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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2009
Ethics and psychology are apt to look askance at one another. The ethicist warns the psychologist that he cannot “ explain away ” the objective distinction between good and evil merely by describing the process by which we come to apprehend that distinction. Nor can he in any such manner show that moral obligation is illusory. On the other hand, some psychologists do claim that in exposing the psychological sources of moral experience they show that no objective distinction is involved in it.
page 368 note 1 By “ conation ” I mean conscious striving. For there cannot be striving which is not a case of awareness. I use the word “ conation,” rather than the word “ desire,” to cover cases in which, though the goal is not envisaged, there is acquiescence in, or resistance of, tendencies in operation.
page 369 note 1 The Analysis of the Mind, Ch. III.
page 369 note 2 The Mind and its Place in Nature, p. 370 ff.
page 373 note 1 We might tentatively define the “person” as that system of needs which the organism has in consequence of its capacity for psychical activity. And since this activity occurs in a social environment, one of the chief needs of the person is the need for respect, affection, triumph. This may be regarded as a psychical complication of the biological need for survival.