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Henry SidgwickThe study of religious history, ethics, and economics offers many different viewpoints and perspectives. Different philosophers are often categorized according to the ideologies that they stand for. Henry Sidgwick has been placed in several categories for his ideological beliefs. In politics he was a Liberal, and would eventually become a Liberal Unionist. In political economy, he was a Utilitarian on the lines of Mill and Bentham. However, Sidgwick’s own philosophy had some important deviations from the views of Mill and Bentham. One of the things that Sidgwick is remembered most for is the way in which he was a promoter of women’s education. Initially, Sidgwick found Mill’s views on women’s rights as “violently radical;” but he was gradually won over. By 1867, he had joined Josephine Butler and Ann Jemina Clough in their struggle to obtain special university examinations for women. In 1871, he would go on to establish Newnham, a residence for women who were attending lectures at Cambridge University, which would eventually become Newnham College. Such educational resources for women were incredibly rare at the time. Unlike many people of his time, he actively took steps in order to promote the education of women, if not quite outright equality. He campaigned, with success, for the admission of women to examinations at Cambridge University. However, he later resigned from the University Council in protest at their refusal to grant degrees to women. Putting his personal career on the line shows the immense dedication Sidgwick showed to women’s rights. LIFE AND WORKSHenry Sidgwick was born in 1838 at Skipton in Yorkshire. He was educated at Rugby and at Trinity Cambridge. In 1859, he was senior classic, 33rd wrangler, chancellor’s medalist, and Craven scholar. He was also elected to a fellowship at Trinity. Afterwards, he was appointed to a classical lectureship there. He held this position for ten years, and in 1869 exchanged his lectureship for one in moral philosophy. In 1875, he was appointed praelector on moral and political philosophy at Trinity. In 1883, he was elected Knightbridge professor of moral philosophy. In 1885, the religious test having been removed, he was once again elected to a fellowship. These honors only begin to describe the immense work Sidgwick participated in and received recognition for.
The principle of Egoistic Hedonism is the widely accepted notion that the rational end of conduct for each individual is the Maximum of his/her own Happiness or Pleasure. Sidgwick rejects the idea of Empirical Hedonism, which assumes that all pleasures sought and pains shunned can be arranged in a scale of preferableness. Sidgwick defines pleasure as, “feeling apprehended as desired by the individual at the time of feeling it.” Therefore, the actual definition of pleasure not only varies from one individual to another, but also from moment to moment for every person. Sidgwick states that the habit of introspectively comparing pleasures is unfavorable to pleasure. Any quantitative comparison of pleasures and pains is vague and uncertain. Even in the case of our own past experiences, such comparisons would fail. This also applies to the fact that people are different at different times. Therefore, the supposed definite measurability of pleasures is an unverifiable assumption. This vague notion of evaluating pleasure is one aspect of egoistic hedonism that bothered Sidgwick and caused him to reject the philosophy. Sidgwick continues by saying that although there are still fundamental defects of using judgments of common sense, we still derive from them a certain amount of practical guidance. One’s greatest happiness is always attained by the performance of duty. In other words, people enjoy fulfilling their duties. No such complete coincidence seems to result from a consideration either of the legal sanction of duty, or of the social sanctions, or of the internal sanctions. Regardless of where a duty is derived from, there is still pleasure gained by fulfilling that duty. Sidgwick states that the Hedonistic Method must ultimately rest on facts of empirical observation. This process becomes largely deductive, through scientific knowledge of the causes of pleasure and pain. However, we have no practically available theory of these causes. Causes of pleasure and pain are different for everyone, so ultimately this theory is vague. Additionally, quantifying pleasure or pain is impossible; and so it is impossible also to have a conversation comparing those feelings at one time to the same feelings at another time. Lastly, the Principle of “increasing life,” or that of “aiming at self development,” is defined as to afford us any practical guidance to the end of Egoism. Reason being, we must always fall back on having to provide an empirical comparison of pleasures and pains. INTUITIONISMIntuitionism is based on the assumption that we have the power of seeing clearly what actions are in themselves right and reasonable. Sidgwick applies the term “intuitional” to distinguish a method in which the rightness of some kinds of actions is assumed to be known without relying on other consequences. In other words, we can know what is right and wrong based on a feeling, without having to rely on proof or consequences. He continues with the idea that though many actions are commonly judged to be made better or worse with motives, our common judgments of right and wrong are related to intentions. One motive, the desire to do what is right, has been thought to be an essential condition to right conduct. However, the intuitional method should be treated without this assumption. Humans are more comfortable assigning the correctness of an action if they know the motivation behind it. Sidgwick also explains that it is an essential condition that we should not believe an act to be wrong. Basically, we should not believe something to be wrong for any similar person in similar circumstances. The implication shows that there is not a complete criterion of right conduct. In other words, intuitions differ from person to person. The presence of these intuitions, however, is a constant according to Sidgwick. Additionally, the existence of apparent thoughts of right conduct intuitively obtained as distinct from their validity will scarcely be questioned. That is to say, even though there is no way to prove our intuition, it will not be questioned because of the idea of common sense. It is not necessary to establish their [intuition’s] validity in order to prove their “originality”. Finally, Sidgwick concludes his explanation of intuitionism by saying that we must focus on universal intuitions through the use of our common sense. 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