Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T03:23:37.891Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Role of Kant in Sidgwick’s Classical Utilitarianism: Two Self-Evident Axioms and the Partial Convergence between Kantianism and Utilitarianism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2022

Annette Dufner
Annette Dufner*
Affiliation:
University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Among the most surprising claims in The Methods of Ethics is Sidgwick’s assertion that his key ethical axioms are corroborated by Kant. This article analyses Sidgwick’s claim that his axioms of justice and benevolence closely correspond to particular features in Kant. I shall argue that his claim of agreement with Kant was a serious overstatement. In particular, the restrictions which Sidgwick places on his acceptance of Kant’s universal law formula of the categorical imperative (FUL) seem to call into question whether the alleged convergence with the axiom of justice has a solid basis. Further, Sidgwick seemed unaware of a crucial aspect of Kant’s conception of the humanity formula that constitutes a substantial divide between their views on benevolence. The upshot is that the divide between Kantian and Sidgwickian ethics appears deeper than Sidgwick seemed to realize. This analysis is confirmed by Sidgwick’s famous worries regarding freedom and the existence of God in Kant’s work.

Keywords

Kantuniversal law formulahumanity formulabeneficenceSidgwickaxiom of benevolenceaxiom of justiceutilitarianism
Type
Article
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , September 2022 , pp. 345 - 362
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Kantian Review

