Sidgwick’s Methods, page 1
Sidgwick on Moral Theories and Common Sense Morality
Henry Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics deservedly enjoys a prominent place in the
history of ethics.1 Its influence extends even to the fashioning of terms used to
distinguish ethical theories today: It was in commentaries on Methods that C. D. Broad
suggested distinguishing theories as deontological and teleological, and Elizabeth
Anscombe introduced the term “consequentialism.”2
Yet surprisingly Sidgwick scholarship is barely beyond its infancy.3 Its slow progress
may be attributed at least partly to the difficulty of reading it. As J. B. Schneewind, in the
most authoritative single work to date on Methods, notes:
1 Unless otherwise indicated, references are to and quotations are from the seventh
edition of The Methods of Ethics (London: Macmillan, 1907; Indianapolis: Hackett
reprint, 1962), hereafter Methods. Other editions were published in 1874, 1877, 1884,
1890, 1893, and 1901.
2 G. E. M. Anscombe, “Modern Moral Philosophy,” Philosophy (January 1958), 1–
19; reprinted in Ethics, Religion and Politics, Vol. 3 of The Collected Philosophical
Papers of G. E. M. Anscombe, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), 36;
C. D. Broad, Five Types of Ethical Theory (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1930),
206.
3 In a letter to the author dated July 6, 1994, Marcus G. Singer says that he is not sure
that he agrees with my describing Sidgwick scholarship as being in its infancy; he thinks
it might perhaps be “at the kindergarten stage.”
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 2
The book does not have the surface difficulties found in Kant or in Hegel, but its
argument is intricate, and the very care with which it is elaborated tends to
obscure it…. It has become common to think that there is no overall argument in
the Methods…. Broad reinforces the common view, since he examines only
selected positions defended in the Methods and does not try to show their
connection with any unified argument. The reader is thus not encouraged to look
for more in Sidgwick than isolated insights and analyses: he thereby misses what
is central to Sidgwick’s own view of his work, and perhaps to what is most
permanently valuable in it.4
Others besides Broad have concentrated on only portions of Methods. Admittedly, as
a work in four parts, it is hard to read for “any unified argument,” but the unity is there.
In Book I Sidgwick introduces terms crucially important for a correct understanding
of Methods; in particular note “principles” and “methods” (Chapter 6), and “egoism”
(Chapter 7) and “intuitionism” (Chapter 8)—two of the three methods of Methods, and
“the good” (Chap. 9).
Books II, III, and IV deal with the egoist, intuitionist, and utilitarian methods
respectively. With Book II the reader faces the difficulty of understanding why Sidgwick
gives such a high degree of respectability to egoism, when he seems only to want to
discard it by Book IV. Then in Book III there is the extended and highly approving
treatment of intuitionism—this by one who is usually classified with Bentham and Mill
4 J. B. Schneewind, Sidgwick’s Ethics and Victorian Moral Philosophy (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1977), 2. The reference to Broad is to the last chapter of his Five Types, 143–
256.
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 3
as a utilitarian.5 And when the reader who is determined to make her way through from
beginning to end finally reaches the utilitarian Book IV, with its insistence on the
theoretical dependence of rightness on the good of universal happiness, it is hard to
remember that its author is also the author of the intuitionist Book III, who agrees with
common sense moralists that agents need not resort to any notion of goodness in order to
act rightly.
These points contribute to the difficulty of seeing the work as a whole, and
philosophers continue to miss the work’s essential unity. That unity depends on the
following neglected fact about Methods: It is the thorough and systematic examination of
a single moral theory. Sidgwick presents three methods in detail—egoism, intuitionism,
and utilitarianism—because prima facie they are parts of that single complex moral
theory. Sidgwick did not choose that moral theory (xii, 338): it is the one he found or
thought he found in common sense morality.
My purpose here is to demonstrate that there is just this one moral theory in Methods,
and that the requirements of that theory are entirely dictated by Sidgwick’s understanding
of common sense morality. I begin with a summary of Sidgwick’s explanation of
common sense morality (I). Next I discuss his view of the relationship of moral
philosophy to common sense morality (II). This clears the way for me to set out what
Sidgwick means by a moral theory in general (III, IV), and the moral theory of Methods
5
Sidgwick does say, when agreeing with Butler that conscience claims authority, that
his conscience “was a more utilitarian conscience than Butler’s” (xx), but he also says
that he is an intuitionist: “And I had become, as I had to admit to myself, an Intuitionist to
some extent” (xxi).
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 4
in particular (V, VI, VII). I conclude with some typical ways philosophers have
misunderstood Methods (VIII).
I
The passage closest to a definition of common sense morality is the one in which
Sidgwick distinguishes it from positive morality:6
It only requires a little reflection and observation of men’s moral discourse to
make a collection of general rules, as to the validity of which there is apparent
general agreement at least among moral persons of our own age and civilization,
and which would cover with approximate completeness the whole of human
conduct. Such a collection, regarded as a code imposed on an individual by the
public opinion of the community to which he belongs, we have called the Positive
Morality of the community: but when regarded as a body of moral truth,
warranted to be such by the consensus of mankind,—or at least of that portion of
6 Another passage illuminating what Sidgwick means by common sense morality is
the following:
In considering the relation of Utilitarianism to the moral judgments of
Common Sense, it will be convenient to begin with the former element of
current morality, as the more important and indispensable; i.e., with the
ensemble of rules imposed by common opinion in any society, which form a
kind of unwritten legislation, supplementary to Law proper, and enforced by
the penalties of social disfavor and contempt. (80)
Common sense morality is common because of its wide acceptance.
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 5
mankind which combines adequate intellectual enlightenment with a serious
concern for morality—it is more significantly termed the morality of Common
Sense. (214–215)
Although common sense morality sometimes parallels the positive morality of the society
in which it is found, it is distinct from it. Common sense morality is most often described
as a set of rules, but it includes “habits and sentiments” (475). Comparing the common
sense morality of one time or place with that of another often reveals “remarkable
discrepancies,” though in at least one respect, to be discussed presently, they are
“strikingly correlated” (426).
