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The Methods of Ethics
This Hackett edition, first published in 1981, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the seventh (1907) edition as published by Macmillan and Company, Limited.
From the forward by John Rawls:
In the utilitarian tradition Henry Sidgwick (1838-1900) has an important place. His fundamental work, The Methods of Ethics (first edition 1874, seventh and last edition 1907, here reprinted), is the clearest and most accessible formulation of what we may call 'the classical utilitarian doctorine.' This classical doctrine holds that the ultimate moral end of social and individual action is the greatest net sum of the happiness of all sentient beings. Happinesss is specified (as positive or negative) by the net balance of pleasure over pain, or, as Sidgwick preferred to say, as the net balance of agreeable over disagreeable consciousness. . . .
From the forward by John Rawls:
In the utilitarian tradition Henry Sidgwick (1838-1900) has an important place. His fundamental work, The Methods of Ethics (first edition 1874, seventh and last edition 1907, here reprinted), is the clearest and most accessible formulation of what we may call 'the classical utilitarian doctorine.' This classical doctrine holds that the ultimate moral end of social and individual action is the greatest net sum of the happiness of all sentient beings. Happinesss is specified (as positive or negative) by the net balance of pleasure over pain, or, as Sidgwick preferred to say, as the net balance of agreeable over disagreeable consciousness. . . .
630 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1874
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1715 people want to read
About the author
Henry Sidgwick
149 books35 followersHenry Sidgwick (1838-1900) was an English utilitarian philosopher and economist. He was the Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1883 until his death, and is best known in philosophy for his utilitarian treatise The Methods of Ethics. He was one of the founders and first president of the Society for Psychical Research and a member of the Metaphysical Society and promoted the higher education of women. His work in economics has also had a lasting influence.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
May 5, 2025
The nascent amorality of these musings is, I would hazard to say, the Rosetta Stone for Christians living through the present Time of Tribulations.
We can here see the dawn of Not Giving a Crap about tradition.
If an elderly family member has become useless, perhaps he or she should be eliminated. Do YOU believe that?
Of course you don't - but that's likely the direction utilititarian ethics is now taking...
As many of you know, I am not a big fan of utilitarian thinking - the kind of thinking that claims value in life depends on the usefulness of things to the majority of people in our world.
That's the kind of thinking that has landed us in the confusion of our soupy, mediocre modern mindset.
Now it's going too far!
Philosophy must start with self-knowledge. Plato said that two and a half millennia ago and it still holds good.
Philosophy, said Aristotle, extending Plato's drift shortly afterward, is knowing ourselves - our minds, spirits and bodies - and knowing the way the world works. We are the world around us.
We MUST start our questioning (as the Phenomenologists later said) in concrete RELATION to ourselves, our thoughts and emotions, and the world around us, including our family.
In other words, we can't always daydream - we MUST be grounded Here and Now.
The here and now is for most of us an impossible goal, as witness the millions who have failed bitterly in putting Eckhart Tolle's maxims into practice. And so it must have seemed impossible to Sidgwick.
But Tolle is right, though:
The Perfect Way is not easy -
A Tenth of an Inch of a difference -
And Heaven and Earth are set apart.
The Zen patriarch who said that was right too! Understanding don’t come easy. And so also said Dante…
Give up Hope
All you who enter in here.
Yes, the Here and Now, clearly perceived, is the Sum of all Fears. Seeing the universe in a grain of sand is no fun. We prefer TV Sitcom reruns over that Hell. But it’s the only path to Freedom.
And Sidgwick, who wrote this book in 1907, landed us moderns into confusion. A perfect parody of his book would be an episode of Home Improvement. We all prefer to make snide comments about keeping busy and useful, and giving it our best shot.
None of us is perfect, Sidgwick and myself included.
So Sidgwick’s thinking was wildly denigrated by the Beats and Hippies ( like in the 60's tune that goes "if you can't please everybody, you gotta please yourself"). And it's spawned the modern outcry against plastic culture in independent videos, blog sites, and (yes) our book reviews.
We don't like mediocre, chicken soup mush.
But those of us who have started to think for ourselves -
Don't like utilitarian soup -
And we don’t dig Henry Sidgwick!
For we VALUE human life.
We can here see the dawn of Not Giving a Crap about tradition.
If an elderly family member has become useless, perhaps he or she should be eliminated. Do YOU believe that?
Of course you don't - but that's likely the direction utilititarian ethics is now taking...
As many of you know, I am not a big fan of utilitarian thinking - the kind of thinking that claims value in life depends on the usefulness of things to the majority of people in our world.
That's the kind of thinking that has landed us in the confusion of our soupy, mediocre modern mindset.
Now it's going too far!
Philosophy must start with self-knowledge. Plato said that two and a half millennia ago and it still holds good.
Philosophy, said Aristotle, extending Plato's drift shortly afterward, is knowing ourselves - our minds, spirits and bodies - and knowing the way the world works. We are the world around us.
We MUST start our questioning (as the Phenomenologists later said) in concrete RELATION to ourselves, our thoughts and emotions, and the world around us, including our family.
In other words, we can't always daydream - we MUST be grounded Here and Now.
The here and now is for most of us an impossible goal, as witness the millions who have failed bitterly in putting Eckhart Tolle's maxims into practice. And so it must have seemed impossible to Sidgwick.
But Tolle is right, though:
The Perfect Way is not easy -
A Tenth of an Inch of a difference -
And Heaven and Earth are set apart.
The Zen patriarch who said that was right too! Understanding don’t come easy. And so also said Dante…
Give up Hope
All you who enter in here.
