by Bart Schultz
Egoism, Self, and Others,” in Identity, Character, and Morality, ed. O. Flanagan and A. Rorty (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, ).
. See also p. , p. .
. But on this, see the important paper by David Weinstein, “Deductive Hedonism
and the Anxiety of Influence,” in “Sidgwick ,” Utilitas , no. (November
), pp. –.
. Parfit’s Reasons and Persons is of course famous for its extensive treatment of such self-effacing moral theories, often considered in connection with varieties of the
Prisoner’s Dilemma.
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. Julia Annas, in her important study The Morality of Happiness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), cites this passage in criticism of the Stoics: “A demand
of reason, that one treat all alike, is not the conclusion of a process of extending
personal affections: that can only result in weak partiality, not in impartiality”
(p. ). But her account does not catch the significance that Sidgwick attached to
expanded sympathy; difficult and conflictual as it may be, it was still the best bet, when properly understood. Moreover, she underestimates just how far Sidgwick
went in considering “virtue” as a candidate for ultimate good, stating that “[i]t
is a great puzzle, why Sidgwick’s analysis, which demotes the virtue aspects
of commonsense morality to a sub-theoretical level, has been so successful.”
However, she admits, parenthetically, that “Sidgwick at least struggles with the
problem of what to do with our concern with virtue, character and disposition,
whereas his successors have dismissed these matters as though solved” (p. ).
. It is interesting that Rawls, who did so much in Part III of Theory to draw attention to Kohlberg’s work on the stages of moral development, was also willing to grant
that the utilitarian might present a plausible alternative account, and in this
connection cited the above passage from the Methods (see Theory, p. ).
. However, Peter Singer’s approach in How Are We to Live? , which also raises the issue of how a utilitarian moral psychology seems to comport well with a distinctly
feminine voice, is thoroughly Sidgwickian in this respect.
. Shaver, Rational Egoism, pp. –, pp. –. The conclusion of Shaver’s book is rather too sketchy to be taken as a serious attempt to do justice to the vitality
of rational egoism in twentieth-century philosophy, but what he does say seems
highly questionable.
. Mackie, “Sidgwick’s Pessimism,” in Schultz, ed., Essays, p. . One is almost inclined to suggest that, outside of ethical theory, across such stretches of academia as economics and political science, Mackie’s claim would still be taken as stating
the obvious.
. Ibid.
. Skorupski, English-Language Philosophy, p. .
. Roger Crisp, “The Dualism of Practical Reason,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, new series (/), p. .
. See Scheffler’s The Rejection of Consequentialism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, ), especially pp. –. Thus, Scheffler is concerned to argue that although one
is always permitted to act for the best outcome according to consequentialist
reckoning, one is not always required to do so, and there is an agent-centered
prerogative that justifies according more weight to the personal point of view. And
he admits that any nonegoistic rendering of this prerogative must “ultimately
come to grips with the egoist challenge,” that is, the egoist appropriation of this
defense of the trumping value of the personal perspective (p. ). My thanks to
Michael Green for confirming that Scheffler’s view was much influenced by the
Methods.
. Thomas Hurka, “Self-Interest, Altruism, and Virtue,” in the symposium on
“Self-Interest,” Social Philosophy and Policy , no. (Winter ), p. .
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Rational egoism in various guises is certainly well represented in the contributions
to this recent collection.
. A point forcefully brought out by Skorupski in his “Three Methods and a
Dualism,” in Harrison, ed., Henry Sidgwick; see my review of this volume in
Utilitas (July ).
. Hurka, “Moore in the Middle,” pp. –. One of the most powerful efforts to
undercut egoism is of course Parfit’s Reasons and Persons.
. A line stressed by David Phillips, in “Sidgwick, Dualism and Indeterminacy in
Practical Reason,” History of Philosophy Quarterly (January ), pp. –.
. Hurka, “Moore in the Middle,” p. .
. Kurt Baier, “Egoism,” in A Companion to Ethics, ed. P. Singer (London: Blackwell,
), p. , p. .
. Kurt Baier, The Rational and the Moral Order: The Social Roots of Reason and Morality (Chicago: Open Court, ), pp. –.
. Crisp, “The Dualism of Practical Reason,” pp. –.
. Ibid., p. .
. Ibid., pp. –.
. Ibid., p. .
. Singer, ed., Essays on Ethics and Method, p. xxi.