Common sense morality, then, is a set of rules of a particular culture and the habits
and sentiments attending them, distinct from and complementary to the written law of
that culture, and accepted by its members, or just those who are the most reliable.7 It is
imposed on individual members under pain of social disapproval.
II
7
The majority is almost certainly not reliable:
The majority of human beings spend most of their time in labouring to
avert starvation and severe bodily discomfort: and the brief leisure that
remains to them, after supplying the bodily needs of food, sleep, etc., is spent
in ways determined rather by impulse, routine, and habit, than by a deliberate
estimate of probable pleasure. It would seem, then, that the common sense to
which we have here to refer can only be that of a minority of comparatively
rich and leisured persons. (152)
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 6
Common sense morality provides the subject matter for the moral philosopher, who
examines it much as a scientist examines data. Sidgwick makes this comparison
explicitly in his brief and justly famous history of ethics:
Ethical truth, in [Aristotle’s] view, is to be obtained by a careful comparison of
particular moral opinions, as physical truth is to be obtained by induction from
particular physical observations.8
Methods is Sidgwick’s attempt to do for his time what Aristotle had done for his, as he
tells us in the account of the development of his thought given in the preface to the sixth
edition:
What [Aristotle] gave us … was the Common Sense Morality of Greece, reduced
to consistency by careful comparison: given not as something external to him but
as what “we”—he and others—think, ascertained by reflection. And was not this
really the Socratic induction, elicited by interrogation?
Might I not imitate this: do the same for our morality here and now, in the
same manner of impartial reflection on current opinion? (xxii)
The task of Methods is to examine the multifaceted bulk of common sense morality to
see if it is justified—that is, to see if its imprecise rules can be made over into precise
ones or if there is some valid moral theory underlying it. The moral philosopher seeks “to
throw the Morality of Common Sense into a scientific form” (338). Sidgwick’s goal is
similar to that of the common sense philosopher Thomas Reid, whom Sidgwick criticizes
not for having failed to reach his goal, but for having failed to realize that he did not
8 Outlines of the History of Ethics, (London: Macmillan and Co., 1902; reprint,
Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1988), 58.
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 7
reach it.9 As we shall see, Sidgwick thought that no one could reach it—at least not the
common sense morality of his time. Common sense morality is not itself a moral theory
since it fails the test of scientific precision; the demands of scientific precision leap out
on almost every page of Methods.
We turn now to what Sidgwick means by a moral theory.
III
The goal of the moral philosopher is to examine the rightness of moral rules in terms
of the good that following such rules brings about: “… [W]ithout being disposed to deny
that conduct commonly judged to be right is so, we may yet require some deeper
explanation why it is so” (102). A moral theory supplies this deeper explanation.
Here is a first approximation of what Sidgwick has in mind. A method is a procedure
for the generation of rules of right conduct, a principle is a statement of the good that is
actually achieved by agents’ following those rules, and a moral theory is the explanation
of the relationship of the two. Readers of Methods have failed to notice or failed to give
sufficient weight to the fact that moral theories are complex combinations of methods and
principles. For the most part they have not noticed that in a single, coherent, and justified
moral theory, a method of one sort might be matched to a principle of another, or that in
the same theory more than one method might be attached to a single principle. So the end
the agent thinks she is achieving by following the rules she has set for herself might not
9 See “The Philosophy of Common Sense,” in Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant
and Other Philosophical Lectures and Essays, (London: Macmillan, 1905; Kraus reprint,
1968), 428–429.
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 8
be the same as the end ultimately achieved, or might not be the only or most important
end actually achieved.
Now we can take a closer look at Sidgwick’s account of moral theories in terms of
methods and principles, to see why their distinctiveness and relationship is so important.
Sidgwick defines a method of ethics in the first sentence of Methods:10
The boundaries of the study called Ethics are variously and often vaguely
conceived: but they will perhaps be sufficiently defined at the outset, for the
purposes of the present treatise, if a method of Ethics is explained to mean any
rational procedure by which we determine what individual human beings
‘ought’—or what it is ‘right’ for them—to do, or to seek to realise by voluntary
action. (1)
The method or “rational procedure” is the system of moral rule generation; as such, a
method involves an intention, aim, or motive of a certain sort, though not necessarily the
one the agent has at the time of acting.11 Note that by following a method agents bring
about some end; although “we” might realize they are bringing about some end and what
that end is, they might not. According to one variety of intuitionism, agents might
10 Virtually the same definition is given in the sixth chapter of Book I (p. 78), in the
context of the difference between a method and an ultimate reason.
11
On a matter also touching on the relationship between aims and ends (the
possibility of altruism), Neven Sesardic noted in a recent issue of Ethics that although the
jury is still out with respect to the extent to which human goals tend to be realized as
intended, surely intentions are not “wholly impotent and disconnected from reality”
(“Recent Work on Human Altruism and Evolution,” Ethics 106 [October 1995], 135).
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 9
(indeed, must) have no “end” at all, unless the rightness of the action itself can be called
an end (4). Although an agent might not have an end in mind, Sidgwick does not allow a
non-end-referenced criterion of rightness to be a moral theory.
By following the rules generated by the method, the agent may or may not reach the
goal she aimed at; she may reach another goal. If she reaches the goal she aimed at, it
may not be the only one or the ultimate one. Such is the case for a single agent, a group
or agents, or even all agents. For example: Some rule about keeping promises may have
been formulated from the agent’s intention to do what is right; but in acting according to
this aim, she contributes to her own moral perfection, and several agents’ following this
rule contributes to universal happiness. What agents aim at when acting is one thing;
what end they ultimate achieve is (or could be) another.
Although Sidgwick explicitly gives a definition of a method, it is regrettable, as
Schneewind notes, that Sidgwick “nowhere gives a … general account of what a
principle is.” But Schneewind is not correct when he says that “it is not hard to see what
he had in mind.”12 Sidgwick is unclear about what he means by a principle, and
Schneewind himself fails to see what he has in mind. But the unity of Methods requires
that a principle be defined as above, as the statement of the ultimate end actually
achieved in a world in which agents have whatever conscious aims and moral rules they
have.
