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"The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life" was an essay by the philosopher William James, which he first delivered as a lecture to the Yale Philosophical Club, in 1891. It was later included in the collection, ''The Will to Believe and other Essays in Popular Philosophy.'' He drew a distinction between three questions in ethics: psychological, metaphysical, casuistic. "The psychological question asks after the historical origin of our moral ideas and judgments; the metaphysical question asks what the very meaning of the words 'good,' 'ill,' and 'obligation' are; the casuistic question asks what is the measure of the various goods and ills which men recognize, so that the philosopher may settle the true order of human obligations."〔James, William. „The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life“. The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy: Human Immortality. New York: Dover Publications, 1956, p. 185.〕 ==The psychological question== As James sees it, the psychological question is whether human ideas of good and evil arise from "the association of (ideals ) with act of simple bodily pleasures and reliefs from pain."〔James (1956), p. 186.〕 He believes that some elements of our moral sentiment do have such a source, and that Jeremy Bentham and his followers have done the world a lasting service by pointing that out. But he doesn't believe that association and pleasure/pain calculus are adequate to account for the psychology of morality. One must also admit innate, brain-born ideas or tendencies. In a famous passage that recalls some of Dostoyevsky's work, James wrote that "if the hypothesis were offered of a world in which Messrs Fourier's and Bellamy's and Morris' utopias should all be outdone, and millions kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torture,"〔James (1956), p. 188.〕 most people would feel that the enjoyment of such a utopia would be a "hideous thing" at such a cost. That feeling, he infers, must be brain born. The passage was the inspiration for Ursula K. Le Guin's short story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas〔Le Guin, Ursula K. (1973). ("The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" ).〕 (Variations on a theme by William James)". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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