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Sidgwick's Ethical Maxims1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

A. R. Lacey
A. R. Lacey
Affiliation:
Bedford College, University of London.
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Extract

Utilitarianism has been attacked many times and from many points of view. Among other objections has been the charge that it cannot account for the moral phenomena connected with justice; we are interested, it is said, not only in producing as much good as possible, but also in distributing it in a certain way. The Utilitarian usually replies that these phenomena either can be deduced from Utilitarianism or are illusory, but a natural reluctance to go against the data of our moral experience usually inclines him to the first alternative. One of the most interesting of the Utilitarians from this point of view is Sidgwick, because he makes Utilitarianism his philosophical basis, but at the same time he has a set of maxims (ME 3.13)2 part of whose purpose is to cover the common-sense views on justice. In this article I shall consider the relations between these maxims and Utilitarianism, and shall try to show by means of an example that some of them do go beyond Utilitarianism, and that in so far, at any rate, as these maxims do represent the common-sense view, it and Utilitarianism are not in all cases strictly reconcilable.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 34 , Issue 130 , July 1959 , pp. 217 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1959

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References

page 217 note 2 The Methods of Ethics (Macmillan, 7th edition, 1907 (the first edition was in 1874)).Google Scholar

page 223 note 1 In order to simplify the problem and exclude considerations not directly relevant to this article I shall assume neither of the schoolboys is identical with myself.

page 225 note 1 ME, p. 386–7 takes the axiom of Rational Benevolence (the maxim of Equal Regard, and also in effect those of Universal Good and Impartial Aims) as a “rational basis” for Utilitarianism. The statement (ib.) that the axiom of Justice (the maxims of Personal Indifference and Reciprocal Equality, and also in effect that of Judicial Impartiality) “belongs to” Utilitarianism as much as to Intuitional systems may only mean that it must be held together with Utilitarianism. Elsewhere Sidgwick seems to treat the maxims as independent of any system of philosophy. (I owe this reference to Professor Acton.)

page 226 note 1 A maxim contradicts Utilitarianism if it is conceivable that it should prescribe a non-optimific action, even though all the actions it does prescribe turn out in fact to be optimific.