The part of a moral theory that Sidgwick calls the principle is that part which names
the actually-achieved and ultimate goal. The best moral theory correctly names the
ultimate good. Even in an ideal society, it may be that only some agents are conscious of
12 Schneewind, Sidgwick’s Ethics, 194.
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 10
the ultimate good actually achieved; that is, perhaps only some agents are using a method
of a certain sort that is matched to a principle of the same sort.
A moral theory is complicated, then, in these two ways: the agent might not have the
aim or end of the method in mind at the time of acting, and even if she has it in mind, that
end might not be the one ultimately achieved.13
Now one task of the moral philosopher is to study common sense morality for what
moral rules people are following (or, more realistically, to which they are giving lip
service), to find out what agents seek to realize in so acting. Another task is to uncover
what goal is actually achieved if agents so act—keeping in mind that different agents
might have different sets of rules. If and only if all these parts fit into a coherent, single
moral theory can common sense morality be said to be justified. In a successful moral
theory the combination works: agents acting from rules generated by a certain aim do
achieve the goal named in the principle. The best moral theory is the one with the best or
most precise rules and the best or correctly-named ultimate end. A moral theory fails if
the rules are so vague that they fail to give sufficient guidance, or if the goal the agent
thinks she is achieving is not achievable by acting as she does, or if the goal achieved is
not the one right ultimate goal, or if—in case there is more than one right ultimate goal—
the several goals cannot be achieved, either concurrently or successively. Whether or not
13 For example: “It is obvious that such an exposition [of egoist reasons given to the
irreformable egoist for why he should follow utilitarian-end-generated rules] has no
tendency to make [the egoist] accept the greatest happiness of the greatest number as his
ultimate end; but only as a means to the end of his own happiness” (420). In this case,
following the rules generated by the utilitarian method is a means to the egoist end.
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 11
the end aimed at is the same as the end ultimately achieved, in a satisfactory moral theory
the connection between the aim and the end is, as Sidgwick says, “logical” or “plausible”
(78, 83). A moral theory is “valid” (84) just in case the connection it asserts between
method and principle—between the rules and the end—in fact obtains.
Although the agent’s goal might be the end achieved, it need not be. And if it is, it
need not be the only or ultimate end. It is crucial to understanding Sidgwick’s notion of a
moral theory to see (to put the point in terms of methods and principles) that a method of
one sort can be paired with a principle of another:
Not all the different views that are taken of the ultimate reason for doing what is
concluded to be right lead to practically different methods of arriving at this
conclusion. Indeed we find that almost any method may be connected with almost
any ultimate reason by means of some—often plausible—assumption. (83)
Sidgwick himself finds, as he hopes others do, that almost any method may be
matched to almost any principle. Sidgwick makes this point again—that aims and ends
may differ—in his first discussion of egoism:
It must, however, be pointed out that the adoption of the fundamental principle of
Egoism, as just explained, by no means necessarily implies the ordinary empirical
method of seeking one’s own pleasure or happiness. A man may aim at the
greatest happiness within his reach, and yet not attempt to ascertain empirically
what amount of pleasure and pain is likely to attend any given course of action:
believing that he has some surer, deductive method for determining the conduct
which will make him most happy in the long-run. (121, second emphasis added)
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 12
Here Sidgwick clearly claims that what is aimed at need not be what is achieved—that a
method of some sort can be matched with a principle of another sort. Toward the end of
Methods, Sidgwick makes this same point more strongly, claiming that it is a
philosophical mistake to suppose that the egoist method and the egoist principle must be
connected:
But lastly, from the universal point of view no less than from the individual, it
seems true that Happiness is likely to be better attained if the extent to which we
set ourselves consciously to aim at it be carefully restricted. (405)
Not only is it possible for there to be a difference between an aim and an end, egoism and
utilitarianism (theories of individual and universal happiness, respectively) demand that
there be a difference. And what is true of these ends might be true of others.
In the following passage, Sidgwick clearly detaches an aim, which might be simply
conformity to a rule, from an end:
Such a belief [in moral rules’ having been planted by Nature or revealed by God,
but leading to happiness] implies that, though I am bound to take, as my ultimate
standard for acting, conformity to a rule which is for me absolute, still the natural
or Divine reason for the rule laid down is Utilitarian. On this view, the method of
Utilitarianism is certainly rejected: the connection between right action and
happiness is not ascertained by a process of reasoning. But we can hardly say that
the Utilitarian principle is altogether rejected: rather the limitations of the human
reason are supposed to prevent it from apprehending adequately the real
connexion between the true principle and the right rules of conduct. The
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 13
connexion, however, has always been to a large extent recognised by all reflective
persons.” (85; second emphasis added)
Another complication, besides the one whereby a method can be matched with a
different principle, is that a method might have more than one form, depending on what it
is at which the agent aims.14 In the direct form of the egoist method, for instance, agents
achieve happiness by aiming at happiness; Sidgwick calls this “empirical hedonism”
(Book I, Chapters 2 and 3). There are also indirect forms of the methods. One of the other
forms of egoism, “objective hedonism” (Book II, Chapter 4), is indirect, because
according to it the trick to achieving happiness for oneself is to “seek and consciously
estimate the objective conditions and sources of happiness, rather than happiness itself”
(151).
To sum up: Sidgwick’s theory of a moral theory countenances the following three
complications: the end of the method might be indirectly aimed at; the agent might be
unconscious of the end at the time of acting; and whatever her aim is, the ultimate end the
agent is helping to bring about by following the rules generated by the method might not
be the end she has in mind, either at the time or acting or at some other time.
IV
14
Sidgwick called these variations “forms” in the first edition (xiv). The egoist
method, for instance, has, in addition to empirical and objective forms, deontic and
deductive forms. Unfortunately for clarity, Sidgwick drops the designation “forms” in
later editions, though the variations of the method remain.