Yes, the Here and Now, clearly perceived, is the Sum of all Fears. Seeing the universe in a grain of sand is no fun. We prefer TV Sitcom reruns over that Hell. But it’s the only path to Freedom.
And Sidgwick, who wrote this book in 1907, landed us moderns into confusion. A perfect parody of his book would be an episode of Home Improvement. We all prefer to make snide comments about keeping busy and useful, and giving it our best shot.
None of us is perfect, Sidgwick and myself included.
So Sidgwick’s thinking was wildly denigrated by the Beats and Hippies ( like in the 60's tune that goes "if you can't please everybody, you gotta please yourself"). And it's spawned the modern outcry against plastic culture in independent videos, blog sites, and (yes) our book reviews.
We don't like mediocre, chicken soup mush.
But those of us who have started to think for ourselves -
Don't like utilitarian soup -
And we don’t dig Henry Sidgwick!
For we VALUE human life.
January 3, 2023
Henry Sidgwick is the least well-known of the great 19th Century Utilitarian philosophers (Bentham, Mill and even Godwin being more recognisable), but he was the most rigorous. In this superb book – which I would above all recommend to political conservatives – a number of normative ethical theories are subjected to detailed, exhaustive examination. He mainly divides these ‘methods of ethics’ into two categories: Utilitarianism on the one hand, and the various duties and virtues which fall under the umbrella of ‘Common-Sense Morality’ on the other.
Sidgwick’s aim is to sift through humanity’s various moral intuitions (which lead different people to endorse different principles) and see which ones stand up to scrutiny and rational reflection. Are there self-evident moral truths, akin to logical and mathematical truths? After considering and rejecting the various features of Common-Sense Morality on the grounds that they are contradictory (and scarcely self-evident, when defined with precision), Sidgwick ultimately comes to the conclusion (in Chapter XIV of Book III!) that Utilitarianism is the correct ethical system:
He gets there firstly by intuiting fundamental axioms, including the principle of Universal Benevolence. He then, interestingly, goes on to show how the various contradictions and inconsistencies in Common-Sense Morality are best solved by Utilitarianism (and indeed, Utilitarian principles are commonly, as we all have experience of, used to arbitrate between various ‘common sense’ intuitions). Intuition is not, therefore, a dirty word for Sidgwick. It is rather the case that Common-Sense Morality is roughly identified with ‘knee-jerk’ moral intuitions, whereas Utilitarianism results from a more sophisticated ‘Philosophical Intuitionism’ that might be drawn upon when we ‘sit down in a cool hour’.
However, lest his readers think that Common-Sense Morality can be tossed into the garbage heap in some Utilitarian Revolution, Sidgwick (in Book IV) suddenly mounts something of a passionate defence of it – but on strictly Utilitarian grounds (after all, part of Sidgwick’s argument is that the morality of common sense is akin to a rough approximation of Utilitarianism):
Indeed, according to Sidgwick, the Utilitarian should:
Thus, if Utilitarians would recommend Singer’s Practical Ethics, or some of Bentham’s more provocative essays, to a leftist who might appreciate how radical Utilitarians have at times been, they should surely prescribe The Methods of Ethics to a conservative who thinks all adherents of the philosophy are intent on undermining Traditional Moral Values.
This is not to say that Sidgwick was opposed to change (he was a prominent advocate of higher education for women, and co-founded the second Cambridge college to which women could be admitted). He notes that the actual order is “imperfect” and “it will be the Utilitarian’s duty to aid in improving it”. Like conservatives, though, he had an appreciation for the limits of human nature: “it is easier to pull down than to build up; easier to weaken or destroy the restraining force that a moral rule, habitually and generally obeyed, has over men’s minds, than to substitute it for a new restraining habit, not similarly sustained by tradition and custom”. He was also wary of political backlash.
The entirety of Book IV, in which this discussion is contained, and which deals with Utilitarianism on a practical level, is a delight to read (especially for someone who already thinks that they have most reason to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering). And it emphasises the fact that this is primarily a book about normative ethics rather than meta-ethics (although its meta-ethical foundations are spelled out more clearly than in most works of normative ethics). For a defence of his basic meta-ethical approach, the three volumes of Derek Parfit’s On What Matters are indispensable.
The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and Contemporary Ethics by Peter Singer and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek is also an excellent companion to this book (though by no means a substitute for it), and actually goes further than Sidgwick himself did, for he somewhat perplexingly holds his fire when it comes to a third ‘method of ethics’, namely Egoism. While Sidgwick himself was a Utilitarian, he believed that he would not fully be able to convince an Egoist of the veracity of Utilitarianism. Singer and Lazari-Radek, among other things, employ evolutionary debunking arguments to weaken Egoism and land on Utilitarianism.
Overall, while it is tempting to shy away from reading Sidgwick due to his exacting prose and style of argumentation, anyone interested in moral philosophy should thoroughly study and enjoy The Methods of Ethics.
Sidgwick’s aim is to sift through humanity’s various moral intuitions (which lead different people to endorse different principles) and see which ones stand up to scrutiny and rational reflection. Are there self-evident moral truths, akin to logical and mathematical truths? After considering and rejecting the various features of Common-Sense Morality on the grounds that they are contradictory (and scarcely self-evident, when defined with precision), Sidgwick ultimately comes to the conclusion (in Chapter XIV of Book III!) that Utilitarianism is the correct ethical system:
… I am finally led to the conclusion (which at the close of the last chapter seemed to be premature), 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.
