Abstract
Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics appears to defend a revised utilitarianism against both egoism and intuitionism, while conceding that the practical results of enlightened egoism largely coincide with those of utilitarianism, and that the utilitarian greatest happiness principle can be justified only as a fundamental intuition. It is true that Sidgwick was distressed by the description of his treatment of intuitional morality as ‘mere hostile criticism from the outside', and protested that that morality ‘is my own … as much as it is any man's; it is, as I say, the “Morality of Common Sense”, which I only attempt to represent so far as I share it’ (ME, x). However, he could not well have denied that, in The Methods of Ethics, the endorsement tentatively accorded to intuitional morality as a system is in the end withdrawn. Ultimately it is concluded that utilitarianism can define and correct what intuitional morality is vague or mistaken about, and can complete what common sense does not venture to treat at all.
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Reference9 articles.
1. Whewell's Ethics;Schneewind;Studies in Moral Philosophy, American Philosophical Quarterly Monographseries,1968
Cited by
3 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献