by Bart Schultz
in connexion with any other propositions; though in order that its truth may be
apparent to some particular mind, there is still required some rational process
connecting it with propositions previously accepted by that mind.
And there are two ways in which this might be done: by demonstrating
how “some limited and qualified statement” that is taken as self-evident
is actually only part of a “simpler and wider proposition,” on which the
limitations turn out to be arbitrary, or by establishing some general criteria
“for distinguishing true first principles . . . from false ones,” which are
then used to “construct a strictly logical deduction by which, applying
their general criteria to the special case of ethics, we establish the true
first principles of this latter subject.” Both ways are deployed in the
Methods, which develops but in no way retreats from the vision of Apostolic
inquiry.
Just how Aristotelian Sidgwick really was will be further considered
later on, when we will also further consider the viability of any such
strategy. At present it need only be stressed that he obviously did dis-
tinguish between any final and authoritative system of intuitive truths and
the way in which an untutored or insufficiently reflective mind would at
length come to grasp such a system, by fighting its way free of the snares
and vague generalities of common sense. But so far, at least, Sidgwick’s
approach would seem to have much in common with, for example, Jeff
McMahan’s attempt to recast the method of reflective equilibrium in foun-
dationalist form:
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[D]eeper principles are explanatorily prior, we have to work our way to them via
our intuitions in much the way that scientists work towards general principles via
our perceptual data. The process of discovering and formulating the more general
principles is evidently difficult and intellectually demanding. . . . as we grope our way towards the principles, we are discovering what we antecedently believe, albeit
below the level of conscious awareness. The principles that we hope to uncover
express deep dispositions of thought and feeling that operate below the level of
consciousness to regulate our intuitive responses to particular cases.
Thus, “the order of discovery is the reverse of the order of justification.”
McMahan resists calling the deeper principles intuitively “self-evident”
rather than foundational, and he suggests that Sidgwick would differ in
this respect. But the difference is not great, given that Sidgwick would
not take the designation “self-evident” to mean finally valid, at least when
applied by the philosophical intuitionist.
As emphatically as Sidgwick insists that the morality of common sense
is his “as much as any other man’s,” and that he is not engaged in “mere
hostile criticism from the outside,” one cannot come away from the famous
Book III without the distinct feeling that the aversion to Whewell – and to
the Whewell within himself – that he developed as an undergraduate must
have been singularly intense, such is the remorselessness of the criticism
flowing through these chapters. In summing up, Sidgwick urges that the
. . . Utilitarian must, in the first place, endeavor to show to the Intuitionist that the principles of Truth, Justice, etc. have only a dependent and subordinate validity:
arguing either that the principle is really only affirmed by Common-Sense as a
general rule admitting of exceptions and qualifications, as in the case of Truth,
and that we require some further principle for systematising these exceptions
and qualifications; or that the fundamental notion is vague and needs further
determination, as in the case of Justice; and further, that the different rules are
liable to conflict with each other, and that we require some higher principle to
decide the issue thus raised; and again, that the rules are differently formulated
by different persons, and that these differences admit of no Intuitional solution,
while they show the vagueness and ambiguity of the common moral notions to
which the Intuitionist appeals. (ME )
If this sounds rather familiar, as the kind of thing that Mill urged
Sidgwick to do with his work on conformity and subscription, that is of
course no accident. “Pious fraud” is addressed in Book III, Chapter ,
where Sidgwick cites Whewell’s fishy endorsement of the methods of
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suppressio veri and suggestio falsi – turning a question aside and producing a false scent – as legitimate ways of avoiding a direct lie, noting that some
would say that such methods still produce false beliefs in the inquirer and
“that if deception is to be practised at all, it is mere formalism to object
to any one mode of effecting it more than another” (ME ). Sidgwick
concludes that
reflection seems to show that the rule of Veracity, as commonly accepted, cannot
be elevated into a definite moral axiom: for there is no real agreement as to how
far we are bound to impart true beliefs to others: and while it is contrary to
Common Sense to exact absolute candour under all circumstances, we yet find
no self-evident secondary principle, clearly defining when it is not to be exacted.
