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The Political Philosophy of Henry Sidgwick

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2020

David Miller Open the ORCID record for David Miller [Opens in a new window]
David Miller*
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Nuffield College, University of Oxford
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Abstract

Why has Sidgwick's political philosophy fallen into oblivion while his ethics continues to be celebrated? Not because his performance in that field was inferior, nor because his choice of topics has become outdated, nor because his conclusions were largely conservative. Instead the problem stems from the weight he attached to common sentiments and beliefs in his application of the utility principle, illustrated by his treatment of topics such as secession and colonialism. Moreover his Elements of Politics is arranged in such a way that he never has to confront the basic question of what makes states legitimate. This means that neither political moralists, who want to see the utility principle applied in more radical fashion, nor political realists, for whom the problem of establishing political order is central, find much to commend in his political philosophy.

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Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , September 2020 , pp. 261 - 275
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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References

1 Such as, for example, Political Thinkers: From Socrates to the Present, ed. by David Boucher and Paul Kelly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Ryan, Alan, On Politics: A History of Political Thought from Herodotus to the Present (London: Allen Lane, 2012)Google Scholar; Klosko, George, The History of Political Theory: An Introduction, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012–13)Google Scholar; Haddock, Bruce, A History of Political Thought: From Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge: Polity, 2008)Google Scholar. Nor does he make an appearance in surveys that begin later, such as Hampsher-Monk, Iain, A History of Modern Political Thought: Major Political Thinkers from Hobbes to Marx (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992)Google Scholar or Forsyth, Murray and Keens-Soper, Maurice, The Political Classics: Green to Dworkin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

2 I am setting aside here his Outlines of the History of Ethics for English Readers, published in 1886, since this is a largely expository work, as well as the various collections of lectures that were published posthumously – as indeed was The Development of European Polity, though Sidgwick had intended to publish this in book form to complement The Elements of Politics.

3 Or unimportant: Sidgwick was inclined to doubt the success of any of his books. But we should probably set this aside as characteristic self-deprecation.

4 It has been claimed that Sidgwick's contribution to ethics also fell into neglect until revived in the second half of the twentieth century via the work of Rawls, Singer and others. However the evidence does not bear this out. Sidgwick's high standing among his immediate philosophical successors is discussed in Schultz, Bart, Henry Sidgwick: Eye of the Universe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), ch. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In the first half of the following century his work was discussed by, among others, Broad, Prichard, Rashdall and Ross, and Rawls himself cites Sidgwick as early as 1955 in his paper ‘Two Concepts of Rules’. See also here Skelton, Anthony, On Sidgwick's Demise: a Reply to Professor Deigh, Utilitas 22 (2010), 70–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar, replying to Deigh, John, Epistemology, Sidgwick's, Utilitas 19 (2007), 435–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Parfit, Derek, On What Matters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), vol. 1, p. xlGoogle Scholar. For similar encomia, see Broad, C. D., Five Types of Ethical Theory (London: Kegan Paul, 1930), p. 143Google Scholar and Crisp, Roger, The Cosmos of Duty: Henry Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. vii–xCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 The Elements of Politics seems to have attracted little attention outside Cambridge itself from the moment of its publication. For example, Ernest Barker's survey Political Thought in England from Herbert Spencer to the Present Day, published in 1915, contains not a single mention of Sidgwick's book. In the early twentieth century, it was dismissed as outmoded by critics such as Graham Wallas and Harold Laski: see Collini, Stefan, Winch, Donald and Burrow, John, That Noble Science of Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), EpilogueCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Rawls, John, Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy, ed. by Freeman, Samuel (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), p. 378Google Scholar.

8 Rawls, Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy, pp. 375–415.

9 For a (partially) dissenting view, see Collini, Stefan, My Roles and their Duties: Sidgwick as Philosopher, Professor and Public Moralist, in Henry Sidgwick, ed. by Harrison, Ross (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 9–49, at p. 44Google Scholar. Collini finds the ‘sustained architectonic command’ displayed in The Methods of Ethics missing in Sidgwick's later books.

10 Alongside the two reviews referred to below, The Elements of Politics received lukewarm notices from Rashdall, Hastings in The Economic Review 2 (1892), 275–78Google Scholar and Woodrow Wilson in The Dial, 12 (1891), 215–16. My concern here, however, is not with the book's immediate reception but with the reasons for its long-term neglect.

11 Dunning, William A. in Political Science Quarterly 7 (1892), p. 537CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Ritchie, David G. in International Journal of Ethics 2 (1981–2), p. 255Google Scholar.

13 Sidgwick, Henry, The Methods of Ethics, 7th edn (London: Macmillan, 1907), p. 15Google Scholar (hereinafter Methods).

14 Sidgwick, Henry, The Elements of Politics, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan, 1897), p. 1Google Scholar. (hereinafter Elements).

15 Elements, p. 7.

16 Methods, Book IV, ch. 5.

17 Elements, p. 14.

18 In the case of war, a slight shift occurs in his essay ‘The Morality of Strife’, first delivered as an address to the London Ethical Society in 1890, where Sidgwick urges ‘the thoughtful and moral part of every community’, without renouncing their patriotism, to try to judge international conflicts from an impartial point of view, so that resort to war can be avoided. See Sidgwick, Henry, Practical Ethics: A Collection of Essays and Addresses, 2nd edn (London: Swann Sonnenschein, 1909), pp. 105–8Google Scholar.

