve from shared clan ownership into complex individual inheritance laws.

Truth, honor, and judicial oaths Truthfulness develops from a narrow duty owed only to fellow tribesmen into a general moral virtue. Legal systems attempt to enforce honesty through judicial duels and solemn oaths sworn on weapons or altars, battling persistent practices of deception and casuistry.

Religious belief and moral progress Primitive religion originates in fear, leading men to propitiate dangerous spirits through sacrifices and ritual covenants. As human society matures, men attribute their own moral ideals to their gods, transforming deities into cosmic guardians of justice.

The People

The moral philosopher The observing scholar who seeks to discover the roots of human ethics. Driven by a desire for empirical truth, he rejects abstract metaphysical systems and divine command theories, facing the immense challenge of organizing global human lore into a coherent psychological framework. He concludes that morality rests entirely upon human retributive emotions, shaped by social evolution.

The early human The primitive actor governed by immediate retributive impulses and tribal custom. He seeks swift revenge for injuries and feels deep gratitude for benefits, but he makes little distinction between intentional acts and accidents. Bound by rigid tribal traditions, he views all outsiders with suspicion, yet his raw emotional reactions form the ultimate foundation for all future moral codes.

The sovereign ruler The ancient leader or chieftain who exercises authority over early human societies. Though often viewed by outsiders as an absolute autocrat, he is tightly constrained by inherited tribal custom, lacking the power to alter traditional rules. His authority serves as an early vessel for maintaining social order, but he remains bound by the same ancestral traditions as his humblest subjects.

The captive of war The defeated enemy warrior whose fate illustrates the shifting value of human life. Facing summary execution in early tribal conflicts, his situation changes as societies recognize the economic value of labor or the strength of tribal adoption. His survival marks the transition from unrestrained slaughter to the institutions of slavery and early international law.

The itinerant stranger The solitary traveler navigating unfamiliar territories. Because he lacks tribal protection, he is viewed as a potential threat or a bearer of potent supernatural power. By deploying conditional curses or invoking powerful divine protections, he compels host communities to grant him shelter, laying the baseline for universal duties of hospitality.

The deity The supernatural entity constructed by human fear and reverence. Beginning as a capricious, malevolent force that must be placated with gifts and human sacrifices, the god evolves alongside human culture. As society matures, the deity is transformed into an all-seeing judge who enforces moral duties, rewards charity, and punishes moral transgressions.

In Its Own Voice

"Revenge implies, primordially and essentially, a desire to cause pain or destruction in return for hurt suffered, whether the hurt be bodily or mental."

(Context: Explaining how the primary emotion of resentment drives human retaliation long before abstract legal codes are written.)

"In primitive society custom stands for law, and even where social organisation has made some progress it may still remain the sole rule for conduct."

(Context: Describing how unwritten ancestral traditions dictate moral duties in early human communities prior to formal legislation.)

"The malevolence of savage gods is in accordance with the theory that religion is born of fear."

(Context: Analyzing how early human theology reflects raw anxiety before developing into a moral framework of divine justice.)

What It's Really About

At its core, this work argues that morality is an entirely human creation, born from biology and refined by social living. The text dismantles the notion that ethical principles are eternal, objective truths embedded in the universe or handed down by divine decree. Instead, it asserts that all moral concepts—whether dealing with murder, property, truth, or justice—are emotional in origin. Ethical progress occurs not by discovering new abstract truths, but by expanding the reach of basic human sympathy.

The work explores the tension between individual feeling and collective custom. In primitive societies, custom reigns supreme, completely suppressing individual variation. Yet true moral progress requires individual reflection to challenge public opinion. A higher morality emerges when a reflective conscience refines raw communal emotion into impartial standards.

Finally, the text reframes the relationship between religion and ethics. Religion does not generate moral feelings; rather, moral feelings eventually reshape religion. Human beings construct their gods in their own ethical image, gradually transforming terrifying nature spirits into guardians of righteousness as their own social sympathies expand.

Why Read It Today

This work offers an extraordinary historical bridge between nineteenth-century natural philosophy and modern evolutionary social science. Readers who enjoy sweeping intellectual histories will find here a masterwork of comparative anthropology. It reads like a vast museum of human behavior, taking the reader on an astonishing journey through ancient law codes, classical literature, legal history, and global folklore. It anticipates contemporary developments in evolutionary psychology, sociobiology, and empirical ethics by nearly a century, offering a grounded alternative to abstract moral philosophy.

The reading experience is immensely rich, marked by calm, precise, and unpretentious scholarship. Rather than offering dry theoretical assertions, the narrative illustrates every claim with concrete historical and ethnographic evidence. One reads of ancient Scandinavian legal duels, Chinese ancestor customs, Moroccan protective rituals, and classical Greek rain sacrifices.

Modern readers should be prepared for the formidable scale of a classic two-volume Victorian treatise. The text is dense with dense footnotes, untranslated foreign phrases, and exhaustive citations. Furthermore, the work reflects the terminology and evolutionary assumptions of its era, frequently using historical descriptors like "savage" or "barbarian" to categorize non-European cultures.

Yet despite these period conventions, the author demonstrates remarkable open-mindedness and cultural humility. His years of direct field research in Morocco inform a deep respect for non-Western ways of thinking. What remains with the reader is a profound sense of human continuity across time and space. By showing how our deepest moral convictions grew out of primitive retributive emotions, the work leaves us with a clearer, more grounded understanding of the human heart.

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