fo u r l e c t u re s o n h e n r y s i d g w i c k
(Fall 1976, 1979)
l e c t u re i
Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics
§1. Preliminary Remarks
(1)You will recall that in the first lecture on Hume, I remarked that the historical tradition of utilitarianism extends roughly from 1700 until 1900. And what I call the “classical line” within that tradition is represented by Bentham, Edgeworth, and Sidgwick (the “BES line,” let’s say). Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics (1st edition, 1874; 7th and last edition, 1907) is the most refined and complete philosophical statement of the doctrine (combining Bk. I, Ch. 9; Bk. II, Ch. 2; Bk. III, Chs. 13 & 14; Bk. IV, entire) and may be said to conclude that phase of the historical development. Bentham and Edgeworth are both more original in contributing basic ideas to the classical principle of utility as a sharp and definite notion subject to mathematical interpretation, in contrast to Hume’s much looser notion of utility as the happiness and necessities of society; although if we press Hume’s account of the point of view of the judicious spectator in a certain way, a natural transition to the classical principle is latent in it. (See Hume Lecture II and the discussion below.) Sidgwick’s originality lies in his conception of moral philosophy itself: what it is, how to do it, and so on.
(2)In considering the three utilitarian writers—Hume, Sidgwick, and J. S. Mill—we are fixing in the first instance upon the notion of utility and paying attention to how it is defined and understood. And we shall find three quite different notions of utility in Hume, Sidgwick (or BES), and in J. S. Mill.
[ 375 ]
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College
a p p e n d i x
In Hume Lecture II we looked at Hume’s account of the point of view of the judicious spectator1 to see:
(i)How Hume understood the role of this point of view in his psychological and naturalistic account of morality; and
(ii)Whether it contained an intuitive way of arriving at a sharper (more exact) notion of utility than Hume uses in the Treatise, the Enquiry, and in “Of the Original Contract,” which notion we saw did not present a clear contrast with Locke’s Social Contract cri-
terion, when both are used as normative principles.
I made the suggestion that such a natural or intuitive way can be found as follows:
(a)We pick up on Hume’s idea that moral approvals and disapprovals are continuous with natural human emotions—original passions of our nature (and innate to it)—namely, love and hatred. Or in the Enquiry, continuous with the principle of humanity (benevolence).
(b)These approvals and disapprovals are founded on the principle of humanity as aroused from the point of view of the judicious spectator. In this connection note the important paragraph 5 of Sec. VI of the Enquiry, where Hume says: “The same endowments [qualities of character] of the mind, in every circumstance, are agreeable to the sentiment of morals and to that of humanity; the same temper is susceptible of high degrees of the one sentiment and of the other; and the same alteration in the objects, by their nearer approach or by connexions, enlivens the one and the other.”
Hume goes on: “By all rules of philosophy, therefore, we must conclude that these sentiments are originally the same [he means, in origin they are the same in the self now]; since, in each particular, even the most minute, they are governed by the same laws [and to the same degree], and are moved by the same objects.”2
(c)Then combine these presumptions to give an account of comparative moral judgments, and it is not unnatural to say that from the point of view of the judicious spectator we approve more strongly, to a higher degree, of one institution or set of qualities than another, if it produces (or seems designed to produce) more happiness. Greater happiness enlivens our senti-
1.For the term “judicious spectator” see Treatise on Human Nature, Bk. III, Pt. III, Sec.
1, ¶14.
2.An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, pp. 235–236.
[ 376 ]
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College
Four Lectures on Henry Sidgwick
ments more. And thus we are on the way to the Bentham-Edgeworth- Sidgwick definition of utility.
There are some signs of this sharper notion in Hume, but not many. At one point in the Enquiry he refers to the “balance of good” (App. III); and at another he shows an awareness of the principle of diminishing marginal utility: in the discussion of the impracticality of perfect equality (in Sec. III, par. 25, p. 194). But essentially, the sharper notion must wait for the BES line. By calling it “sharper” I do not mean to imply that all things considered the sharper notion is better, philosophically speaking. It does, however, pose a clearer contrast with other views, and that is a gain: we can now see more clearly, at least, where some of the differences lie between utilitarianism and the social contract tradition. It is partly to gain this sharpness and clarity that we take up Sidgwick.
(3) The Methods of Ethics as a philosophical work: I regard this book, no doubt somewhat eccentrically, as important both as a philosophical work and as having a distinctive historical significance.
(a)For one thing, the book is symbolic of the re-entry of Oxford and Cambridge into the English philosophical tradition in an unconstrained and serious way. Remember how recent all of this is; it can be dated from 1870 roughly. Sidgwick played some part in this by refusing to subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles in 1869,3 and resigning his fellowship at Trinity College. This is not to say that there were no important University figures before Sidgwick: for there were, for example, F. D. Maurice, Whewell, and John Grote; but they were all Anglicans and rejected utilitarianism and empiricism (as represented by Hume, Bentham, the Mills, etc.). One might say they were committed to opposing utilitarianism because they regarded it as inconsistent with their religious convictions. There is no harm in that, as such; but when it’s a condition of being at the University, the picture changes.
