Henry Sidgwick's Practical Ethics offers a novel approach to practical moral issues. In this article, I defend Sidgwick's approach against recent objections advanced by Sissela Bok, Karen Hanson, Michael S. Pritchard, and Michael Davis. In the first section, I provide some context within which to situate Sidgwick's view. In the second, I outline the main features of Sidgwick's methodology and the powerful rationale that lies behind it. I emphasize elements of the view that help to defend it, noting some affinities (...) it has with those of the later Rawls. In the third section, I indicate how it promises to help alleviate some difficulties facing modern practical ethics. In the fourth, I respond to Bok's objections. I argue that her own work on practical ethics has some similarities to Sidgwick's which should make them friends, not enemies. In the fifth section, I respond to Hanson, Pritchard and Davis. (shrink)

Do I have a special reason to care about my future, as opposed to yours? We reject the common belief that I do. Putting our thesis paradoxically, we say that nothing matters in survival: nothing in our continued existence justifies any special self-concern. Such an "extreme" view is standardly tied to ideas about the metaphysics of persons, but not by us. After rejecting various arguments against our thesis, we conclude that simplicity decides in its favor. Throughout the essay we honor (...) Jim Rachels, whose final days exemplified his own unselfish morality as well as the “neutralist” ideal we espouse. As an appendix, we include the last original work to be published by James Rachels, in which he criticizes Sidgwick’s most famous defense of egoism. (shrink)

In The Methods of Ethics, Henry Sidgwick maintains that resolution of the free will problem is of “limited” importance to ethics and to practical reasoning. Despite the view’s uniqueness, surprisingly little sustained attention has been paid to Sidgwick’s view. This chapter tries to remedy this situation. Part one clarifies Sidgwick’s argument for the claim that resolving the free will controversy is of only limited importance to ethics. Part two examines and tries to deflect objections to Sidgwick’s position raised by J. (...) B. Schneewind and Roger Crisp while putting forward a different objection. Part three raises objections to Sidgwick’s claim that “it is practically impossible to be guided, either in remunerating services or in punishing mischievous acts, by any other considerations than those which the Determinist interpretation of desert [and responsibility] would include”. The chapter concludes by noting that although Sidgwick’s view is not without its problems, his discussion forces us to consider which aspects of moral thinking (if any) survive the conclusion that free will is illusory. (shrink)

I suggest that Sidgwick, in his controversial “distinction passage,” has Schopenhauer in mind as someone who denies egoism on the ground that there are no separate individuals. I then reconstruct Sidgwick's argument in the passage. I take him to be defending a presupposition of the case for choosing egoism over utilitarianism. He is claiming that there are separate individuals. I close by rejecting alternative interpretations, on which Sidgwick is arguing directly for egoism.

I discuss the ideas of common sense and common-sense morality in Sidgwick. I argue that, far from aiming at overcoming common-sense morality, Sidgwick aimed purposely at grounding a consist code of morality by methods allegedly taken from the natural sciences, in order to reach also in the domain of morality the same kind of “mature” knowledge as in the natural sciences. His whole polemics with intuitionism was vitiated by the apriori assumption that the widespread ethos of the educated part of (...) humankind, not the theories of the intuitionist philosophers, was what was really worth considering as the expression of intuitionist ethics. In spite of the naïve positivist starting point Sidgwick was encouraged by his own approach in exploring the fruitfulness of coherentist methods for normative ethics. Thus, Sidgwick left an ambivalent legacy to twentieth-century ethics: the dogmatic idea of a “new” morality of a consequentialist kind, and the fruitful idea that we can argue rationally in normative ethics albeit without shared foundations. -/- . (shrink)

Sidgwick gives various tests for highest certainty. When he applies these tests to commonsense morality, he finds nothing of highest certainty. In contrast, when he applies these tests to his own axioms, he finds these axioms to have highest certainty. The axioms culminate in Benevolence: “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.” The axioms face challenges from two sides.First, one test requires that a claim not be denied by someone of whom one has no more reason to suspect of error than oneself. For Sidgwick, then, the egoist must not deny the axioms. But it would seem that an egoist would reject benevolence. Second, Sidgwick thinks he must show that the commonsense moralist agrees to the axioms. Benevolence seems to say that the only reason for departing from being bound to treat others like oneself is that more good would be produced. But the commonsense moralist will not agree that this is the only reason. In reply to the threat of an egoist's disagreement, this essay argues that many of the axioms should be read as having as their antecedent “from the point of view of the universe.” The essay replies to the objection that this makes these axioms analytic. In reply to the threat of a commonsense moralist's disagreement, this essay argues that each axiom states, in effect, a prima facie duty. The argument against the commonsense moralist concerns not benevolence but whether there are further duties that pass the tests. The essay raises the worry that here Sidgwick is unfair since sometimes he criticizes all-things-considered versions of commonsense duties; such criticisms would count against benevolence as well. (shrink)

Over the last fifty years, traditional farming has been replaced by industrial farming. Unlike traditional farming, industrial farming is abhorrently cruel to animals, environmentally destructive, awful for rural America, and wretched for human health. In this essay, I document those facts, explain why the industrial system has become dominant, and argue that we should boycott industrially produced meat. Also, I argue that we should not even kill animals humanely for food, given our uncertainty about which creatures possess a right to (...) life. In practice, then, we should be vegetarians. To underscore the importance of these issues, I use statistics to show that industrial farming has caused more pain and suffering than the Holocaust. (shrink)

How practical can ethics be? To what extent is it possible to put ethics, in the words of Samuel Johnson? In Practical Ethics, Henry Sidgwick offers the distillation of a lifetime of reflection on how to relate moral theory and practice. This book provides both a model and a cautionary example. Its lucid, urbane, and broad-gauged approach to practical moral issues is exemplary; but its very lucidity also exposes the moral risks in Sidgwick's attempt to isolate deliberation about these issues (...) from fundamental moral premises, including the interlocking intuitionist, utilitarian, and paternalist premises buttressing his conclusions about legitimate practices of violence and deceit. (shrink)

What behavior is rational? It’s rational to act ethically, some think. Others endorse instrumentalism — it is rational to pursue one’s goals. Still others say that acting rationally always involves promoting one’s self-interest. Many philosophers have given each of these answers. But these answers don’t really conflict; they aren’t vying to describe some shared concept or to solve some mutually acknowledged problem. In so far as this is debated, it is a pseudo-debate. The different uses of ‘rational action’ differ merely (...) in meaning. I shall defend the following claims: ‘rational behavior’ is used in ethical, prudential, and instrumental ways (section 1); these uses of ‘rational behavior’ are distinct (section 2); they do not represent competing theories of rational behavior (section 3); we should stop using ‘rational behavior’ ethically and prudentially, but we may continue its instrumental use (section 4). (shrink)