He gets there firstly by intuiting fundamental axioms, including the principle of Universal Benevolence. He then, interestingly, goes on to show how the various contradictions and inconsistencies in Common-Sense Morality are best solved by Utilitarianism (and indeed, Utilitarian principles are commonly, as we all have experience of, used to arbitrate between various ‘common sense’ intuitions). Intuition is not, therefore, a dirty word for Sidgwick. It is rather the case that Common-Sense Morality is roughly identified with ‘knee-jerk’ moral intuitions, whereas Utilitarianism results from a more sophisticated ‘Philosophical Intuitionism’ that might be drawn upon when we ‘sit down in a cool hour’.
However, lest his readers think that Common-Sense Morality can be tossed into the garbage heap in some Utilitarian Revolution, Sidgwick (in Book IV) suddenly mounts something of a passionate defence of it – but on strictly Utilitarian grounds (after all, part of Sidgwick’s argument is that the morality of common sense is akin to a rough approximation of Utilitarianism):
No doubt a thoughtful and well-instructed Utilitarian may see dimly a certain way ahead, and his attitude towards existing morality may be to some extent modified by what he sees. He may discern in the future certain evils impending, which can only be effectually warded off by the adoption of new and more stringent views of duty in certain departments; while, on the other hand, he may see a prospect of social changes which will render a relaxation of other parts of the moral code expedient or inevitable. But if he keeps [away]… from fanciful Utopian conjecture, the form of society to which his practical conclusions relate will be one varying but little from the actual.
Indeed, according to Sidgwick, the Utilitarian should:
contemplate the established moral order with reverence and wonder, as a marvellous product of nature, the result of long centuries of growth… he will handle it with respectful delicacy as a mechanism… which no ‘politicians or philosophers’ could create, yet without which… the life of man would become ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’.
Thus, if Utilitarians would recommend Singer’s Practical Ethics, or some of Bentham’s more provocative essays, to a leftist who might appreciate how radical Utilitarians have at times been, they should surely prescribe The Methods of Ethics to a conservative who thinks all adherents of the philosophy are intent on undermining Traditional Moral Values.
This is not to say that Sidgwick was opposed to change (he was a prominent advocate of higher education for women, and co-founded the second Cambridge college to which women could be admitted). He notes that the actual order is “imperfect” and “it will be the Utilitarian’s duty to aid in improving it”. Like conservatives, though, he had an appreciation for the limits of human nature: “it is easier to pull down than to build up; easier to weaken or destroy the restraining force that a moral rule, habitually and generally obeyed, has over men’s minds, than to substitute it for a new restraining habit, not similarly sustained by tradition and custom”. He was also wary of political backlash.
The entirety of Book IV, in which this discussion is contained, and which deals with Utilitarianism on a practical level, is a delight to read (especially for someone who already thinks that they have most reason to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering). And it emphasises the fact that this is primarily a book about normative ethics rather than meta-ethics (although its meta-ethical foundations are spelled out more clearly than in most works of normative ethics). For a defence of his basic meta-ethical approach, the three volumes of Derek Parfit’s On What Matters are indispensable.
The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and Contemporary Ethics by Peter Singer and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek is also an excellent companion to this book (though by no means a substitute for it), and actually goes further than Sidgwick himself did, for he somewhat perplexingly holds his fire when it comes to a third ‘method of ethics’, namely Egoism. While Sidgwick himself was a Utilitarian, he believed that he would not fully be able to convince an Egoist of the veracity of Utilitarianism. Singer and Lazari-Radek, among other things, employ evolutionary debunking arguments to weaken Egoism and land on Utilitarianism.
Overall, while it is tempting to shy away from reading Sidgwick due to his exacting prose and style of argumentation, anyone interested in moral philosophy should thoroughly study and enjoy The Methods of Ethics.
October 1, 2024
My first reading of the book was from Nov 25, 2023 to Jan 11, 2024. My second reading of the book was from Sep 5, 2024 to Sep 17, 2024.
I write this review only after a second reading, this year. It is quite funny how I found myself reading this book twice over a bit less than a year. Considering all this, I think I can express my opinion that The Method of Ethics is truly a unique work in the history of philosophy. This book should stand along the Nicomachean Ethics and the Groundwork of Metaphysics of Morals as the greatest expression of moral philosophy in history. Despite all the dense sentences and bad word choices that are contained in this book, it is worth a whole education in moral philosophy. I think this work is accessible to any undergraduate liberal art student. I think you would need some of background knowledge in meta ethics and moral epistemology before reading this work. The depth of the work can only be appreciated after carefully rereading many chapters, because with Sidgwick you have to recognize the information with perspicacity. Sidgwick can write dozens of pages about banalities of common sense or some more obscure réflexion on now barely discussed work of philosophy, and in five short pages express the most essential doctrines quite briefly. I think a knowledge of the secondary literature helped me out alot at making sense of the work, my book is covered in marginalia. You have to be very careful of the structures of the argument, the sentences are long winded, though the Table of Contents is so useful. Sidgwick makes some errors along the way, but they are few, the secondary literature is very interesting on this subject. If you think that I think that Sidgwick is a bad writer because of what I said, you missed my point. Few writers ever matched the rigorous endeavour that is The Method of Ethics, Sidgwick display such an impressive analytical skill. Yes, some chapters are confused… such as the one on Hedonism, which is a shame. Nonetheless, much of the work stand as an accurate study of the realm of moral theories. Sidgwick only wrote at a certain time in history, henceforth the terminology of the book is extremely confusing without a proper ideas of the distinctions of many terms. The intelligent reader will be able to make it through all those different conceptual difficulties to see what Sidgwick is trying to say, I do not doubt it, the book just doesn’t care about how fast you want to read it. This work requires a lot of time and it is time well spent. I could say much more about this work, but this discussion has to be carried outside in the world of academic philosophy.