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 14
In a simple direct theory of egoism, the agent’s acting on rules generated from having
the conscious aim of individual happiness leads to the individual’s happiness. In a simple
direct theory of utilitarianism, agents’ acting on rules generated from having universal
happiness as a conscious aim leads to universal happiness. With respect to either egoism
or utilitarianism, if the end achieved is other than the one aimed at, the resulting indirect
moral theory might be called “paradoxical,” following Sidgwick, who spoke of the
paradox of (egoistic) Hedonism, wherein “the impulse towards pleasure, if too
predominant, defeats its own aim” (48); the agent’s acting on those rules still leads to the
ultimate end of individual happiness. In another kind of egoist theory, a complex one
(such a theory may be plausible but we don’t know yet whether it is valid), rules are
generated from individual happiness as a conscious or unconscious aim, and agents’
acting on those rules contributes to a different kind of ultimate end, universal
happiness.15
15 The only kind of egoism or universalism (utilitarianism) Sidgwick considers is the
hedonistic kind. In the explanation he gives for making pleasure wholly coincidental with
the ultimate good in Methods (see esp. Book I, Chapter 9, and Book II, Chapter 2) and
elsewhere (see especially “Hedonism and Ultimate Good,” Mind 2 [1877], 27–38), he
makes the simple mistake, Darwall has noted, of assuming that if the good must be
experienced, then (some aspect of) experience must be the good. See Stephen L. Darwall,
“Pleasure as Ultimate Good in Sidgwick’s Ethics,” Monist 58 (July 1974), 475–489.
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 15
It is not just hedonism that has this paradoxical nature. In another context Jorge L. A.
Garcia gives an example which is helpful here.16 Imagine, he says, a school that admits
only students who seek knowledge only for its own sake, a school whose graduates are
well-rewarded with prestige, high-paying jobs, etc. We might further imagine that these
graduates and no others are essential to a thriving community. It would happen then that
the ultimate end or state of affairs brought into being by students whose conscious aim
was knowledge for its own sake was desirable on (non-hedonistic) egoistic as well as
utilitarian grounds.17 This resulting state of affairs would not be able to be brought about
unless students had a goal other than the one(s) achieved.18
16 Jorge L. A. Garcia, “On ‘Justifying’ Morality,” Metaphilosophy 17 (October
1986), 218.
17 If such an arrangement is possible, then, mutatis mutandis, consequentialists can
be friends. See Peter Railton, “Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of
Morality,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 13 (Spring 1984), 134–171.
18 The question of ends is more complex than I indicate here. Students who go to a
school because and only because they seek knowledge for its own sake are of course in
some some sense also choosing to go to that school. That kind of end, the end or aim of
going to that school, is a constitutive end. Going to the school is not a mere means to the
end of knowledge for its own sake; rather going to the school constitutes getting
knowledge for its own sake. For a discussion of constitutive ends, see J. L. Ackrill,
“Aristotle on Eudaimonia,” in Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, ed. Amelie O. Rorty
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 16
Although the task of examining moral theories would be too extensive if all putative
ultimate ends were examined, Sidgwick confines himself to those ultimate ends of
common sense morality that are rational:
If we confine ourselves to such ends as the common sense of mankind appears to
accept as rational ultimate ends, the task is reduced, I think, within manageable
limits; since this criterion will exclude at least many of the objects which men
practically seem to regard as paramount. (9)
In short, Sidgwick’s study is limited by common sense morality and by rationality.19 In
the end, he thinks only one of the rational ultimate ends of common sense morality is the
right one, namely, universal happiness (398, 406).
To further complicate the picture, the ultimate end might be best served when
different agents have different aims. Universal happiness is brought about (or best
brought about, or maximally achieved) by having only some—rather than all—agents be
There may be another kind of end: David Schmidtz thinks that there are four
kinds of ends: final, instrumental, constitutive, and what he calls “maieutic”; see
“Choosing Ends,” Ethics 104 (January 1994), 226–251.
19
There are some who think that whereas Sidgwick thinks of egoism as a rational
theory, he thinks of utilitarianism as a moral one. See David Phillips, “Sidgwick,
Dualism, and Indeterminacy in Practical Reasoning,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 15
(January 1998), and David Brink, “Sidgwick’s Dualism of Practical Reason,”
Australasian Journal of Philosophy (1988). But it is clear that Sidgwick considers both
egoism and utilitarianism to be both rational and moral. I do not have space to defend this
claim here.
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 17
do-gooders, that is, agents whose aim is the utilitarian one. Marcus Singer points out that
Sidgwick is the first moral philosopher to consider the desirability, on utilitarian grounds,
of a society not made up of utilitarians—that is, not made up only of agents whose
conscious aim is maximizing the good.20 The best ultimate end might not be and perhaps
should not be motivating to ordinary citizens. It may even become necessary to deceive
the public about the ultimate end in order to bring it about.21
20 A society desirable on utilitarian grounds but not made up entirely of utilitarians
would be one in which the ultimate end of universal happiness was achieved by having
agents act on rules generated by one or more different conscious aims. Singer writes,
“Sidgwick raises questions about the differences that obtain in applying the utilitarian
method in a society of utilitarians and in a society not made up of utilitarians, a
distinction not heretofore thought of” (“Henry Sidgwick,” in Encyclopedia of Ethics, ed.
Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker, [New York: Garland, 1992]).
Derek Parfit thinks that a consequentialist theory with a conscious aim different
from its ultimate end is indirectly self-defeating; see Reasons and Persons (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1984), 27.
21 “Thus, on Utilitarian principles, it may be right to … teach openly to one set of
persons what it would be wrong to teach to others; it may be conceivably right to do, if it
can be done with comparative secrecy, what it would be wrong to do in the face of the
world.… These conclusions are all of a paradoxical character: there is no doubt that the
moral consciousness of a plain man broadly repudiates the general notion of an esoteric
morality, differing from that popularly taught …” (489–490).
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 18
By a moral theory, then, Sidgwick means the connection of a certain aim or of certain
aims—consciously held or not at the time of acting, resulting in a set or sets of rules for
right conduct—with the good ultimately achieved by agents acting on those rules. It is
central to his notion of a moral theory that an aim or method may be paired with a
different end or principle.
V
What is the moral theory implicit in common sense morality? At first that morality
seems to imply several methods and several ultimate ends. But Sidgwick argues that,
upon examination, the methods that generate the rules of common sense morality “in the
main” (xxv) reduce to three: egoism, utilitarianism, and intuitionism. The egoist method
assesses rules of action as to whether they conduce to the agent’s happiness. The
utilitarian method assesses rules of action as to whether they conduce to the general
happiness.