. Ibid., p. xxii, note .
. Schneewind, Sidgwick’s Ethics, pp. –.
. Ibid., p. .
. Henry Sidgwick, “Review: J. Grote’s Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy,”
The Academy (April , ), p. . Sidgwick actually wrote two reviews of
Grote’s work (see CWC).
. “Some Fundamental Ethical Controversies,” p. .
. Ibid., pp. –.
. Rawls, Theory, p. . Scheffler’s discussion of the passage is in his “Rawls and Utilitarianism,” in Freeman, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Rawls, pp. –
. Parfit’s Reasons and Persons makes the forthright counter that “persons,” so construed, do not exist.
. Schneewind, Sidgwick’s Ethics, pp. –.
. Ibid., pp. –.
. Ibid., pp. –.
. E.g., Darwall, in “Sidgwick, Concern, and the Good.” Darwell, however, also
appears to underestimate the importance of sympathy in Sidgwick ethical theory –
see his discussion in his Welfare and Rational Care (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, ), especially p. and pp. –. As previously noted,
I think that Sidgwick’s view could be developed in some very psychologically
sophisticated ways, along the lines of A. Damasio’s The Feeling of What Happens
(New York: Harcourt Brace, ).
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. Sidgwick, “Some Fundamental Ethical Controversies,” p. .
. Rashdall would in due course fall in with Moore. Thus, in his little volume on
Ethics (New York: Dodge Publishing, n.d.), a synopsis of sorts of his massive
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Theory of Good and Evil, he argued against Sidgwick that “all Egoism . . . is absolutely and irredeemably irrational, since it involves a contradiction.” Thus,
“Good means ‘ought to be pursued,’ and Egoism makes it reasonable for me to
assert that ‘my good is the only thing that ought to be pursued,’ while it pro-
nounces that my neighbour is right in denying that proposition and in asserting
that his pleasure is the only thing to be pursued. Therefore contradictory propo-
sitions are both true. But I must not further develop this point, which no one has
pushed home so thoroughly as Mr. Moore in his brilliant Principia Ethica” (p. ).
Hurka, in Virtue, Vice and Value, defends what he takes to be a better Rashdallian claim: “He thinks virtue is a greater good and vice a greater evil because he thinks
any virtuous or vicious attitude, though outweighed by some base-level values,
has more positive or negative value than the specific base-level state that is its
direct or indirect object.” (p. ).
. As Schneewind notes, the passage occurs in the third edition, on p. .
. Ross Harrison has insightfully suggested that this side of Sidgwick’s argument
could be seen as a stimulus for later emotivist developments. See his “Henry
Sidgwick,” Philosophy (), pp. –. Certainly, as previously noted,
Russell could be viewed as a true disciple of Sidgwick on many counts; even
Moore came to have some doubts about cognitivism.
. Henry Sidgwick, “Mr. Barratt on ‘The Suppression of Egoism’,” Mind (), pp. –.
. Sidgwick, “Some Fundamental Ethical Controversies,” pp. –.
. Ibid., pp. –.
. Shaver, Rational Egoism, p. .
. Ibid., p. .
. Myers Papers, Wren Library, Cambridge University, Add.Ms.c....
. Henry Sidgwick, “Fitzjames Stephen on Mill on Liberty,” Academy (August ,
), p. .
. Ibid.
. Schneewind appears to underestimate the extent to which Sidgwick considered
the constructive potential of egoism – see Sidgwick’s Ethics, pp. –.
. The Greek terms mean “magnanimous” and “mean-spirited,” respectively.
. M gives part of this letter.
. Rawls, Theory, pp. –.
. Singer, Essays on Ethics and Method, pp. xxxvi–xxxvii.
. See Chapter .
. Schneewind, Sidgwick’s Ethics, pp. –. As noted earlier, if one resists Sidgwick’s treatment at just this point, something closer to Skorupski’s
“philosophical” or “generic” utilitarianism results. See his Ethical Explorations, especially Chapter . Philosophical utilitarianism “abstracts from classical utilitarianism by allowing () functions other than the aggregative function of classical
utilitarianism from individual well-being to good – so long as they are positive and
impartial functions and () different interpretations of well-being to the classical
utilitarians’ view of it as consisting exclusively of happiness” (p. ). Skorupski’s
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sophisticated approach represents another deeply Sidgwickian project, albeit a
version of the moralist or impartialist attempt to defeat egoistic reasons (which
are nonetheless treated as reasons, reasons stemming from a different source
than pure practical reason). See also his “Three Methods and a Dualism:
A Reassessment of Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics,” in Henry Sidgwick, ed.