I write this review only after a second reading, this year. It is quite funny how I found myself reading this book twice over a bit less than a year. Considering all this, I think I can express my opinion that The Method of Ethics is truly a unique work in the history of philosophy. This book should stand along the Nicomachean Ethics and the Groundwork of Metaphysics of Morals as the greatest expression of moral philosophy in history. Despite all the dense sentences and bad word choices that are contained in this book, it is worth a whole education in moral philosophy. I think this work is accessible to any undergraduate liberal art student. I think you would need some of background knowledge in meta ethics and moral epistemology before reading this work. The depth of the work can only be appreciated after carefully rereading many chapters, because with Sidgwick you have to recognize the information with perspicacity. Sidgwick can write dozens of pages about banalities of common sense or some more obscure réflexion on now barely discussed work of philosophy, and in five short pages express the most essential doctrines quite briefly. I think a knowledge of the secondary literature helped me out alot at making sense of the work, my book is covered in marginalia. You have to be very careful of the structures of the argument, the sentences are long winded, though the Table of Contents is so useful. Sidgwick makes some errors along the way, but they are few, the secondary literature is very interesting on this subject. If you think that I think that Sidgwick is a bad writer because of what I said, you missed my point. Few writers ever matched the rigorous endeavour that is The Method of Ethics, Sidgwick display such an impressive analytical skill. Yes, some chapters are confused… such as the one on Hedonism, which is a shame. Nonetheless, much of the work stand as an accurate study of the realm of moral theories. Sidgwick only wrote at a certain time in history, henceforth the terminology of the book is extremely confusing without a proper ideas of the distinctions of many terms. The intelligent reader will be able to make it through all those different conceptual difficulties to see what Sidgwick is trying to say, I do not doubt it, the book just doesn’t care about how fast you want to read it. This work requires a lot of time and it is time well spent. I could say much more about this work, but this discussion has to be carried outside in the world of academic philosophy.
January 31, 2023
There's a lot to be said about my experience working my way through Sidgwick's masterpiece, and the many notes and pictures I have of pages/sections to circle back to are going to warrant some proper time before writing a full review, but I certainly will in the time to come!
January 7, 2018
What we commonly demand or long for, under the name of Ideal Justice, is not so much the realisation of Freedom, as the distribution of good and evil according to Desert: indeed it is as a means to this latter end that Freedom is often advocated; for it is said that if we protect men completely from mutual interference, each will reap the good and bad consequences of his own conduct, and so be happy or unhappy in proportion to his deserts.
If there is one aspect that sums up both the brilliance and difficulty of this book, it would be its thoroughness. Sidgwick comprehensively covers all the major ethical theories up to that time, objections to them, and rigorous responses to each. Many reviewers describe The Methods of Ethics as simply a defense of utilitarianism, but I think this is an unfair characterization. While Sidgwick does ultimately advocate universal hedonism as the most coherent ethical system, he is rigorous in his accounts of moral intuitionism and egoistic hedonism. The work is really more of a critique of the major ethical theories of the time than simply a defense of utilitarianism. Reading Sidgwick is not like reading Kant, Mill, or other moral philosophers because he seems ultimately more concerned with the practical application of ethics and its concomitance with common sense, whereas most ethical theorists are seeking to defend their theories wholesale, regardless of conflicts with practical implementation. Sidgwick seems comfortable admitting the weaknesses in the ethical system he advocates, simply because the other methods he examines have more.
If there is one aspect that sums up both the brilliance and difficulty of this book, it would be its thoroughness. Sidgwick comprehensively covers all the major ethical theories up to that time, objections to them, and rigorous responses to each. Many reviewers describe The Methods of Ethics as simply a defense of utilitarianism, but I think this is an unfair characterization. While Sidgwick does ultimately advocate universal hedonism as the most coherent ethical system, he is rigorous in his accounts of moral intuitionism and egoistic hedonism. The work is really more of a critique of the major ethical theories of the time than simply a defense of utilitarianism. Reading Sidgwick is not like reading Kant, Mill, or other moral philosophers because he seems ultimately more concerned with the practical application of ethics and its concomitance with common sense, whereas most ethical theorists are seeking to defend their theories wholesale, regardless of conflicts with practical implementation. Sidgwick seems comfortable admitting the weaknesses in the ethical system he advocates, simply because the other methods he examines have more.
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April 12, 2022if my man sidgwick would have just changed his fundamental ethical concept from “the right” to “the good” he could have saved himself 208 pages and us poor philosophy students several headaches and tears
February 1, 2025
There’s an amusing story about how much my philosophical hero, Derek Parfit, adored this book:
I’ve read Methods of Ethics twice (admittedly the first time was many years ago) and can attest that I do not feel prepared to pass any sort of comprehensive exam, nor would I expect a third reading to rectify that.
The three ‘methods’ covered by the book are Egoistic Hedonism (trying to maximize your own happiness), Intuitionism (trying to do what you intuitively perceive to be right regardless of consequences), and Utilitarianism (trying to maximize everyone’s happiness). Sidgwick is somewhat equivocal about the decision between egoism and utilitarianism (at the end of the book he seems to say that in situations where behaving morally would go against one’s own self-interest, reason cannot tell you which to prioritize; it will simply depend on what you feel stronger “impulses” toward.[2]) But his discussion of intuitionism and “the Morality of Common Sense” is focused on showing that you can’t build a precise, coherent system out of common-sense morality, and that the difficulties point us toward utilitarianism as the solution.
