author
Edward Westermarck
1862–1939
A pioneering Finnish thinker, he explored marriage, morality, and human relationships in ways that influenced anthropology, sociology, and philosophy. His work is especially remembered for challenging simple assumptions about how social rules and moral ideas begin.
3 Audiobooks
The origin and development of the moral ideas
by Edward Westermarck
The history of human marriage
by Edward Westermarck
Tapojen historiaa : Kuusi akadeemista esitelmää
by Edward Westermarck
About the author
Born in Helsinki in 1862, Edward Westermarck became one of Finland’s best-known scholars abroad. He worked across anthropology, sociology, and philosophy, and spent parts of his career in both Finland and Britain.
He is best known for The History of Human Marriage and for his wider studies of moral ideas, family life, and social customs. Rather than treating morality as fixed and universal, he argued that moral judgments grow out of human emotions and social experience.
Westermarck also carried out important fieldwork in Morocco, which gave his writing a strong empirical grounding. He died in 1939, but his ideas remained influential, especially in discussions of marriage, incest taboo, moral relativism, and the social origins of ethics.