19 Elements, p. 308.

20 On the conservative, almost Burkean, character of Sidgwick's utilitarianism, see also Collini, Stefan, The Ordinary Experience of Civilized Life: Sidgwick's Politics and the Method of Reflective Analysis, in Essays on Henry Sidgwick, ed. by Schultz, Bart (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 333–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at pp. 349–52. Sidgwickian ethics is, of course, also largely conservative: the substance of ‘common sense morality’ emerges largely intact from Sidgwick's forensic examination. But I will argue that the problems this causes for his political philosophy are much more severe.

21 Formally it is divided into two parts, but my suggestion is that it is more illuminating to regard chapters 14–18 of Part I as separated from the chapters that precede them in terms of subject matter.

22 For the distinction between justification and legitimacy, see especially Simmons, A. J., Justification and Legitimacy, in Simmons, A. J., Justification and Legitimacy: Essays on Rights and Obligations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

23 Elements, p. 252.

24 Elements, p. 254.

25 Elements, p. 226.

26 For this terminology, see Buchanan, Allen, Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), ch. 8Google Scholar.

27 Elements, p. 228.

28 On the question whether Sidgwick was a racist, see Schultz, Bart, Sidgwick's Racism, in Utilitarianism and Empire, ed. by Schultz, Bart and Varouxakis, Georgios (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005), pp. 208–46Google Scholar; on his complex views about colonialism, see Schultz, Henry Sidgwick, ch. 7, where race issues are also discussed.

29 Elements, p. 310.

30 Elements, p. 312.

31 Elements, pp. 323–24.

32 The most celebrated of such theories is, of course, Locke's, and it is more than a little frustrating that when Sidgwick discusses Locke's political theory in The Development of European Polity, he refrains from offering any critical assessment of Locke's account of consent to government. See Sidgwick, Henry, The Development of European Polity (London: Macmillan, 1903), chs. 24–25Google Scholar.

33 Elements, p. 377.

34 Elements, p. 648.

35 Elements, p. 650.

36 Sidgwick, Henry, Economic Socialism, in Sidgwick, Henry, Miscellaneous Essays and Addresses (London: Macmillan, 1904), p. 211Google Scholar. The principle is also discussed critically in Methods, pp. 274–78 and in Elements, ch. 4.

37 Sidgwick, Economic Socialism, pp. 211–12. The reference is to Spencer, Herbert, Social Statics (London: Chapman, 1851)Google Scholar.

38 For a slightly different way of positioning Sidgwick's political philosophy within this framework, see Runciman, David, What is Realistic Political Philosophy?, Metaphilosophy 43 (2012), 58–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Williams, Bernard, Realism and Moralism in Political Theory, in Bernard Williams, In the Beginning was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument, ed. by Hawthorn, Geoffrey (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), pp. 1–2Google Scholar.

40 For further reflection on this point, see Collini, The Ordinary Experience of Civilized Life, pp. 358–61. Collini cites Sidgwick's remark that his aim in Elements was ‘to treat systematically the chief questions for which the statesman has to find answers’ (italics added).

41 de Lazari-Radek, Katarzyna and Singer, Peter, The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and Contemporary Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Peter, and Singer, Renata, The Ethics of Refugee Policy, in Population and Political Theory: Philosophy, Politics and Society 8, ed. by Fishkin, James and Goodin, Robert (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), p. 296Google Scholar.

43 In his essay on ‘Public Morality’, Sidgwick argues that although public morality – the morality of statesmen – is not categorically different from private morality, nevertheless the circumstances of international politics mean that states are entitled to pursue their national interests by quite ruthless means unless they can be assured that other states will reciprocate their self-restraint. See Sidgwick, Henry, National and International Right and Wrong: Two Essays (London: Allen and Unwin, 1919)Google Scholar.

44 See Elements, pp. 1–5.

45 Elements, ch. 31.

46 Elements, p. 648.

47 Both of these characteristics are exemplified in texts such as Singer's, PeterOne World: The Ethics of Globalization (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

48 There is some disagreement about the exact relationship between Sidgwick's methodology and Rawls's, but what is not in question is that Rawls at least took himself to be following in Sidgwick's footsteps when he expounded the method of reflective equilibrium. For contrasting views, see Singer, Peter, Sidgwick and Reflective Equilibrium, The Monist 58 (1974), 490–517CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Sverdlik, Steven, Sidgwick's Methodology, Journal of the History of Philosophy 23 (1985), 537–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 Methods, p. 215.

50 Sidgwick's timidity in relation to women's suffrage, and its source in his reliance on ‘common sense’ precepts, is noticed in Harrison, Ross, Sidgwick, Henry, Philosophy 71 (1996), 423–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Elements, p. 379.

52 Elements, pp. 385–6. For the provenance of this argument, see Harrison, Brian, Separate Spheres: The Opposition to Women's Suffrage in Britain (London: Croom Helm, 1978), ch. 4Google Scholar.

53 Thus Singer is happy to reverse many of the practical conclusions that Sidgwick reaches – for example, his endorsement of various forms of partiality, towards kinsmen, compatriots, etc. – while continuing to treat Methods as the supreme statement of utilitarian philosophy: compare Singer, One World, ch. 5 with the Preface to Lazari-Radek and Singer, The Point of View of the Universe. This can only be done by disregarding Sidgwick's own conception of his method.

54 This article originated in a lecture given to the Philosophy Faculty, Cambridge University on 24 May 2017. I am very grateful to members of the audience for questions raised at that event, and to Tom Hurka and two anonymous referees for this Journal for their comments on a later version.