(ME )
Thus, commonsense morality, or even the refined version of it represented
by Whewell’s dogmatic intuitional system, cannot stand on its own, cannot
actually yield decisive practical answers.
However, the answer that Sidgwick, for all his impartiality, rather clearly
favors is ready to hand. He strives to show how
Utilitarianism sustains the general validity of the current moral judgements, and
thus supplements the defects which reflection finds in the intuitive recognition of
their stringency; and at the same time affords a principle of synthesis, and a method for binding the unconnected and occasionally conflicting principles of common
moral reasoning into a complete and harmonious system. If systematic reflection
on the morality of Common Sense thus exhibits the Utilitarian principle as that to
which Common Sense naturally appeals for that further development of its system
which this same reflection shows to be necessary, the proof of Utilitarianism seems
as complete as it can be made. (ME )
In another passage more fully summing up the case, Sidgwick allies him-
self with Hume, whose account of the connection between common-
sense morality and utility, although somewhat casual and fragmentary,
was plainly on the right track. It can be shown, Sidgwick holds, that
the Utilitarian estimate of consequences not only supports broadly the current
>
moral rules, but also sustains their generally received limitations and qualifications: that, again, it explains anomalies in the Morality of Common Sense, which from
any other point of view must seem unsatisfactory to the reflective intellect; and
moreover, where the current formula is not sufficiently precise for the guidance of
conduct, while at the same time difficulties and perplexities arise in the attempt
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to give it additional precision, the Utilitarian method solves these difficulties and perplexities in general accordance with the vague instincts of Common Sense,
and is naturally appealed to for such solution in ordinary moral discussions. It
may be shown further, that it not only supports the generally received view of the
relative importance of different duties, but is also naturally called in as arbiter,
where rules commonly regarded as co-ordinate come into conflict: that, again,
when the same rule is interpreted somewhat differently by different persons, each
naturally supports his view by urging its Utility, however strongly he may maintain
the rule to be self-evident and known a priori: that where we meet with marked diversity of moral opinion on any point, in the same age and country, we commonly
find manifest and impressive utilitarian reasons on both sides: and that finally the
remarkable discrepancies found in comparing the moral codes of different ages
and countries are for the most part strikingly correlated to differences in effects
of actions on happiness, or in men’s foresight of, or concern for, such effects. (ME
–)
This is, for Sidgwick, one aspect of the genuinely philosophical intu-
itionism to which dogmatic intuitionism leads: that is, a third phase of
intuitionism that “while accepting the morality of common sense as in the
main sound, still attempts to find for it a philosophic basis which it does
not itself offer: to get one or more principles more absolutely and unde-
niably true and evident, from which the current rules might be deduced,
either just as they are commonly received or with slight modifications and
rectifications” (ME ). This form of intuitionism allows the general
rightness of commonsense morality, but also affords a “deeper explana-
tion” of why it is largely right. And it is not “intuitional” in “the narrower
sense that excludes consequences; but only in the wider sense as being
self-evident principles relating to ‘what ought to be’ ” (ME n). These
are the sought-after axioms, about which there is a surprising degree of
controversy.
In its general form, apart from the specifically intuitionist claims in-
volved, Sidgwick’s handling of commonsense morality plainly has as much
in common with Mill as with Aristotle. However, one of the great virtues
of Schneewind’s classic, Sidgwick’s Ethics and Victorian Moral Philosophy,
is the way it details the far more complex and comprehensive structure of
Sidgwick’s inquiry, bringing out the difference between the “dependence”
and “systematization” arguments.