Sidgwick argues that utilitarianism does a good job of unifying and justifying much of common-sense morality (even though they don’t line up perfectly):
I’m not super interested in this as a way of arguing for utilitarianism, since I think arguing for utilitarianism directly is the easiest way to establish a reason for caring about morality in the first place.
Some topics for further thought:
Utilitarian just-so stories. I think we should be a bit uncomfortable with how easy it is to come up with utilitarian justifications for predetermined conclusions. Sidgwick, for example, argues that his culture’s disapproval of extramarital sex makes perfect sense on utilitarian grounds[5]. To me his argument seems like a just-so story motivated more by a desire to vindicate preexisting biases than to seriously determine the true implications of utilitarianism. But lots of discussion around utilitarianism today takes a similar form. As an extreme case, consider the thought experiment of whether to harvest organs from one healthy person to save multiple dying people: most of us treat this as a puzzle where the goal is to prove that utilitarianism doesn’t have the radical implication (saying yes to the harvesting) that you might initially think it does. And I think most of us quickly find an explanation that satisfies us. But how do we know we’re not making the same mistake Sidgwick did? Is there anything Sidgwick could have done (other than be born a century later) that would have allowed him to tell whether his arguments about sexual ethics were objectively strong or just a reflection of his culture’s prejudices?
Epistemic challenges. The discussion of egoism spends a lot of time on the difficulty of knowing what makes you happiest. Sidgwick lists a lot of difficulties with trying to figure it out by empirical observation, but also thinks the alternatives to empiricism about this are pretty weak. (One alternative is to make deductions from a scientific theory about “the causes of pleasure and pain”[6], but he didn’t think a solid theory was available.) I don’t think I’ve taken this problem seriously enough in the past. One might hope modern science puts us in a much better position than Sidgwick, but from an individual’s perspective it seems hard to tell what the science really says on this topic, given the prevalence of bad science reporting, studies that don’t replicate, etc.
The information content of common-sense morality. Obviously, difficulty in figuring out what makes people happy is a problem for utilitarianism, too. But since Sidgwick thinks common-sense morality is “roughly and generally but not precisely or completely adapted to the production of the greatest possible happiness for sentient beings generally”[7], he thinks the utilitarian should use it as a starting point to be cautiously revised. I wonder: how strongly does the existence of some moral norm count as evidence that the norm promotes the general happiness? It seems intuitive to me that it counts at least some, but is it more than weak evidence? And what extra context is most useful in strengthening or weakening the evidential value—data about how broadly accepted (in different times and cultures) the norm is, or an account of its origins, or…?
Reciprocity. Sometimes people try to ground morality entirely in some notion of reciprocity, arguing that it’s in our best interests to be good to others because doing so will lead others to treat us better. I think it’s pretty obvious why that’s an inadequate theory: we all have opportunities to cheat and benefit ourselves at others’ expense. But Sidgwick also points out some less-frequently-mentioned problems with reciprocity. It can actually encourage immoral behavior: “…a man is not useful to others by his virtue only, but sometimes rather by his vice; or more often by a certain admixture of unscrupulousness with his good and useful qualities.”[8] (I’m thinking of lawyers who lie on behalf of clients, politicians who accomplish constituents’ goals using dirty tactics, CEOs who increase shareholder profits by exploiting workers…[9]) “And further, morality prescribes the performance of duties equally towards all… but on the principle of Reciprocity we should exhibit our useful qualities chiefly towards the rich and powerful… while we may reasonably omit our duties to the poor and feeble… unless they are able to excite the sympathy of persons who can harm us.”[10] I would add that keeping the approval of the powerful often depends on being willing to overlook injustice against the powerless.
Remorse. Sidgwick thinks the debate about whether we have free will or not doesn’t really matter much for ethics. One reason people might think it matters is the worry that determinists won’t feel “remorse” and will therefore feel less motivated to avoid wrongdoing. Sidgwick downplays this by saying that people find plenty of motivation to fix various issues in their lives that don’t involve remorse, so such motivation should be sufficient for fixing their moral failings too[11]. I think this raises a philosophical question—should belief in determinism prevent people from feeling remorse?—as well as empirical questions: does belief in determinism prevent people from feeling remorse? And is remorse important in changing behavior? There seems to be some relevant research[12].
Notes that I took on each chapter are available here.
[1] David Edmonds, Parfit: A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023), 125–26.
[2] Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics (Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co, 1981), 508.
[3] Ibid., 425.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., 451.
[6] Ibid., 176.
[7] Ibid., 475.
[8] Ibid., 168.
[9] Ibid., 169 mentions lying lawyers and politicians taking bribes in a closely-related point.
[10] Ibid., 168.
[11] Ibid., 71.
[12] Tyler F. Stillman and Roy F. Baumeister, “Guilty, Free, and Wise: Determinism and Psychopathy Diminish Learning from Negative Emotions,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46, no. 6 (November 2010): 951–60, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2010.05.012.