Intuitionism is complicated by the fact that it passes through “phases” or “stages”
(102). Sidgwick gives short shrift to the first stage, perceptional or ultra-intuitionism; it
can hardly be called a method.22 In the second stage, jural intuitionism, there is no
mention of an ultimate end; there are, in short, just the rules. As such jural intuitionism is
not adequate as a theory: Having no principle, it has no ultimate end according to which,
22 “… [I]t recognises simple immediate intuitions alone and discards as superfluous
all modes of reasoning to moral conclusions: and we may find in it one phase or variety
of the Intuitional method,—if we may extend the term ‘method’ to include a procedure
that is completed in a single judgment” (100).
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 19
in union with a method, rules of conduct can be judged for rightness; an end-less system
of rules is nor precise enough.23 But in its mature phase the intuitionist method is linked
to a principle, according to which excellence is the ultimate end.
The discovery of three methods in common sense morality means that the moral
theory implicit in common sense morality is indirect and complex. If the three methods of
egoism, intuitionism and utilitarianism are successfully joined to just one principle,
whatever that principle is, then common sense morality is justified: It would presuppose a
complex moral theory.
As for the ends implied in common sense morality, these, too, seem at first to be
many: Ordinary people give lip service to so many different goods, without obvious
consistency. In the course of his examination Sidgwick finds that the the number of
putative rational ends reduces to two; the two finalists for ultimate end are happiness and
excellence (or perfection—virtue, in other words).24
23
The precision requirement runs throughout Methods. On this point of an end-less
method and scientific precision, see especially the third and fourth conditions for selfevident proposition in the book on Intuitionism, Book III: 341–345.
24 “I use the terms ‘Excellence’ and ‘Perfection’ to denote the same ultimate end
regarded in somewhat different aspects: meaning by either an ideal complex of mental
qualities, of which we admire and approve the manifestation in human life: but using
‘Perfection’ to denote the idea as such, while ‘Excellence’ denotes such partial realisation
of or approximation to the ideal as we actually find in human experience” (10n).
“It is more convenient, for the purpose of expounding the morality of common
sense, to understand by Virtue a quality exhibited in right conduct; for then we can use
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 20
The provisional moral theory implicit in common sense morality —and therefore the
single moral theory of Methods—is this complex moral theory, linking the three methods
of egoism, intuitionism, and utilitarianism to some end. If it can be shown that there is
just one ultimate end and if it can be shown that this one ultimate end is the one achieved
by agents acting on rules generated by all three methods, then the theory stands and
common sense morality is justified. Sidgwick cannot justify common sense morality. He
suggests no other way for justifying common sense morality. Given the great emphasis he
puts on systematization and precision, it is safe to conclude that he thought that the
common sense morality of his own day, and any other version that includes the egoist
end, could not be justified.25
VI
There are only two finalists for ultimate end: excellence and happiness; but eventually
even excellence reduces to some aspect of universal happiness, because the latter is
ultimate:
As regards the general conception of the duty [of Benevolence], there is, I think,
no divergence that we need consider between the Intuitional and Utilitarian
systems. … [And] as the chief element in the common notion of the good (besides
the common notions of the particular virtues as heads for the classification of the most
important kinds or aspects of right conduct as generally recognised” (219n).
25
I am grateful to Sean McKeever for a good discussion as to whether Sidgwick
leaves open the possibility that common sense moralities of other times and places might
be rendered into coherent moral theories.
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 21
happiness) is moral good or Virtue, if we can show that the other virtues are—
broadly speaking—all qualities conducive to the happiness of the agent himself
and of others, it is evident that Benevolence, whether it prompts us to promote the
virtue of others or their happiness, will aim directly or indirectly at the Utilitarian
end. (430–431)
In the last analysis, therefore, universal happiness, the end named in the utilitarian
principle, is the ultimate end, and therefore the utilitarian is the right principle, the
principle to which the three methods of common sense morality must be linked if that
morality is to be justified:
While yet if we ask for a final criterion of the comparative value of the different
objects of men’s enthusiastic pursuit, and of the limits within which each may
legitimately engross the attention of mankind, we shall … conceive it to depend
upon the degree in which they respectively conduce to Happiness (406).
If the three methods of common sense morality are to be systematized at all, it is
according to this principle.26 If systematization succeeds, the moral theory implicit in
common sense morality links three methods with their various aims to just one principle,
the utilitarian one. If common sense morality is justified, that moral theory is valid: By
aiming at individual happiness or at excellence or at universal happiness—or by simply
following the rules of rightness (jural intuitionism), without having an aim, conscious or
unconscious—agents achieve the ultimate end of universal happiness.
So is common sense morality justified?
26 See also pages 391–407.
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 22
VII
The systematization of the three methods implicit in common sense morality begins
with intuitionism—the form of it which prescribes rules without adverting to an end.27
Upon examination Sidgwick finds that the link between the method of intuitionism and
the utilitarian principle is successful. What follows is how.
Reliance on rules is just what distinguishes ordinary agents from moral philosophers;
ordinary people do not rely on moral theories—adequate or not—in order to act rightly.
Ordinary people are justified if they act according to certain rules of rightness which are
really right, and with the accompanying belief that these rules are right (207). Jural
intuitionism accurately describes the mental state of the justified moral agent;
intuitionism gets credit from Sidgwick for this insight about agents.28 Sidgwick himself
is, as he says, a utilitarian on an intuitional basis (xxii).
But for philosophers rules are not enough. Jural intuitionism is not a complete moral
theory, but philosophical intuitionism is. Philosophical intuitionism is a moral theory
linking a method which gives agents the conscious aim of rightness with the intuitionist
principle, giving excellence as an end. Although the addition of the principle makes
intuitionism a complete moral theory, Sidgwick is not satisfied with philosophical
27 Sidgwick wrote Book III first; it is the longest, and it is the book with the greatest
number of direct references to common sense morality.