(b)The Methods of Ethics is the clearest and most accessible formulation
3.[The Thirty-nine Articles were the principal confession of the Church of England, set forth in 1563, and approved by the Anglican Convocation and by Parliament in 1571. They were based in large part on the Lutheran Augsburg Confession (1530) and the Confession of Württemberg (1562). They affirm the orthodox Christian doctrines of the Trinity, the Person of Christ, and human sinfulness, and they are Protestant, or “Reformed Catholic,” in character in their emphasis on justification by faith, the Scriptures, and only two holy sacraments. See Stephen Sykes and John Booty, eds., The Study of Anglicanism (New York: Fortress Press, 1988), pp. 134–137. —Ed.]
[ 377 ]
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College
a p p e n d i x
of the classical utilitarian doctrine. This classical doctrine holds that the ultimate moral end of social and individual action is the greatest net sum of the happiness of all sentient beings. Happiness is specified (as positive or negative) by the net balance of pleasure over pain, or, as Sidgwick preferred to say, as the net balance of agreeable over disagreeable consciousness. In Sidgwick’s day the classical doctrine as just adumbrated had been long familiar from Bentham’s works and their wide influence on subsequent writers. What makes The Methods of Ethics so important is that Sidgwick is more aware than other classical authors of the many difficulties this doctrine faces, and he attempts to deal with these difficulties in a consistent and thorough way while never departing from the strict doctrine, as for example J. S. Mill did. Sidgwick’s book, therefore, is the most philosophically profound of the strictly classical works, and it may be said to bring to a close that period of the tradition.
(c) The Methods of Ethics is important for another reason. It is the first truly academic work in moral philosophy (in English), modern both in its method and in the spirit of its approach. It treats moral philosophy as any other branch of knowledge. It undertakes to provide a systematic comparative study of moral conceptions, starting with those which historically and by present assessment are the most significant. Sidgwick undertook this study because he thought that a reasoned and satisfactory justification of the classical doctrine (and indeed of any other moral conception) could be given in no other way. And such a justification he hoped to give. To this end Sidgwick tries to reduce all the main moral conceptions to three: egoistic hedonism, intuitionism, and universal hedonism (the classical utilitarian doctrine). After describing the subject of ethics and its boundaries in Book I, the three subsequent books take up these three conceptions in the abovementioned order, although it should be observed that universal hedonism has been explained and argued for as superior to intuitionism by the end of Book III. The systematic justification of universalistic hedonism over intuitionism is given in Book IV. We expect Sidgwick to go on and to argue that universalistic hedonism is also superior to egoistic hedonism, since it is clear that his philosophical and moral sympathies are with the former. But he finds that he cannot do so. He believes that both forms of hedonism equally satisfy the standards of reasoned justification he has so carefully formulated. Sidgwick concludes with dismay that our practical reason seems to be divided against itself; and whether and how this division can be re-
[ 378 ]
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College
Four Lectures on Henry Sidgwick
solved he leaves as a problem, not for a work in ethics, but to be taken up only after we have made a general examination of the criteria of true and false beliefs.
(d)The Methods of Ethics has two serious defects that need not concern us now: (i) it undertakes a somewhat narrow range of comparisons and omits, I think, several fundamental aspects of a moral conception; (ii) Sidgwick fails to see Kant’s doctrine as a distinct moral conception worth of study in its own right. Still, Sidgwick does present a full and well-done across-the-board comparison with intuitionism.
(e)Sidgwick’s originality lies in his conception of the subject of moral philosophy, and in his view that a reasoned and satisfactory justification of any particular moral conception must proceed from a full knowledge and systematic comparison of the more significant moral conceptions in the philosophical tradition. The Methods of Ethics is a fundamental work because it develops and displays this conception of moral philosophy with a secure mastery and a full command of the necessary details. An accurate understanding and informed assessment of the classical utilitarian doc- trine—which is still highly relevant for the moral philosophy of our time— may best start from a careful study of Sidgwick’s treatise.
The academic nature of the work, and no doubt certain features of Sidgwick’s style, make the work hard going; it can easily seem dull and tiring, but academic works are not seldom dull, even when of the first rank, unless one gets into the ideas and comes to the work sufficiently prepared. How could it be otherwise? So my job is to try to tell you enough about The Methods of Ethics and its background so that you are in a position to appreciate the argument at least. You won’t find it entertaining. Take it a little bit at a time.
(4) Sidgwick’s Life: Sidgwick’s entire life fell within the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901): he was born on May 31, 1838, and died on August 28, 1900. Grandson of a well-to-do coffin manufacturer, his father went to Trinity College Cambridge and became an Anglican clergyman, and then was appointed master of the grammar school in Skipton, Yorkshire. He died in
1841.
Henry Sidgwick attended Rugby, then went to Trinity in 1855 and after a brilliant career as an undergraduate became a Fellow of Trinity in 1859 (at the age of 21). Sidgwick resigned his fellowship in 1869 (at age 31) because of his religious doubts; subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles of the
[ 379 ]
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College