Henry Sidgwick- Eye of the Universe
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these in fashioning our minds to a facile and unquestioning admission of common
but unwarranted assumptions. (ME )
This too is a test especially needed in ethics, since “it cannot be denied that
any strong sentiment, however purely subjective, is apt to transform itself
into the semblance of an intuition; and it requires careful contemplation
to detect the illusion” (ME ). Third, the “propositions accepted as
self-evident must be mutually consistent,” since it “is obvious that any
collision between two intuitions is a proof that there is error in one or the
other, or in both.” This condition must not be treated lightly, as though
the difficulty “may be ignored or put aside for future solution, without any
slur being thrown on the scientific character of the conflicting formulae”
(ME ). Fourth and finally, since “it is implied in the very notion of
Truth that it is essentially the same for all minds, the denial by another of
a proposition that I have affirmed has a tendency to impair my confidence
in its validity.” Indeed, “the absence of such disagreement must remain
an indispensable negative condition of the certainty of our beliefs,” for “if
I find any of my judgments, intuitive or inferential, in direct conflict with
a judgment of some other mind, there must be error somewhere: and if I
have no more reason to suspect error in the other mind than in my own,
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reflective comparison between the two judgments necessarily reduces me
temporarily to a state of neutrality” (ME –).
In other writings, Sidgwick tended to collapse the first two conditions
into one, so that his philosophical intuitionism involved the three-pronged
demand for clarity and ability to withstand critical reflection, consistency
or coherence, and consensus of experts – all this conceived not as a guar-
antee of indubitable truth, but as the best way to reduce the risk of error.
All three methods are important; none can stand alone, though philosophy
is especially concerned with the second, since its “ideal aim” is “systemati-
sation – the exhibition of system and coherence in a mass of beliefs which,
as presented by Common Sense, are wanting therein” (LPK ). How-
ever, Sidgwick was always inclined to add that “the special characteristic
of my philosophy is to keep the importance of the others in view.” This
deceptively simple statement will turn out to be of the first importance.
In it there is a crucial link between Sidgwick’s formal philosophical work
and his general practice of inquiry: how, that is, science “sets before us an
ideal of a consensus of experts and continuity of development which we
may hope to attain in our larger and more difficult work” (PSR ). The
fellowship of Apostolic inquiry and the discussion society thus found for-
mal expression in Sidgwick’s epistemology, which is consequently far less
vulnerable to the charge of celebrating the solipsistic individual knower.
Of course, much would ride on just how one determined the “sources” of
likely error and, correlatively, the trustworthiness of fellow inquirers, and
on this count, Sidgwick, as later chapters will show, ended up betraying
some serious Eurocentric failings. Perhaps surprisingly, given the way
in which system and coherence seem to be exactly what the dualism of
practical reason undermines, Sidgwick explains in the Methods that his
“chief business” in his analysis of commonsense morality has been with
the first, Cartesian condition, “to free the common terms of Ethics, as
far as possible, from objection on this score” (ME ). As he frames
it, his business has been to show how the purported “self-evidence” of
commonsense or dogmatic intuitional morality scarcely even begins to
meet the conditions of a genuine science. Thus, “what at first seemed
like an intuition turns out to be either the mere expression of a vague
impulse, needing regulation and limitation which it cannot itself supply,
but which must be drawn from some other source: or a current opinion,
the reasonableness of which has still to be shown by a reference to some
other principle” (ME –). For as soon as we attempt to give these
glittering generalities
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the definiteness which science requires, we find that we cannot do this without
abandoning the universality of acceptance. We find, in some cases, that alternatives
present themselves, between which it is necessary that we should decide; but
between which we cannot pretend that Common Sense does decide, and which
often seem equally or nearly equally plausible. In other cases the moral notion
seems to resist all efforts to obtain from it a definite rule: in others it is found
to comprehend elements which we have no means of reducing to a common
standard, except by the application of the Utilitarian – or some similar – method.