28 For these reasons I suggest that Sidgwick be called an internalist about
justification. He may also be an internalist about motivation, a claim I do not consider
here. For a discussion of motive internalism and externalism in Sidgwick, see the
contributions of David O. Brink and John Deigh in Schultz, ed., Essays, 199–258.
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 23
intuitionism, either. Whereas jural intuitionism is unsatisfactory as a moral theory
because it lacks a principle, philosophical intuitionism is unsatisfactory because it
misidentifies the ultimate good (391–394). Excellence is really good but it is not really
ultimate: It can still be asked of individual excellence what purpose or end it serves. In
Sidgwick’s view, the true ultimate end that individual excellence serves is the utilitarian
one, universal happiness.
If we are not to systematise human activities by taking Universal Happiness as
their common end, on what other principles are we to systematise them?… I have
failed to find—and am unable to construct—any systematic answer to this
question that appears to me worthy of serious consideration: and hence I am
finally led to the conclusion that … the Intuitional method rigorously applied
yields as its final result the doctrine of pure Universalistic Hedonism,—which it is
convenient to denote by the single word, Utilitarianism. (406–407)
The principle of utilitarianism thus receives pride of place in Sidgwick’s moral theory
because it correctly identifies the right state of affairs brought about by agents who
follow rules generated by both the method of intuitionism and the method of
utilitarianism. “Utilitarianism appears in friendly alliance with Intuitionism” (86).29
29 Given the nature of virtue, the method of philosophical intuitionism works
adequately well (Methods, 424–425). In a general way, but a way apparently specific
enough to satisfy Sidgwick’s requirement for scientific precision, a set of rules generated
by this method of intuitionism whose end is individual perfection does bring about a state
of affairs satisfactory on utilitarian grounds. The fit between the method and principle of
utilitarianism is not perfect, either. “But, that our practical Utilitarian reasonings must
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 24
Thus far there is a valid moral theory underlying common sense morality. Sidgwick
says that he has successfully represented “the intuitions of Common Sense” as
“inchoately and imperfectly Utilitarian” (427). Indeed, “the moral codes of different ages
and countries are for the most part strikingly correlated to differences in the effects of
actions on happiness” (426).
But common sense morality clearly implies more than the two methods of
intuitionism and utilitarianism; it also implies egoism. Unfortunately for the project of
systematizing common sense morality, what has been said of the rules generated by the
methods of intuitionism and utilitarianism cannot be said of the set of rules generated by
the method of egoism.30 A set of rules generated by the egoistic method, whose end is
individual happiness, cannot be harmoniously allied with the principle of utilitarianism.
Some of egoism’s rules pass the test (502), but a number do not (503)—a number
sufficient to make the connection between the egoist method and the utilitarian principle
fall short of Sidgwick’s requirement of precision and scientific exactness in a moral
theory.31 The conjunction of the undeniable fact of common sense morality’s reliance on
necessarily be rough, is no reason for not making them as accurate as the case admits …”
(416).
30 Without egoism, common sense morality avoids a “dualism of practical reason”
(Methods, 404n). The real enemy of ordinary morality is “the new doctrine” of egoism,
“endorsed by the dreaded name of Hume” (104n).
31
The precision requirement runs throughout Methods. On this point of an end-less
method and scientific precision, see especially the third and fourth conditions for selfevident proposition in the book on Intuitionism, Book III, 341–345.
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 25
the egoist method and (to Sidgwick’s mind) the undeniable rationality and morality of the
egoist end dashes hopes for a valid moral theory for common sense morality. Its presence
and irresolvable conflict with the utilitarian end is responsible for the so-called (by
Sidgwick) Dualism of Practical Reason.32
The sad conclusion: We are stuck with the egoist method, which cannot be logically
or plausibly connected to the utilitarian principle in the complex moral theory of common
sense morality. And we are stuck with the egoist end, because its rationality as an end
cannot be dismissed. Because the egoist end is both really rational and really ultimate,
and because many rules generated by the egoist method are not “in friendly alliance” with
the utilitarian end, common sense morality cannot be saved. Since the controversy over
egoism’s claims and those of the two other methods (intuitionism and utilitarianism)
cannot be similarly “harmoniously settled,” the honest and thorough philosopher must
reach the same pessimistic conclusion Sidgwick did:33 Not only is common sense
morality left unjustified, the institution of morality itself lacks rationality:
32 On page 404, Sidgwick says that the Dualism of Practical Reason is the subject of
the concluding chapter of Methods. In the context of the interpretation of Methods
presented here, the Dualism of Practical Reason results from Sidgwick’s failure to do for
egoism what he had done for intuitionism: to reduce the egoist end to the utilitarian one.
The Dualism of Practical Reason is mentioned by name only on pp. xxi and 404; but see
p. 503.
33 Sidgwick’s pessimism is deftly analyzed by J. L. Mackie, in “Sidgwick’s
Pessimism,” in Philosophical Quarterly 26 (October 1976), 317 -327; reprinted in
Schultz, ed. Essays, 163–174.
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 26
The Cosmos of Duty is thus really reduced to a Chaos; and the prolonged effort of
the human intellect to frame a perfect ideal of rational conduct is seen to have
been foredoomed to failure. (first edition, 473)
Note the depth of Sidgwick’s commitment to common sense morality: When he
found an end—the egoist end—hostile to systematization but undeniably part of common
sense morality, he did not simply eliminate this end: A scientist does not consider some
data and ignore others in order to arrive at a valid theory. Nor did Sidgwick form a moral
theory from a blank slate, which would have been easier and which other moral
philosophers have chosen to do; he took his role as moral philosopher to be to see
whether common sense morality is justified—that is, founded on a valid moral theory.
These remarks should suffice to illustrate the difficulty of reading Methods as a
unified argument, but they should also offer assurance that the unity is there.
VIII
Some philosophers fail to recognize that Sidgwick’s utilitarianism is indirect, but
others do: Marcus Singer, Robert Adams, and Derek Parfit.34 Some philosophers use
Sidgwick to lend authority to their own moral theories: Dean Cocking and Justin Oakley
34
For Marcus Singer, see “Sidgwick and Nineteenth-Century Ethical Thought,” in
Schultz, ed., Essays, esp. 76–86. For Robert Adams, “Motive Utilitarianism,” Journal of
Philosophy 73 (1976), 467. For Derek Parfit, see Reasons and Persons, especially
Chapter 7 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984).
