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This chapter examines Henry Sidgwick's utilitarianism. It first considers Sidgwick's agnosticism before discussing his views on subjects ranging from hedonism and colonialism to poverty, common-sense morality, and politics and political economy. It then looks at some of Sidgwick's writings, such as The Development of European Polity, The Elements of Politics, Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant, and The Methods of Ethics. It also explores the current reconstructions and appropriations of many of Sidgwick's positions in the works of philosophers like Roger Crisp, Rob Shaver, Peter Singer, Derek Parft, and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, and argues that they have contributed to a true renaissance of hedonistic and rational intuition-based utilitarianism (or at least rationalistic consequentialism) that few saw coming even in the late twentieth century.

This chapter explores the internationalist ideology that emerged from the political and social thought of Herbert Spencer and Henry Sidgwick. A discussion of the role of philosophical idealists, including Thomas Hill Green, David George Ritchie and Bernard Bosanquet, is presented. Green influenced a new generation of liberals and internationalists in important ways. Ritchie foresaw how the struggle among states would be tamed through the development of ethics and the widening of communities. Spencer's ideas about international politics fall clearly within the bounds of liberal internationalism. It is Sidgwick's scepticism towards dogmatism in religious affairs that has coloured his image. The Elements of Politics and The Development of European Polity were consistent in their projection and pursuit of basic internationalist ideals. The analysis points to the concomitant diversity and strength of internationalism as a political ideology among successful liberal philosophers and their audiences in the late nineteenth century.

Chapter two recounts how James came to psychical research in the early 1880s through a series of friendships and professional relationships he formed with members of the British intellectual aristocracy especially through participation in their social and diner clubs.

This chapter builds on Michael Freeden’s reservations about what he refers to as ‘American philosophical liberalism’. It argues that the analytical preoccupations of this practice of philosophizing have caused contemporary liberals to narrate the liberal tradition too simplistically. It explores, in particular, how political theorists have misinterpreted J. S. Mill, and as a consequence forgotten Henry Sidgwick.

This chapter analyzes the overlapping ideas about international society to be found in the political thought of three leading late Victorian liberal thinkers: T. H. Green (1836–82), Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), and Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900). In so doing it focuses on what Stefan Collini has labeled the world of the “public moralists”—the world, that is, of influential and well-connected British intellectuals who flourished in the universities, in Parliament, and in the press. Despite their manifold political and philosophical differences, Green, Spencer, and Sidgwick shared and articulated complementary visions of the past, present, and future of international society. This was not simply a happy coincidence of views—it was an understanding of international politics generated from within their distinctive intellectual systems. They simultaneously reflected and contributed to late Victorian liberal thinking about international affairs.

This chapter describes the Cambridge of 1874, the beginnings of university education for women, the obstacles and conflicts faced by the pioneers, notably Henry Sidgwick and John Stuart Mill. It discusses the formidable obstacles facing women students and their lack of academic preparation. Harrison was among the minority who opted to read for the Tripos, success in which was recognized by a certificate, not a degree. The chapter also describes social life at Newnham College; friendships; conflict with the principal, Anne Jemima Clough, over dress and deportment; Harrison's abortive attempt to stage a production, in Greek, of Euripides' Medea; the influence of books; her failure to be placed in the first class in the Tripos examinations; and subsequent failure to win a college Fellowship.

In the summer of 1890, Anna Boynton Thompson made one of her regular summer pilgrimages abroad to study and took Mary P. Follett along. When Thompson returned to America at the end of the summer, Mary decided to stay, spending a year at Newnham College in Cambridge, England. At Newnham, she became friends with the young classics scholar Melian Stawell. Stawell's friendship encouraged Follett to be more outgoing with her peers, but the Newnham faculty also played a significant role in Follett's development. Among them were John Seeley, Mandell Creighton, William Cunningham, and George W. Prothero. Another professor who would have a profound impact on Follett's college education at Newnham was Henry Sidgwick. Mary would later call her year at Newnham “the great milepost and turning point in her life.” She came home at the end of the year and immediately found herself giving lectures in political science at a private school in Boston. This school was probably founded a decade earlier by Pauline Agassiz Shaw, Boston's innovative educational philanthropist.

Frederic Myers (1843 -1901) was born at the crossroads of literary Romanticism and evangelical piety. In his youth, he rebelled as a poet, neo-Platonist, and Hellenic libertine. A classics major at Cambridge, he still found time to devour European philosophy and prepare for the natural sciences tripos, while doubling down on a tormented Christianity. A seeker by nature, Myers was always driven by his excluded part, refusing to be satisfied with any existing whole. Thus he represents a uniquely Victorian secular consciousness: one that could not live with religion and could not live without it. Myers’s personal submission to empiricism meant freedom from the clerical hold of his father’s generation. However, the loss of the old spiritual certainty caused genuine emotional dread. The "crisis of faith" can be seen as a highly productive form of agitation for Myers and his generation, a creative destruction making way for new, more amenable, cultural forms. In the 1870s, Myers investigated séance phenomena with Henry Sidgwick and joined Edward Cox’s Psychological Society, but these lacked the necessary epistemological rigor. Finally in 1882, Myers became a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, merging his quest for the absolute with the scientific study of consciousness.

This chapter covers some of the major background issues in Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics. Sidgwick’s own philosophical development is described, in the light of his own description of it in his ‘Preface’, and his modest ‘quietist’ metaethics examined. Sidgwick’s objections to several forms of naturalism are explained, and an account is offered of Sidgwick’s non-naturalism and of his rationalist views on justification and his internalism about motivation. Methods are distinguished from principles, and Sidgwick’s focus on only three ethical theories is defended. Sidgwick is criticized for seeking excessive precision in ethics, and for use of unnecessary ethical concepts. The chapter ends with a section on Sidgwick’s views of politics, where it is argued that there is a stronger case than Sidgwick allows for seeing political theory as a branch of ethics.

