The Origin of the Moral Emotions

Chapter V

We may feel disinterested resentment, or disinterested retributive kindly emotion, on account of an injury inflicted, or a benefit conferred, upon another person with whose pain, or pleasure, we sympathise, and in whose welfare we take a kindly interest, p. .—Sympathetic feelings based on association, p. sq.—Only when aided by the altruistic sentiment sympathy induces us to take a kindly interest in the feelings of our neighbours, and tends to produce disinterested retributive emotions, p. sq.—Sympathetic resentment to be found in all animal species which possess altruistic sentiments, p. sq.—Sympathetic resentment among savages, p. sq.—Sympathetic resentment may not only be a reaction against sympathetic pain, but may be directly produced by the cognition of the signs of anger (punishment, language, &c.), pp. –116.—Disinterested antipathies, p. sq.—Sympathy springing from an altruistic sentiment may also produce disinterested kindly emotion, p. .—Disinterested likings, ibid.—Why disinterestedness, apparent impartiality, and the flavour of generality have become characteristics by which so-called moral emotions are distinguished from other retributive emotions, p. sq.—Custom not only a public habit, but a rule of conduct, p. .—Custom conceived of as a moral rule, p. sq.—In early society customs the only moral rules ever thought of, p. .—The characteristics of moral indignation to be sought for in its connection with custom, p. .—Custom characterised by generality, disinterestedness, and apparent impartiality, p. sq.—Public indignation lies at the bottom of custom as a moral rule, p. sq.—As public indignation is the prototype of moral disapproval, so public approval is the prototype of moral approval, p. .—Moral disapproval and approval have not always remained inseparably connected with the feelings of any special society, p. sq.—Yet they remain to the last public emotions if not in reality, then as an ideal, p. .—Refutation of the opinion that the original form of the moral consciousness has been the individual’s own conscience, p. sq.—The antiquity of moral resentment, p. .—The supposition that remorse is unknown among the lower races contradicted by facts, p. sq.—Criticism of Lord Avebury’s statement that modern savages seem to be almost entirely wanting in moral feeling, pp. –129.—The antiquity of moral approval, p. sq.