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 27
do, for their version of indirect consequentialism.35 Overall, however, the importance of
this complex and indirect type of moral theory has not been appreciated as the key to the
unity of Methods. Philosophers tend to footnote Sidgwick, or use some sentence from his
work as a starting point for their own. This temptation is understandable, given the many
ways Sidgwick anticipated contemporary moral philosophy.36 Misreadings of Methods
derive either from a failure to see that Sidgwick esteems common sense morality, or from
a failure to see that Methods is his attempt to uncover in common sense morality one
unified moral theory, joining three methods to one principle.
C. D. Broad, perhaps the earliest important commentator on Methods, failed to see
that Sidgwick matched a method to a differently-named principle. Consequently, he
mistakenly assumed that Sidgwick was presenting three direct and distinct moral theories.
The direct theory of egoism identifies the ultimate good as one’s own happiness, and the
direct theory of utilitarianism identifies the ultimate good as the general happiness; at
least these two have in common the same content as ultimate end (happiness), if not the
same allocation of it (self and all). So, Broad thinks, it makes sense to treat the two
hedonisms in the same place—rather than, as Sidgwick did, to separate their treatment by
the long book on intuitionism. Broad says this:
35 Dean Cocking and Justin Oakley, “Indirect Consequentialism, Friendship, and the
Problem of Alienation.” Ethics 106 (October 1995), 87n.
36
An interesting pursuit for another paper, for example, would be a comparison of
Sidgwick’s utilitarianism in Methods and R. M. Hare’s two levels of moral thinking. See
R. M. Hare, Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point (Oxford: Clarendon, 1981).
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 28
The order which Sidgwick takes is Egoism, Intuitionism, and Utilitarianism. This
does not seem to me to be the best order, since a great deal of the argument that is
used in connexion with Egoistic Hedonism has to be assumed in dealing with
Universalistic Hedonism, and the reader is rather liable to forget what has been
established in connexion with the former when he emerges into the latter after the
very long and complicated discussion on Intuitionism which is sandwiched
between the two.37
But Sidgwick realizes that he could have made this choice and his decision not to treat
them together is deliberate. He takes up the intuitionist method directly before the
utilitarian method because he thinks that both methods are linked to the one utilitarian
principle.
Indeed, Sidgwick thinks that philosophers who overlook the antagonisms between the
two hedonisms are importantly mistaken (103). It is true, of course, that Sidgwick thinks
that egoists and utilitarians correctly identify the good, but this fact alone does not
warrant their simultaneous treatment:
I am aware that these two latter methods [Egoistic Hedonism and Universalistic
Hedonism] are commonly treated as closely connected.… Nevertheless it seems
to me undeniable that the practical affinity between Utilitarianism and
Intuitionism is really much greater than that between the two forms of Hedonism.
(84, 85)
The “practical affinity” in question is the common connection of their distinct methods to
the utilitarian principle, an affinity lacking in the method of egoism to that same
37 Broad, Five Types, 150.
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 29
principle. The method of intuitionism generates rules generally consistent with or even
identical to those generated by the method of utilitarianism. It is in order to emphasize
this affinity between the intuitionist and utilitarian methods that Sidgwick deliberately
treats them together. It is necessary to his strategy that the exposition of the two hedonist
methods be separated by “the very long and complicated discussion on Intuitionism.” He
would not have heeded Broad’s suggestion that he treat the two hedonist methods
together, even if (anachronistically) he had known of it. As he writes:
… I have made as marked a separation as possible between Epicureanism or
Egoistic Hedonism, and the Universalistic or Benthamite Hedonism to which I
propose to restrict the term Utilitarianism. (84)
A more recent misreading of Methods appears in Schneewind’s volume on the work.
Here is Schneewind’s view of what Sidgwick means by a principle and a method:
Roughly speaking, a principle asserts that some property which acts may or may
not possess is an ultimate reason for the rightness of acts. A method is a regular
practice of using some property of acts as the property from whose presence or
absence one infers that specific acts are or are not right.38
Schneewind thinks that this property has to be the same property in the method and
principle. I have argued that central to Sidgwick’s conception of a moral theory is that a
method may be matched with a differently-named principle. As we have seen, this is the
aspect of Sidgwick’s notion of a moral theory that Broad simply ignores. Schneewind
does see this aspect but fails to understand its significance:
38 Schneewind, Sidgwick’s Ethics, 194–195.
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 30
Some of the remarks in I, vi, where principles and methods are discussed are
misleading. After comment on a variety of principles and methods apparently
used by the plain man, Sidgwick says, ‘we find that almost any method may be
connected with almost any ultimate reason by means of some—often plausible—
assumption.’ (ME 7, p. 83). In the first edition this was preceded by the comment
that ‘we seem to find … that there is no necessary connexion between the Method
and the Ultimate Reason in any ethical system’ (ME 1, p. 64). But here, as so
often in Sidgwick’s writings, what we ‘seem to find’ does not give the substance
of his own view.39
Thus Schneewind cannot make sense of the assertion he quotes, and is reduced to
claiming that Sidgwick does not mean what he said. But his reason for thinking this—the
hedge “we seem to find” in the first edition of Methods—seems odd. After all, Sidgwick
in fact withdrew the cautious phrase in subsequent editions, he did not add it. It seems
obvious, then, that the unqualified statement does “give the substance of his own view.”
Others fail to see that Sidgwick’s task in Methods is to uncover the one moral theory
implicit in common sense morality. They have mistakenly thought that Sidgwick
considered common sense morality to be another method or another moral theory,
perhaps identical with intuitionism. Marcus Singer, for instance, writes:
39 Ibid.
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 31
Another point of interest in Sidgwick’s account … is his identification of common
sense morality with Intuitive Morality, that is, with the philosophic theory of
Intuitionism.40
But common sense morality is not a moral theory of any sort. As we have seen, the
correct way of describing the relationship between common sense morality and
intuitionism is to say that intuitionism, along with egoism and utilitarianism, is implicit in
common sense morality. (It is true, however, that because one form of intuitionism
consists only of following rules for their rightness, intuitionism is closer to common
sense morality than either egoism or utilitarianism.)