This chapter covers Sidgwick’s long discussion of the individual virtues that he saw as most central in common-sense morality. He is charged with distorting wisdom into a form of self-control, and with allowing his own utilitarian views to influence his account of virtues. The chapter moves to the issue of justice, and it is shown how Sidgwick’s emphasis on the importance of not disappointing expectations is worth greater attention, and how his criticisms of natural rights theories and desert theories anticipate various later arguments. Other virtues, such as veracity and courage, are discussed, and the chapter ends with a critical account of Sidgwick’s pessimistic final judgement on the morality of common sense. It is concluded that, though there is much to learn from Sidgwick’s examination of common sense, his criticisms are flawed by a failure to recognize the role that a capacity for individual judgement can play within an ethical theory.

This chapter is on Sidgwick’s hedonistic view of the good or well-being. His contrast between ‘imperative’ and ‘attractive’ conceptions of ethics is described and criticized. Sidgwick’s view of what is good for a person in terms of what she has reason to desire is outlined, and it is shown how this leaves him open to a ‘wrong kind of reasons’ objection. Various different views on pleasure are then identified in Sidgwick. It is claimed that he is best understood to be offering the feeling-tone view. Sidgwick’s objections to non-hedonistic views are discussed, and it is claimed that Sidgwick’s own epistemology requires him to suspend judgement on the nature of well-being. The next section discusses Sidgwick’s appraisal of the difficulties of measuring pleasure and pain, and his objections to ‘objective’ and ‘deductive’ hedonism. The chapter ends with discussion of some objections to hedonism, and how Sidgwick answered or might have answered them.

This chapter concerns Sidgwick’s moral epistemology. His notion of intuitions as self-evident beliefs is explained, and his three ‘phases’ of intuitionism (perceptional, dogmatic, and philosophical) are outlined. Some doubt is expressed over Sidgwick’s quick dismissal of perceptional intuitionism, and his arguments against dogmatic intuitionism and in favour of philosophical intuitionism are discussed. It is suggested that Sidgwick should have attached less significance to the content of common-sense morality. The conditions Sidgwick places on an intuition before it can be counted as maximally certain are set out, and it is suggested that Sidgwick can be charged with failure to test his own ethical theory using these very conditions. Sidgwick’s alleged ‘sham-axioms’ are discussed, and the chapter ends with an account of which intuitions Sidgwick himself took to be self-evident. Dissensus is again found to be a problem for Sidgwick.

This chapter examines Sidgwick’s views on egoism, utilitarianism, and the conflict between the two that he called ‘the dualism of practical reason’. Sidgwick’s view that egoism is based on the metaphysical distinction between individual persons is explained, along with his ‘objective’ consequentialism. Sidgwick’s views on equality, non-human animals, and future generations are discussed critically. His arguments for utilitarianism are spelled out: these are either intuitionist or based on the notion that utilitarianism ‘controls and completes’ common-sense morality. There follows an examination of Sidgwick’s careful and balanced discussion of the relation between utilitarianism and common-sense morality, including his famous admission that utilitarianism may recommend its own partial suppression. The final part of the chapter concerns Sidgwick’s famous dualism. It is suggested that had Sidgwick seen his principles of prudence and benevolence as pro tanto principles guiding judgement about particular cases the dualism could have been avoided.

This book is a selective historical and critical study of moral philosophy in the Socratic tradition, with special attention to Aristotelian naturalism. It explores moral philosophy through discussion of its history. ‘Moral philosophy’ refers to the discipline practised by (among others) Socrates, Chrysippus, Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, Henry Sidgwick, and John Rawls. It is distinct, though not sharply distinct and not always distinct in the same way, from such closely related disciplines as metaphysics, epistemology, and other areas of philosophy; cosmology, theology, religion, and casuistry; natural science, social anthropology, economics, sociology, and cultural and intellectual history. No doubt, moral philosophers have conceived their tasks quite differently at different times, but the book believes their conceptions are close enough to justify in speaking of one discipline. This belief needs to be tested by examination of the historical evidence. The moral philosophers chosen for extended discussion belong to the Socratic tradition and discuss different aspects of Aristotelian naturalism.

This chapter elucidates Sidgwick’s argument that the issue of free will is of little significance for ethical theory. His conceptions of disinterested and rational action are explained, and it is shown that Sidgwick advocates an unusual form of compatibilism according to which what matters in deliberation is not how it was caused but whether the agent can be sure how she is going to act. Sidgwick’s restriction of ethics to the voluntary, and his objections to Kant, are criticized. Sidgwick’s views on the scope of the will, and on libertarianism and determinism, are discussed. It is claimed that Sidgwick’s view on the unimportance of the free will question is motivated by his underlying consequentialism, and that his view is really that the free will question may make no practical difference, if consequentialist versions of traditional libertarian concepts are accepted.

Henry Sidgwick’s dualism of practical reason is a problem confronting the ethical enterprise. It’s the tension between one’s own happiness and the happiness of others; or between rational self-love and rational benevolence. Sidgwick thought each impulse was equally legitimate, yet on occasion they encounter an intractable tension. The full rationality of morality requires the resolution of this dualism, but Sidgwick didn’t see such a rapprochement as forthcoming. The only potential solution he could see is a theistic one, according to which a providential God ensures their harmony, but Sidgwick himself refused to follow this path. Nevertheless, his writings include the seeds for such a moral argument, predicated on the full rationality of morality.