(crosspost)
Parfit and [a student named Larry Temkin] would become close, but in 1977 the teacher inadvertently nearly stymied the career of the student. Temkin was preparing for his oral exam, a ‘comprehensive’ exam, which would partially be about utilitarianism and which he was required to pass to move to the dissertation stage. ‘What should I read?’ he wanted to know. ‘Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics’, Parfit replied. Temkin had to travel to New York to get hold of a copy, and when he’d read this huge tome, he went back to Parfit. ‘What should I read next’? ‘He replied, “Reread Sidgwick.”’ Temkin reread it and approached Parfit again; ‘Is there anything I should read on utilitarianism besides Sidgwick?’. Parfit advised him to reread Sidgwick a third time, rather than devote energy to inferior writings. Eventually it came to the oral exam. Temkin was questioned about various standard books and papers in the field, but not having read them was unable to comment. One examiner was exasperated: “Larry, this is supposed to be a comprehensive exam—what have you read?!!!” At which point another of the examiners, Derek Parfit, ‘raised his finger and emphatically interjected, “He has read Sidgwick!!!”’[1]
I’ve read Methods of Ethics twice (admittedly the first time was many years ago) and can attest that I do not feel prepared to pass any sort of comprehensive exam, nor would I expect a third reading to rectify that.
The three ‘methods’ covered by the book are Egoistic Hedonism (trying to maximize your own happiness), Intuitionism (trying to do what you intuitively perceive to be right regardless of consequences), and Utilitarianism (trying to maximize everyone’s happiness). Sidgwick is somewhat equivocal about the decision between egoism and utilitarianism (at the end of the book he seems to say that in situations where behaving morally would go against one’s own self-interest, reason cannot tell you which to prioritize; it will simply depend on what you feel stronger “impulses” toward.[2]) But his discussion of intuitionism and “the Morality of Common Sense” is focused on showing that you can’t build a precise, coherent system out of common-sense morality, and that the difficulties point us toward utilitarianism as the solution.
Utilitarians are … called upon to show a natural transition from the Morality of Common Sense to Utilitarianism… so that Utilitarianism may be presented as the scientifically complete and systematically reflective form of that regulation of conduct, which through the whole course of human history has always tended substantially in the same direction.[3]
Sidgwick argues that utilitarianism does a good job of unifying and justifying much of common-sense morality (even though they don’t line up perfectly):
It may be shown, I think, that the Utilitarian estimate of consequences not only supports broadly the current moral rules, but also sustains their generally received limitations and qualifications: that, again, it explains anomalies in the Morality of Common Sense, which from any other point of view must seem unsatisfactory to the reflective intellect…[4]
I’m not super interested in this as a way of arguing for utilitarianism, since I think arguing for utilitarianism directly is the easiest way to establish a reason for caring about morality in the first place.
Some topics for further thought:
Utilitarian just-so stories. I think we should be a bit uncomfortable with how easy it is to come up with utilitarian justifications for predetermined conclusions. Sidgwick, for example, argues that his culture’s disapproval of extramarital sex makes perfect sense on utilitarian grounds[5]. To me his argument seems like a just-so story motivated more by a desire to vindicate preexisting biases than to seriously determine the true implications of utilitarianism. But lots of discussion around utilitarianism today takes a similar form. As an extreme case, consider the thought experiment of whether to harvest organs from one healthy person to save multiple dying people: most of us treat this as a puzzle where the goal is to prove that utilitarianism doesn’t have the radical implication (saying yes to the harvesting) that you might initially think it does. And I think most of us quickly find an explanation that satisfies us. But how do we know we’re not making the same mistake Sidgwick did? Is there anything Sidgwick could have done (other than be born a century later) that would have allowed him to tell whether his arguments about sexual ethics were objectively strong or just a reflection of his culture’s prejudices?
Epistemic challenges. The discussion of egoism spends a lot of time on the difficulty of knowing what makes you happiest. Sidgwick lists a lot of difficulties with trying to figure it out by empirical observation, but also thinks the alternatives to empiricism about this are pretty weak. (One alternative is to make deductions from a scientific theory about “the causes of pleasure and pain”[6], but he didn’t think a solid theory was available.) I don’t think I’ve taken this problem seriously enough in the past. One might hope modern science puts us in a much better position than Sidgwick, but from an individual’s perspective it seems hard to tell what the science really says on this topic, given the prevalence of bad science reporting, studies that don’t replicate, etc.
The information content of common-sense morality. Obviously, difficulty in figuring out what makes people happy is a problem for utilitarianism, too. But since Sidgwick thinks common-sense morality is “roughly and generally but not precisely or completely adapted to the production of the greatest possible happiness for sentient beings generally”[7], he thinks the utilitarian should use it as a starting point to be cautiously revised. I wonder: how strongly does the existence of some moral norm count as evidence that the norm promotes the general happiness? It seems intuitive to me that it counts at least some, but is it more than weak evidence? And what extra context is most useful in strengthening or weakening the evidential value—data about how broadly accepted (in different times and cultures) the norm is, or an account of its origins, or…?
Reciprocity. Sometimes people try to ground morality entirely in some notion of reciprocity, arguing that it’s in our best interests to be good to others because doing so will lead others to treat us better. I think it’s pretty obvious why that’s an inadequate theory: we all have opportunities to cheat and benefit ourselves at others’ expense. But Sidgwick also points out some less-frequently-mentioned problems with reciprocity. It can actually encourage immoral behavior: “…a man is not useful to others by his virtue only, but sometimes rather by his vice; or more often by a certain admixture of unscrupulousness with his good and useful qualities.”[8] (I’m thinking of lawyers who lie on behalf of clients, politicians who accomplish constituents’ goals using dirty tactics, CEOs who increase shareholder profits by exploiting workers…[9]) “And further, morality prescribes the performance of duties equally towards all… but on the principle of Reciprocity we should exhibit our useful qualities chiefly towards the rich and powerful… while we may reasonably omit our duties to the poor and feeble… unless they are able to excite the sympathy of persons who can harm us.”[10] I would add that keeping the approval of the powerful often depends on being willing to overlook injustice against the powerless.
