Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900)

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Abstract

Henry Sidgwick, the husband of educator Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick, has gone down in history as the most philosophically sophisticated of the classical utilitarians and a profound influence on Edgeworth’s hedonometry and Pigou’s welfare economics. But his legacy in both philosophy and economics is more complex, reflecting his deep agnosticism about religion, the foundations of ethics, and the future of economics. Sidgwick held that without a theistic postulate, practical reason was left in a stand-off between self-interest (egoism) and universal (utilitarian) beneficence, a ‘dualism of the practical reason’, but he nonetheless also held that the progress of civilization might lead not only to greater federalism and cosmopolitanism but also to a form of ethical socialism that could rely on the increasing beneficence of humanity.

Keywords

Henry Sidgwick Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick Classical utilitarianism Rational egoism Dualism of the practical reason Ethical socialism Principle of individualism Pigou Edgeworth Marshall 
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References

Works by Henry Sidgwick

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Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Senior Lecturer in the Humanities (Philosophy) and Director of the Civic Knowledge ProjectUniversity of ChicagoChicagoUSA

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