Even where we seem able to educe from Common Sense a more or less clear
reply to the questions raised in the process of definition, the principle that results is qualified in so complicated a way that its self-evidence becomes dubious or
vanishes altogether. (ME –)
Of course, as noted earlier, Sidgwick does not mean to frustrate alto-
gether the “strong instinct of Common Sense that points to the existence
of such principles,” though he is also very sensitive to the fact that “the
more we extend our knowledge of man and his environment, the more we
realise the vast variety of human natures and circumstances that have ex-
isted in different ages and countries, the less disposed we are to believe
that there is any definite code of absolute rules, applicable to all human
beings without exception.” Rather, what we find is that there
are certain absolute practical principles, the truth of which, when they are explic-
itly stated, is manifest; but they are of too abstract a nature, and too universal in their scope, to enable us to ascertain by immediate application of them what we
ought to do in any particular case; particular duties have still to be determined by
some other method.” (ME )
In this way, the process of reflection actually leads Sidgwick to accept
a number of intuitively justifiable principles of this formal and abstract
nature, though there has been a remarkable disagreement among com-
mentators as to just how many he sets out. Even the derivation of
utilitarianism is rather more complex than so far indicated, and involves
considering “the relation of the integrant parts to the whole and to each
other” i
n order to obtain
the self-evident principle that the good of any one individual is of no more impor-
tance, from the point of view (if I may say so) of the Universe, than the good of
any other; unless, that is, there are special grounds for believing that more good is likely to be realised in the one case than in the other. And it is evident to me that as a rational being I am bound to aim at good generally, – so far as it is attainable by my efforts, – not merely at a particular part of it.
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From these two rational intuitions we may deduce, as a necessary inference, the
maxim of Benevolence in an abstract form: viz. that each one is morally bound
to regard the good of any other individual as much as his own, except in so far
as he judges it to be less, when impartially viewed, or less certainly knowable or
attainable by him. I before observed that the duty of Benevolence as recognised
by common sense seems to fall somewhat short of this. But I think it may be
fairly urged in explanation of this that practically each man, even with a view to universal Good, ought chiefly to concern himself with promoting the good
of a limited number of human beings, and that generally in proportion to the
closeness of their connexion with him. I think that a ‘plain man,’ in a modern
civilised society, if his conscience were fairly brought to consider the hypothetical question, whether it would be morally right for him to seek his own happiness
on any occasion if it involved a certain sacrifice of the greater happiness of some
other human being, – without any counterbalancing gain to any one else, – would
answer unhesitatingly in the negative. (ME )
But it could take some doing to bring the plain person – not to mention
the “sensual herd” – to this conclusion. And even the moral theorist has
some ways to go. As Sidgwick had noted in the first edition, the
hedonistic interpretation which Mill and his school give to the principle of Uni-
versal Benevolence, seems inadmissible when the principle is enunciated as a
self-evident axiom. In thus enunciating it, we must use, as Clarke does, the wider
terms ‘Welfare’ or ‘Good,’ and say that each individual man, as a rational being,
is bound to aim at the Good of all other men.
And this, Sidgwick continues, brings us back to the basic question of what
is “Good,” to which a return is made in the final chapter of Book III:
And here, perhaps, I may seem to have laboriously executed one of those circles
in reasoning before noticed. For this question . . . is the fundamental problem of Ethics stated in its vaguest and widest form: in the form in which we find it
raised at the very outset of the history of moral philosophy, when the speculative
force of the Greek mind first concentrated itself on Practice. And here when, at
the end of a long and careful examination of the apparent intuitions with which
Common Sense furnishes us, we collect the residuum of clear and definite moral
knowledge which the operation has left, we find the same problem facing us. We
seem to have done nothing: and in fact we have only evolved the suppression of
Egoism, the necessary universality of view, which is implied in the mere form of
the objective judgement ‘that an end is good,’ just as it is in the judgement ‘that
an action is right.’
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Whatever I judge to be Good, I cannot reasonably think that it is abstractly and
primarily right that I should have it more than another. (ME )
Again, the tone in later editions is more confident, though Sidgwick
forever insists that the “identification of Ultimate Good with Happiness
is properly to be reached . . . by a more indirect mode of reasoning”
(ME ). And the expression the “suppression of Egoism” would, as
will presently be shown, cause no end of bafflement, given his claims
about the dualism of practical reason. Moore’s denial of agent-relative
goodness would seem to be a development of just this line.