As Schneewind has it, there is a dual purpose to Sidgwick’s exam-
ination of commonsense morality. First, there is the search for “really
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self-evident principles,” and second, as the previously quoted passages
illustrate, “there is the search for a principle superior in validity to other
moral principles” – that is, a principle with superior moral rather than
epistemological authority, which is what any complex moral code requires
in order to determine the limits and exceptions of its component prin-
ciples and be thoroughly rationalized. The latter process has two stages:
a negative stage, which appeals to the “dependence” argument (that the
principles of commonsense morality have only a dependent and subordi-
nate validity), and a positive stage, which appeals to the “systematization”
argument (that the utilitarian principle sustains commonsense moral judg-
ments and affords a principle of synthesis). On the one side, Schneewind
argues that, for Sidgwick, it is not “inevitable that a code of the kind which
he takes to be a practical necessity in human life must have the charac-
teristics of commonsense morality on which the dependence argument
focuses attention.” On the other side, the examination of commonsense
morality forms at least part of the case for utilitarianism. “For it shows,
among other things, that the factual characteristics which are treated
by common-sense moral rules as indicating rightness cannot be ulti-
mate right-making characteristics.” Thus, Schneewind argues in a crucial
passage:
The dependence argument shows that certain features of received opinion which
it would share with any equally complex code in an equally complex society, re-
quire us to go beyond its dictates to a different kind of principle. The appeal to
self-evidence next yields rational principles of the kind required by the depen-
dence argument. We then turn to see if these principles can systematize common
sense. Since the first principles are obtained by a procedure not involving consid-
eration of their systematizing power, the degree of their serviceability for this task provides an independent test of their acceptability. From the explanatory side of
the systematization argument we learn that in so far as common-sense morality is
already rational, the best explanation or model of its rationality is the utilitarian one. The rectificatory side of the systematization argument shows that in so far as
received opinion still needs to be made rational, the best method of making it so is
the utilitarian one. Thus the systematization argument is not meant to show that
all our pre-theoretical moral opinions can be derived from the axioms. It is meant
to show that the axioms provide an ideal or model of practical rationality which
enable us to see that the kind of code we need for daily decision-making can be
rational. The fact that one and the same ideal of rationality enables us to see that
our actual code is to some extent rational and shows how it can have its rationality
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increased, provides stronger support for the ideal than any abstract argument can
provide.
This is one of the few commentaries on Sidgwick that truly captures the
intricacy of his argument. Still, it is possible to exaggerate the differences
from Mill resulting from Sidgwick’s intuitio
nism, and a few reminders
about the continuities between the two should prove helpful.
Recall that Mill, in Utilitarianism, lamented the chaos and indetermi-
nateness of ordinary morality, but in contemplating “to what extent the
moral beliefs of mankind have been vitiated or made uncertain by the
absence of any distinct recognition of an ultimate standard,” he thought
it would “be easy to show that whatever steadiness or consistency these
moral beliefs have attained, has been mainly due to the tacit influence of
a standard not recognised.” In other words, although
the non-existence of an acknowledged first principle has made ethics not so much
a guide as a consecration of men’s actual sentiments, still, as men’s sentiments,
both of favour and aversion, are greatly influenced by what they suppose to be the
effects of things upon their happiness, the principle of utility . . . has had a large share in forming the moral doctrines even of those who most scornfully reject its
authority.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Mill continues with a swipe at Whewell
to the effect that “to all those à priori moralists who deem it necessary to
argue at all, utilitarian arguments are indispensable,” since no one refuses
to admit the significance of happiness in some way, and the utilitarian
method is often called in to settle conflicts or clarify duties within the
system of common sense.
Moreover, for all his criticisms of commonsense morality, especially
in its dogmatic religious aspects, Mill sounded a very Sidgwickian note
when he remarked that “mankind must by this time have acquired positive
beliefs as to the effects of some actions on their happiness; and the beliefs
which have thus come down are the rules of morality for the multitude,
and for the philosopher until he has succeeded in finding better.” This
was the cautious note that Sidgwick’s far more extensive treatment of the
subject sounded time and again. However much he was inclined to agree
with Mill that commonsense morality as it stood was not good enough to
yield the “middle axioms” of a genuinely scientific utilitarianism, he was
clear that if the utilitarian theorist “keeps within the limits that separate
