The cosmos of duty : Henry Sidgwick's Methods of ethics / Roger Crisp.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Crisp, Roger, 1961- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sidgwick, Henry, 1838-1900--Ethics.

Sidgwick, Henry.

Sidgwick, Henry, 1838-1900.

Ethics.

Physical Description:

xxv, 252 pages ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Clarendon Press, 2015.

Summary:

As Socrates says, how we should live our lives is no ordinary question; indeed it is prior to any other practical question we might ask. It may well be that studying past works of philosophy will heop us to answer it, and Henry Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics, first published in 1874, might seem an especially strong candidate for such study. C.D. Broad famously said in 1930 that it seemed to him 'the best treatise on moral theory that has ever been written,' an opinion recently echoed by Derek Parfit. In The Cosmos of Duty, Roger Crisp argues that Sidgwick is largely correct about many central questions in ethics: the metaphysics and epistemology of ethics, consequentialism, hedonism about well-being, and the weight to be given to self-interest. He holds that Sidegwick's long discussion of 'common-sense' morality is probably the best discussion of deontology we have. And yet The Methods of Ethics can be hard to understand, and this is perhaps one reason why, though it is a philosophical goldmine, few have ventured deeply into it. What does Sidgwick mean by a 'method? Why does he discuss only three methods? What are his arguments for hedonism and for utilitarianism? How can we make sense of the idea of moral intuition? What is the role of virtue in Sidgwick's ethics? Crisp addresses these and many other questions, providing a comprehensive perspective on Sidgwick's text which will assist any serious reader of Sidgwick to gain more from him. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 The Nature of Ethics 1

1 Sidgwick's Project 1

2 The Autonomy of Ethics 5

2.1 Cognitivism and Non-naturalist Quietism 5

2.2 Is and Ought 7

2.3 Ought and Rationality 11

3 Moral Motivation 15

4 Principles and Methods 20

5 Sidgwick's Three Methods 23

6 Ethics and Politics 28

2 Free Will 32

1 The Aim and Structure of 1.5 32

2 Disinterested Action, Rational Action, and Kant 33

3 The Will 38

3.1 Voluntariness, Volition, Intention, and Responsibility 38

3.2 The Scope of the Will 42

4 Determinism and Libertarianism 45

4.1 Determinism 45

4.2 Libertarianism 48

5 The Significance of the Debate 49

3 Hedonism and the Ultimate Good 57

1 Goodness, Rightness, and the Ultimate Good 57

2 Pleasure 63

2.1 The Volitional View 63

2.2 The Feeling-Tone View 66

2.3 The Apprehension View 68

2.4 The Desirable Consciousness View 69

3 Hedonism 70

3.1 Psychological Hedonism 70

3.2 Against Synonymic Hedonism 75

3.3 Welfare Hedonism 76

3.4 Empirical Hedonism 85

3.5 Objective and Deductive Hedonisms 90

4 Objections to Empirical Hedonism 93

4.1 Practical Objections 93

4.2 Theoretical Objections 94

4 Intuitionism 97

1 Intuition and Intuitions 97

2 Intuitionisms 99

2.1 Perceptional Intuitionism 99

2.2 Dogmatic Intuitionism 101

2.3 Philosophical Intuitionism 103

3 Self-evidence 107

3.1 Conditions for Certainty 107

3.2 Sham-axioms 112

3.3 The Self-evident Axioms 115

5 Virtue 127

1 Intention and Motive 127

2 Virtue, Duty, and Supererogation 132

2.1 Objective and Subjective Rightness 133

2.2 The Relation between Virtue and Duty 135

2.3 Supererogation 136

3 The Nature of Virtue 138

3.1 Action and Emotion 138

3.2 Virtue and Motivation 140

3.3 The Cultivation and Value of Virtue 142

6 The Virtues 145

1 Wisdom and Self-control 145

2 Benevolence 152

2.1 Feeling, Object, and Scope 152

2.2 Special Relations 155

3 Justice 161

3.1 Justice, Law, and Distribution 161

3.2 Contract and Custom 162

3.3 Natural Rights and Freedom 164

3.4 Desert 166

4 Laws and Promises 171

4.1 Political Obligation 171

4.2 Promises 174

4.3 Utilitarianism and Justice 176

5 Veracity 177

6 Malevolence and Liberality 181

7 Self-regarding Virtues 184

8 Courage and Humility 186

9 The Failure of Common-sense Morality 188

7 Egoism, Utilitarianism, and the Dualism of Practical Reason 195

1 Egoism 195

1.1 A Dubious Guidance? 195

1.2 Happiness and Duty 199

2 Utilitarianism 201

2.1 Sidgwick's Form of Utilitarianism 201

2.2 The Arguments for Utilitarianism 208

2.3 Utilitarianism and Common-sense Morality 215

2.4 The Method of Utilitarianism 220

3 The Dualism of Practical Reason 227.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780198716358

0198716354

OCLC:

898926502