III.—Professor Sidgwick's Ethics

Abstract

WHAT I propose to do in this paper is to recapitulate very briefly indeed what I understand to be the main points of Professor Sidgwick's ethical view, and then to attempt to answer some of the objections to it that have been brought forward in recent criticisms.As regards The Good for mau, that which is in itself desirable, Mr. Sidgwick holds that "if we consider carefully such permanent results as are commonly judged to be good, other than qualities of human beings, we can find nothing that, on reflection, appears to possess this quality of goodness out of relation to human existence or at least to some consciousness or feeling "-that " beauty, knowledge, and other ideal goods, as well as all external material things, are only reasonably to be sought by men in as far as they conduce either (1) to Happiness or (2) to the Perfection or Excellence of human existence " {Methods of Ethics, Book I, ch. ix, § 4).With regard to Virtue, and the other "talents, gifts, and graces which make up the common notion of human Excellence or Perfection . . . . reflection shows that they are only valuable on account of the good or desirable conscious life in which they are or will be actualised, or which will be somehow promoted by their exercise" {Methods of Ethics, III, xiv, § 2, p. 395).Any quality of human life that is ultimately desirable " must belong to human life regarded on its psychical side, or briefly, Consciousness " (p. 396). And it is only Desirable Consciousness that we can regard as ultimate Good for man (p. 397). Consciousness that is painful or even merely

The Decline of Egoism

“… 11 Even Sidgwick's most loyal defender, Constance Jones, has little time for egoism. Egoism “is rational from an individual's point of view – supposing there were no one but himself” (Jones 1903–4: 50). In her Primer (Jones 1909), which follows the Methods closely, she notes egoism as a method of ethics at the start; proceeds, with Sidgwick, to argue for utilitarianism as best systematizing common-sense morality; and then ends, with no further discussion of egoism.…”