R. Harrison.
. Schneewind, Sidgwick’s Ethics, p. . See also the works by Donagan cited in previous notes.
. Ibid., p. .
. Ibid. Needless to say, although Schneewind had in mind Rawls’s work, a number
of other projects, such as Skorupski’s, Crisp’s, and Hurka’s, could make powerful
claims to be developing precisely the options that Sidgwick had deemed most
promising.
. Again, see Hayward, “A Reply,” p. . Hayward was responding to Jones’s piece,
in the same issue, on the “True Significance of Sidgwick’s ‘Ethics.’ ” There is no
little irony in the charge that Sidgwick, who accused dogmatic intuitionists of
being unconscious utilitarians, was himself an unconscious Kantian.
. Schneewind, Sidgwick’s Ethics, pp. –.
. J. P. Schneewind, “Classical Republicanism and the History of Ethics,” Utilitas , no. (November ), p. .
. Kloppenberg’s Uncertain Victory, while recognizing that Sidgwick was not in the grip of a solipsistic epistemology, fails to bring out the specific connections
between his theory and practice in this way. See also his “Rethinking Tradition:
Sidgwick and the Philosophy of the Via Media,” in Schultz, ed., Essays, for a shorter account of his claims; Kloppenberg does carefully bring out just how
profoundly indebted James and Dewey were to Sidgwick’s work.
. On this, see Skorupski’s important paper “Desire and Will in Sidgwick and
Green.” This is, of course, a point long harped on by Rawls and Rawlsians – see
the various contributions to Freeman, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Rawls –
e.g., p. , note .
. Darwall, Internal ‘Ought’, p. . For a helpful survey of “internalisms” in ethics, see his “Reasons, Motives, and the Demands of Morality,” in Darwall, Gibbard,
and Railton, eds., Moral Discourse and Practice, pp. –. As Darwall elsewhere recognizes, Sidgwick is not happily cast as a “perceptual internalist” on the model
of Clarke or Price; see also his “Learning from Frankena.”
. It is worth noting that both Alan Donagan and William Frankena would have
urged, in different ways, that such classifications are unsatisfactory and simplistic.
Donagan held that both Kant and Whewell were engaged in a common rationalist
project that Sidgwick appreciated somewhat, though inconsistently (see his The
Theory of Morality).
. Included in Kant’s Political Writings, ed. H. Reiss (New York: Cambridge University Press, ).
. Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. .
. Williams, “The Point of View of the Universe,” p. .
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. A point stressed by John Gray in his illuminating essay “Indirect Utility and
Fundamental Rights,” in his Liberalism: Essays in Political Philosophy (London: Routledge, ). See also Jonathan Bennett, The Act Itself (Oxford: Clarendon Press, ); Peter Railton, “Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands
of Morality,” Philosophy and Public Affairs (), pp. –; Hare, Moral Thinking; and Parfit, Reasons and Persons.
. Williams, “The Point of View of the Universe,” p. .
. Ibid., p. .
. Ibid., pp. –.
. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, p. , note .
. Schneewind, Sidgwick’s Ethics, p. .
. I am most grateful to Jerry Schneewind for his extremely generous and construc-
tive feedback on this material, and for agreeing that he did not handle these issues
in a perspicuous way. For his response to my criticisms, see his “Comment” on my
“The Methods of J. B. Schneewind,” both of which are forthcoming in Utilitas , no. (July ); as this exchange demonstrates, Schneewind’s interpretation of
Sidgwick remains highly – and controversially – Kantian.
. In a letter to Sidgwick’s friend John Venn, Mill advanced another consideration, explaining that “I agree with you that the right way of testing actions by their
consequences, is to test them by the natural consequences of the particular action,
and not by those which would follow if every one did the same. But, for the most
part, the consideration of what would happen if every one did the same, is the
only means we have of discovering the tendency of the act in the particular case.”
Quoted in Mill, Utilitarianism, p. .
. Compare the account in Blanshard, Four Reasonable Men, which more or less canonized the image of Sidgwick as a man of saintly honesty.
. Furthermore, the charge of elitism rings a bit hollow when issuing from a self-
described Nietzschean.
. Walker, Moral Understandings, pp. –.