Remorse. Sidgwick thinks the debate about whether we have free will or not doesn’t really matter much for ethics. One reason people might think it matters is the worry that determinists won’t feel “remorse” and will therefore feel less motivated to avoid wrongdoing. Sidgwick downplays this by saying that people find plenty of motivation to fix various issues in their lives that don’t involve remorse, so such motivation should be sufficient for fixing their moral failings too[11]. I think this raises a philosophical question—should belief in determinism prevent people from feeling remorse?—as well as empirical questions: does belief in determinism prevent people from feeling remorse? And is remorse important in changing behavior? There seems to be some relevant research[12].
Notes that I took on each chapter are available here.
[1] David Edmonds, Parfit: A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023), 125–26.
[2] Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics (Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co, 1981), 508.
[3] Ibid., 425.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., 451.
[6] Ibid., 176.
[7] Ibid., 475.
[8] Ibid., 168.
[9] Ibid., 169 mentions lying lawyers and politicians taking bribes in a closely-related point.
[10] Ibid., 168.
[11] Ibid., 71.
[12] Tyler F. Stillman and Roy F. Baumeister, “Guilty, Free, and Wise: Determinism and Psychopathy Diminish Learning from Negative Emotions,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46, no. 6 (November 2010): 951–60, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2010.05.012.
(crosspost)
December 30, 2022
Or as I affectionately call it 'The Methods of Henry Sidgwick'
Woweewow, this is a dense and perceptive book. So so clear on so many topics, human motivation, determinism, evolution and society. Easily, easily the best classical utilitarian text and possibly the best utilitarian text overall.
It's dry. Sure. But do you want a light fun read that is false or something that's deeply insightful, even handed, and disarmingly honest?
It also is very useful for exposing the shortcomings of utilitarianism. Particularly, his views on the axiomatic nature of ethics are suspiciously unconvincing in comparison to the rest of the book. HUGE recommendation if you're interested in ethics.
I also really admire his process of coming back to the same text over and over again to perfect it, and it seems ironically fitting for this and other reasons that it has a forward from Rawls. Goodness knows there's enough philosophy books in the world, and really not enough that have been written with this much care, attention and clarity.
Woweewow, this is a dense and perceptive book. So so clear on so many topics, human motivation, determinism, evolution and society. Easily, easily the best classical utilitarian text and possibly the best utilitarian text overall.
It's dry. Sure. But do you want a light fun read that is false or something that's deeply insightful, even handed, and disarmingly honest?
It also is very useful for exposing the shortcomings of utilitarianism. Particularly, his views on the axiomatic nature of ethics are suspiciously unconvincing in comparison to the rest of the book. HUGE recommendation if you're interested in ethics.
I also really admire his process of coming back to the same text over and over again to perfect it, and it seems ironically fitting for this and other reasons that it has a forward from Rawls. Goodness knows there's enough philosophy books in the world, and really not enough that have been written with this much care, attention and clarity.
July 15, 2025
The Methods of Ethics is not exactly light summer reading, but I found myself nodding along more often than I expected.
Some philosophers try to make morality look neat, like there’s one clear method for doing what’s right. Sidgwick doesn’t do that. Instead, he dives into the messiness of real moral life: how we actually make decisions, how we justify them, and what happens when our different ideas of “right” clash.
He explores three major ways we might reason morally:
• Egoism – acting in our own long-term interest
• Intuitionism – following moral duties we feel are self-evident
• Utilitarianism – doing what maximizes happiness for the greatest number
What I liked about Sidqwicks's approach, is that he doesn’t just pick one and ignore the rest. He gives each method a fair hearing, tests them against experience and logic, and tries to see where they overlap, and where they don’t.
But what I appreciated most was his method, not just his theories. He offers a way of thinking ethically that’s grounded in observation and reflection:
1. Expose yourself to a wide range of experiences.
2. Observe what others go through, friends, strangers, even fictional characters.
3. Try to generalize: what tends to lead to the kind of life you admire?
4. Test it out. Monitor the effects. Adjust.
It’s not about chasing good feelings in the moment, but becoming someone who can reflect and recognize what’s actually worth pursuing. Where Mill suggests that we already live as if happiness were the goal, that we’re naturally guided by pleasure, often without needing to think much about it, Sidgwick is more cautious. He knows we often fool ourselves. We don’t always do what we ought to do, even when we know what that is.
As he writes:
“We yield to impulses opposed to our deliberate judgments.” (Book I, Ch. III)
That hit me. It wasn’t something entirely new to me, but it resonated, maybe because it reflected things I’ve noticed in my own life. Sidgwick’s realism about how we act, not just what we believe, made this more than just abstract theory.
It’s not flashy, but it’s wise.
Some philosophers try to make morality look neat, like there’s one clear method for doing what’s right. Sidgwick doesn’t do that. Instead, he dives into the messiness of real moral life: how we actually make decisions, how we justify them, and what happens when our different ideas of “right” clash.
He explores three major ways we might reason morally:
• Egoism – acting in our own long-term interest
• Intuitionism – following moral duties we feel are self-evident
• Utilitarianism – doing what maximizes happiness for the greatest number
What I liked about Sidqwicks's approach, is that he doesn’t just pick one and ignore the rest. He gives each method a fair hearing, tests them against experience and logic, and tries to see where they overlap, and where they don’t.