Another misreading of Methods resulting from a failure to distinguish methods and
principles from the moral theories of which they are components is that it is a defense of
just one moral theory, utilitarianism. So, for example, Peter Singer, drawing from an
early article by Schneewind, sees Methods “as an elaborate attempt to ‘prove,’ in a
special sense, the truth of utilitarianism.”41
In a more recent article on Sidgwick’s methodology, Steven Sverdlik summarizes the
standard view of Methods.
40 Marcus G. Singer, “Ethics and Common Sense,” Revue Internationale de
Philosophie (1986), 238.
41 Peter Singer, “Sidgwick and Reflective Equilibrium,” Monist 58 (July 1974), 490–
517. The Schneewind article Singer refers to is “First Principles and Common Sense
Morality in Sidgwick’s Ethics,” (Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 45 (1963), 137–
156.
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 32
The first question to ask is, what did Sidgwick say in The Methods of Ethics
about his methodology? Now it is true that he disclaims on occasion the purpose
of arguing for any moral conclusions, seeking instead to expound and criticize the
major “methods of ethics” “from a neutral position, as impartially as possible.”
But readers have always taken this contention with a grain of salt and have seen
Sidgwick’s book as an extended defense of utilitarianism. This is not to say that
he is partial or unfair in his treatment of other positions. Sidgwick rightly enjoys a
reputation as one of the most fair-minded and judicious philosophers in the
tradition. Still, his own views are not completely hidden from view. And he does
make some remarks that suggest what sorts of arguments exist that support his illconcealed utilitarianism.42
Passing over this cavalier dismissal of the clearly-expressed intention of an author—a bad
policy, no matter who is being criticized, but especially someone as “judicious” as
Sidgwick—note that the author does not say whether Sidgwick is defending the principle
or the method of utilitarianism. And anyway it is not accurate to describe Methods as a
defense of utilitarianism or anything else; it is an analysis of common sense morality. 43
42 Steven Sverdlik, “Sidgwick’s Methodology,” Journal of the History of Philosophy
23 (October 4, 1985), 538–539, emphasis added.
43
Sidgwick certainly resists the characterization of Methods as a defense of
utilitarianism. In the preface to the second edition he has this to say:
I find that more than one critic has overlooked or disregarded the account
of the plan of my treatise, given in the original preface and in §5 of the
introductory chapter: and has consequently supposed me to be writing as an
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 33
Of course one might say that Sidgwick was mistaken in thinking that the moral theory
behind common sense morality was such as he described; if Sidgwick is to be criticized,
the criticism must be in those terms.
Bernard Williams is another who fails to notice the differences between methods,
principles, and theories in Methods. Because of this oversight, he gives a criticism of
Methods that does not apply to it:
One difficulty of the book is that it is formed by a distinction between the
intuitionist method and the Utilitarian method, which at an ultimate level
Sidgwick eventually rejects. I think that it is this structural feature of the book, the
fact that its design is not actually very well adjusted to its conclusions, that helps
to make some of it so boring ….44
But Sidgwick does not reject the distinction between the intuitionist method and the
utilitarian method; he is quite adamant about the importance of the distinction, even “at
an ultimate level.” Sidgwick thinks that moral philosophers must prefer the utilitarian
method to the intuitionist one, even if they give rise to the same actions. His preference
for the utilitarian method over the intuitionist one is sufficient indication that the
distinction between them is maintained, not rejected:
assailant of two of the methods which I chiefly examine, and a defender of the
third. (xii)
44 Bernard Williams, “The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and the
Ambitions of Ethics,” Cambridge Review (May 7, 1982), 186. The article is reprinted in
Making Sense of Humanity And Other Philosophical Papers 1982–1993 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995).
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 34
… [I]t may still be objected that this coincidence [of the intuitionist and utilitarian
methods] is merely general and qualitative, and that it breaks down when we
attempt to draw it out in detail, with the quantitative precision which Bentham
introduced into the discussion…. But it must be borne in mind that Utilitarianism
is not concerned to prove the absolute coincidence in results of the Intuitional and
Utilitarian methods. (424–425)
Both methods are connected to the utilitarian principle in the moral theory of Methods,
and it is to this fact about the structure of the moral theory to which Williams may be
referring. But of course this structural feature is not at all the same as rejecting a
distinction between the two methods. Indeed, given his commitment to common sense
morality, Sidgwick cannot reject any feature of the moral theory implicit in common
sense morality, including the intuitionist method.
IX
At the beginning of this essay I noted that reading Methods only as “isolated
insights,” as Schneewind puts it, is common. The practice continues; perhaps it could be
called “pericopism,” the tendency to read a work as individual, loosely related essays.
In her book on Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature, Annette Baier urges consideration
of that work as a whole, in order to counteract this tendency:
Philosophical reading habits still seem to be resistant to Hume’s attempt to link
the theses of Book One with those of Books Two and Three, indeed resistant to
Sidgwick’s Methods, page 35
treating the Treatise as a treatise, as distinct from a series of self-contained
section-long philosophical essays.45
It is a tribute to the richness and complexity of Henry Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics
that it runs the same risk. I hope that in the present work I have gone some way in
showing how to read Methods as a unified argument, and in so doing have helped to
move Sidgwick scholarship to the full maturity it deserves.46
Janice Daurio
Moorpark College
45 Annette C. Baier, A Progress of Sentiments (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1991), 158.
46
This essay is a revision of part of my doctoral dissertation, presented at Claremont
Graduate University in 1994. Charles Young, chair of the dissertation committee, saved
me from less clear earlier versions. I have learned from him both respect for the integrity
of a text and how to extract arguments from it. For these reasons, I owe him a debt of
gratitude. Similar debts are owed to the other members of my committee: Paul Hurley,
Linda Zagzebski, and earlier, A. R. Louch. Encouragement is perhaps the greatest gift;
from Marcus Singer I received initial and continuing encouragement; from me he can
expect continuing thanks.