Still, Sidgwick seems to take some comfort in the fact that the principles
that he finds in accordance with philosophical intuitionism have also been
prominently featured in the works of such figures as Clarke, Butler, and
Kant, as well as by the utilitarian theorists. And there is more to be had
by way of axioms formulated by philosophical intuitionism. In fact, much
in the fashion of such recent utilitarians as R. M. Hare, Sidgwick tries to
appropriate nearly all of Kant’s ethics for his own purposes. Thus, he is
only too happy to accept “his fundamental principle of duty,” namely, the
“‘formal’ rule of ‘acting on a maxim that one can will to be law universal,’”
which is an “immediate practical corollary” of the self-evident principle
that “whatever action any of us judges to be right for himself, he implic-
itly judges to be right for all similar persons in similar circumstances”
(ME , ). This, Sidgwick urges, is the core notion of the idea of
justice. What is more, we find that when Kant
comes to consider the ends at which virtuous action is aimed, the only really
ultimate end which he lays down is the object of Rational Benevolence as commonly
conceived – the happiness of other men. He regards it as evident a priori that each man as a rational agent is bound to aim at the happiness of other men: indeed, in
his view, it can only be stated as a duty for me to seek my own happiness so far as I consider it as a part of the happiness of mankind in general. (ME )
On this last, however, Sidgwick demurs, since he holds “with Butler
that ‘one’s own happiness is a manifest obligation’ independently of one’s
relation to other men.” Even so, “regarded on its positive side, Kant’s
conclusion appears to agree to a great extent with the view of the duty of
Rational Benevolence,” though Sidgwick is “not altogether able to assent
to the arguments by which Kant arrives at his conclusion.” (ME )
Among other things, he thinks that egoism could be universalizable, and
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that it is extremely unclear what a Kantian “self-subsistent” end could
be (“ends” being things to be sought) and why respect for one’s rational
nature would entail respect for one’s animal nature as well.
As the remark on Butler perhaps suggests, Sidgwick’s list of self-evident
principles also includes, in addition to those of Rational Benevolence
and Justice or Impartiality, a princi
ple of Rational Prudence, enjoining
“impartial concern for all parts of our conscious life” – or, in effect, “that
Hereafter as such is to be regarded neither less nor more than Now” (ME
). One common application of this is, of course, the familiar notion
that “present pleasure or happiness is reasonably to be foregone with the view of obtaining greater pleasure or happiness hereafter” (ME ), but,
as in the case of the principle of Rational Benevolence, Sidgwick’s strict
formulation of it leaves open the question of whether the good should in
fact be interpreted in this way (that is, hedonistically). He argues, as we
have seen, that it should, but that is a separate argument, and perhaps
less final than the basic principles of Benevolence, Prudence, and Justice.
Furthermore, there is a great deal of confusion over how Rational Pru-
dence gets translated into Rational Egoism in Sidgwick’s view, a confusion
aggravated by the fact that in the first edition, the discussion of the axioms
in Book III, Chapter is quite different, and, as Schneewind notes, “no
axiom of prudence is presented as self-evident.” The closest he gets to
asserting the apparent self-evidence of egoism is in some brief remarks
elsewhere about impartial concern for all parts of one’s life and the need
to accept Butler’s view that it is reasonable to seek one’s own happiness.
This is singularly ironic because the first edition is the one with the
strongest, most dramatic statement of the dualism of practical reason, in
the concluding chapter. But before addressing this dualism, in the next
section, a few summary cautions about the interpretation of Sidgwick’s
epistemology are in order.
Sidgwick’s intuitionism has been the focus of much heated debate in
recent decades. Some have sought to assimilate his approach to that of
Rawlsian wide reflective equilibrium, interpreted as the search for system
and coherence for our considered convictions at all levels; others have
appealed to it precisely in order to oppose the (supposed) Rawlsian re-
liance on common sense, which is seen as relativistic and as failing to do
justice to Sidgwick’s cognitivist intuitionism. Rawls himself increasingly
came to stress the contrasts between his own Kantian constructivism and
any form of rational intuitionism, though he held that the method of