But what I appreciated most was his method, not just his theories. He offers a way of thinking ethically that’s grounded in observation and reflection:
1. Expose yourself to a wide range of experiences.
2. Observe what others go through, friends, strangers, even fictional characters.
3. Try to generalize: what tends to lead to the kind of life you admire?
4. Test it out. Monitor the effects. Adjust.
It’s not about chasing good feelings in the moment, but becoming someone who can reflect and recognize what’s actually worth pursuing. Where Mill suggests that we already live as if happiness were the goal, that we’re naturally guided by pleasure, often without needing to think much about it, Sidgwick is more cautious. He knows we often fool ourselves. We don’t always do what we ought to do, even when we know what that is.
As he writes:
“We yield to impulses opposed to our deliberate judgments.” (Book I, Ch. III)
That hit me. It wasn’t something entirely new to me, but it resonated, maybe because it reflected things I’ve noticed in my own life. Sidgwick’s realism about how we act, not just what we believe, made this more than just abstract theory.
It’s not flashy, but it’s wise.
July 9, 2021
This book is not for everyone. Sidgwick uses the text to attempt a systematization of three secular ethical systems: rational egoism, intuitionism, and utilitarianism. He does not attempt to argue for some of these moral theories in favor of others, but to lay out how a person who believes in one of these views ought to act. It is very rigorous, extensive, and dry (although he can be pretty funny and overdramatic at times).
Rational egoism is taken as the pursuit of the greatest balance of pleasures over pains for the agent. Intuitionism, or common-sense morality, is the view that people have intuitive access to certain moral truths (e.g. justice, virtue, etc.). Lastly, utilitarianism is the pursuit of the greatest balance of pleasures over pains for all sentient beings.
Sidgwick is critical, attentive, and has a willingness to point out all the problems which each of these theories has to deal with. I came away with a better understanding of these views and the hurdles they have to overcome. If you don't want to pay strong attention or re-read chapters a couple times, then you won't come away with a complete understanding. Should all this still sound interesting, then read the book. Otherwise, don't. There are plenty of good books on ethics with broader appeal.
Rational egoism is taken as the pursuit of the greatest balance of pleasures over pains for the agent. Intuitionism, or common-sense morality, is the view that people have intuitive access to certain moral truths (e.g. justice, virtue, etc.). Lastly, utilitarianism is the pursuit of the greatest balance of pleasures over pains for all sentient beings.
Sidgwick is critical, attentive, and has a willingness to point out all the problems which each of these theories has to deal with. I came away with a better understanding of these views and the hurdles they have to overcome. If you don't want to pay strong attention or re-read chapters a couple times, then you won't come away with a complete understanding. Should all this still sound interesting, then read the book. Otherwise, don't. There are plenty of good books on ethics with broader appeal.
May 21, 2024
A spectacularly erudite approach not only to utilitarian ethics but to ethical reflection more generally, the most concerning (and perhaps interesting) dimension of this work must be Sidgwick’s deep preoccupation with the force of egoistic thinking. That he is ultimately unable to extricate utilitarianism confidently from the enticements of egoism is perhaps a consequence of his necessary rejection of Kantianism, with its intrinsic validity of principles of moral duty. The appendix, on Kant’s use of the term “freedom,” is powerful, and shows that Sidgwick is himself intensively engaged with Kant’s thought.
May 6, 2020
It has to be said that this book is best understood through a slow and studious undertaking. However, that is not to be understood as a disparaging remark. This text is masterful and warrants Sidgwick's inclusion into the philosophy hall of fame. Recommend reading this alongside Point of View of the Universe by Lazari-Radek and Singer, will help elucidate some of the more long-windedness of Sidgwick's writing style.
January 22, 2021
Sidgwick (1874) uses three pillars to judge ethics: egoism (maximizing the happiness of one's own), intuitionism (judging by intuitive morality), and utilitarianism (maximizing the happiness of all sentient beings).
His book is followed by Derek Parfit's in his famous book, On What Matters, which updates the three views into Kantian deontology, Consequentialism, and Contractualism.
His book is followed by Derek Parfit's in his famous book, On What Matters, which updates the three views into Kantian deontology, Consequentialism, and Contractualism.
to-keep-reference
October 11, 2018Citado por Bruni en Capabilities and Happiness.
January 14, 2019
Critique à venir, un ouvrage absolument monumental que j'ai annoté au complet.
July 11, 2020
one of the top books of the 1800s for Ethics
Macmillan 1878
Macmillan 1878
February 26, 2017
This was an extremely tedious read for several reasons. It was long, very detailed, covered a wide range of topics (many of which I have little interest in), and reached some conclusions I disagree with. That said, because the book was so long and detailed, Sidgwick managed to illustrate clearly common sense morality and suggest how common sense morality's inconsistencies may be solved by appeal to utilitarianism. Overall, a book I am glad I have read, although one I certainly did not enjoy reading.
July 20, 2012
All ethical argumentation ultimately reduces to reasoning about happiness. Sidgwick is persuasive to an impressive degree, but not absolutely.
Are preferences conducive to happiness really always exogenous? How are we to arbitrate between different people's conflicting desires for happiness without a higher good?
Are preferences conducive to happiness really always exogenous? How are we to arbitrate between different people's conflicting desires for happiness without a higher good?
Read
February 26, 2018seen on table in 01.02 (different edition)
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