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allison, Henry E. (1990) Kant’s Theory of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernays, Paul (1910) Das Moralprinzip bei Sidgwick und Kant. Göttingen: Abhandlungen der Fries’schen Schule.Google Scholar
Bittner, Rüdiger and Cramer, Konrad (eds) (1975) Materialien zu Kants ‘Kritik der praktischen Vernunft’. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Bojanowski, Jochen (2006) Kants Theorie der Freiheit. Berlin: De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crisp, Roger (2015) The Cosmos of Duty. Henry Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donagan, Alan (1977a) The Theory of Morality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donagan, Alan (1977b) ‘Sidgwick and Whewellian Intuitionism: Some Enigmas’. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 7, 447–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Förster, Eckart (1998) ‘Die Wandlungen in Kants Gotteslehre’, Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, 52, 341–62.Google Scholar
Guyer, Paul (2000) Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hare, Richard (1993) ‘Could Kant have been a Utilitarian?’ Utilitas, 5, 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hurka, Thomas (2014) ‘Sidgwick on Consequentialism and Deontology: A Critique’. Utilitas, 26, 129–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Irwin, Terence (2009) The Development of Ethics, vol. 3: From Kant to Rawls. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2012 [1786]) Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. and trans. Gregor, Mary and Timmermann, Jens Rev. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine (1988) ‘Two Arguments Against Lying [I. Kant and H. Sidgwick]’. Argumentation, 2, 27–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine (2009) ‘Kant’s Formula of Humanity’. Kant-Studien, 77, 183–202.Google Scholar
Langenfus, William (2000) ‘The Impossibility of Sidgwick’s Proof’. History of Philosophy Quarterly, 17, 99–120.Google Scholar
Mieth, Corinna and Rosenthal, Jacob (2006) ‘Freedom must be Presupposed as a Property of the Will of all Rational Beings’. In Horn, Christoph and Schönecker, Dieter (eds), Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. New Essays (Berlin: De Gruyter), 247–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, John Stuart (1985 [1833]) Utilitarianism . In Robson, John M. (ed.), Collected Works, vol. 10. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Nakano-Okuno, Mariko (2007) ‘Sidgwick and Kant: On the So-Called “Discrepancies” between Utilitarianism and Kantian Ethics’. In Placido Bucolo, Roger Crisp and Bart Schultz (eds), Proceedings of the World Congress on Henry Sidgwick: Happiness and Religion (Catania: Università degli Studi di Catania), 260–334.Google Scholar
Nakano-Okuno, Mariko (2020) ‘Kant and Sidgwick on the Freedom of Will, Morality, and Responsibility’. In Tyler, Paytas and Tim, Henning (eds), Kantian and Sidgwickian Ethics: The Cosmos of Duty above and the Moral Law within (New York: Routledge), 163–83.Google Scholar
Parfit, Derek (2011) On What Matters, vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Paytas, Tyler (2020) ‘Beneficent Governor of the Cosmos: Kant and Sidgwick on the Moral Necessity of God’. In Paytas, Tyler and Henning, Tim (eds), Kantian and Sidgwickian Ethics: The Cosmos of Duty above and the Moral Law within (New York: Routledge), 210-44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paytas, Tyler and Henning, Tim (eds) (2020) Kantian and Sidgwickian Ethics: The Cosmos of Duty above and the Moral Law within. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phillips, David (2020) ‘Sidgwick’s Kantian Account of Moral Motivation’. In Tyler, Paytas and Tim, Henning (eds), Kantian and Sidgwickian Ethics: The Cosmos of Duty above and the Moral Law within (New York: Routledge), 84–104.Google Scholar
Reichlin, Massimo (2008) ‘Ordinary Moral Knowledge and Philosophical Ethics in Sidgwick und Kant’. Etica e Politica. Revista di Filosofia On-line, 10, 109–36.Google Scholar
Ripstein, Arthur (2009) Force and Freedom: Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneewind, Jerome (1977) Sidgwick’s Ethics and Victorian Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schönecker, Dieter (2005) Kants Begriff transzendentaler und praktischer Freiheit. Eine entwicklungsgeschichtliche Studie. Berlin: De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schultz, Bart (2004) Henry Sidgwick – Eye of the Universe. An Intellectual Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaver, Robert (2020) ‘Peerless. Sidgwick, Kant, and Peer Disagreement’. In Tyler, Paytas and Tim, Henning (eds.), Kantian and Sidgwickian Ethics: The Cosmos of Duty Above and the Moral Law Within (New York: Routledge), 118–37.Google Scholar
Sidgwick, Henry (1870) The Ethics of Conformity and Subscription. London: Williams & Norgate.Google Scholar
Sidgwick, Henry (1888) ‘The Kantian Conception of Free-Will’. Mind, 13, 405–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sidgwick, Henry (1968 [1905]) Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant. London: MacMillan.Google Scholar
Sidgwick, Henry (1981 [1907]) The Methods of Ethics. 7th edn. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Sidgwick, Henry (1988 [1902]) Outlines of the History of Ethics for English Readers. 5th edn. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Skelton, Anthony (2008) ‘Sidgwick’s Philosophical Intuitions’. Etica e Politica. Revista di Filosofia On-line, 10, 185–209.Google Scholar
Skelton, Anthony (2020) ‘Practical Ethics in Sidgwick and Kant’. In Paytas, Tyler and Henning, Tim (eds), Kantian and Sidgwickian Ethics: The Cosmos of Duty above and the Moral Law within (New York: Routledge), 13–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skorupski, John (2011) ‘Impartiality: Kant, Mill, Sidgwick’. In Bucolo, Placido, Crisp, Roger and Schultz, Bart (eds), Henry Sidgwick: Ethics, Psychics, Politics (Catania: Università degli Studi di Catania), 634–79.Google Scholar
Timmermann, Jens (2003) Sittengesetz und Freiheit: Untersuchungen zu Immanuel Kants Theorie des freien Willens. Berlin: De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timmermann, Jens (2005) ‘Why Kant Could Not have Been a Utilitarian’. Utilitas, 17, 243–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timmermann, Jens (2007) ‘Freedom and Moral Failure: Reinhold and Sidgwick’. In Timmermann, Jens (ed.), Kant’s ‘Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals ’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), appendix E, 164–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varden, Helga (2015) ‘Justice as Freedom’. In Fløistad, Guttorm (ed.), Philosophie de la justice/Philosophy of Justice, vol. 12 (Amsterdam: Springer), 157–76.Google Scholar