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In the early nineteenth century, Utilitarianism was the most popular movement in British philosophy. Important representatives of this movement include Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and Henry Sidgwick. Bentham and Mill were slightly earlier than most British Idealists, but Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics was published only a few years before Bradley’s Ethical Studies, which allowed for active mutual criticism.
In this section, I will discuss Utilitarian philosophy and the comments British Idealists make about it.
Green wrote an essay entitled “Utilitarianism Evaluated”. He first begins to say that utilitarian theory can clarify what is good and hence might cause better conduct; after all, we don’t need to doubt anymore who the “others” we have to take into account are – everyone is. However, the mere definition of good as pleasure, Green finds to be objectable, because that doesn’t make up an intrinsically desirable life. He explains:
The thought of the intrinsically desirable life, then, is the thought of something else than pleasure, but the thought of what? The thought, we answer, of the full realization of the capacities of the human soul, of the fulfillment of man's vocation, as of that in which alone he can satisfy himself -- a thought of which the content is never final and complete, which is always by its creative energy further determining its own conduct, but which for practical purposes, as the mover and guide of our highest moral effort, may be taken to be the thought of such a social life as that described. (33)
Green also notices problems with the idea of utility, because one will at times have to sacrifice his own pleasure to serve general pleasure. He, however, philosophizes that this sacrifice should be part of a higher end of pleasure, and that this end may be achieved.
Bosanquet writes on Bentham in his Philosophical Theory of the State. He discusses Bentham’s idea of achieving the greatest amount of happiness, and his consequent statements on liberty. Bentham states that every law is contradictory to liberty, but that we need to give away some of our liberty in order to preserve the rest of it. Bosanquet here objects that this statement presupposes that there previously, without law, was liberty. Bosanquet views Bentham's philosophy on laws as a necessary evil – by which, after all, some liberty can be achieved - and government as a choice of evils to be "a character of suspicion and antagonism" (7). According to Bosanquet, namely, Bentham is hostile towards any form of government, cause each law is a restriction of freedom. Bosanquet ends his section on Bentham’s philosophy on law and liberty by saying:
Our purpose was merely to illustrate the paradox implied in the conception of self-government, by pointing out how fundamentally hostile to one another Bentham took its constituent elements to be. (7)
Equally critical is Bosanquet of Mill. He writes:
Mill's idea of Individuality is plainly biassed by the Benthamite tradition that law is an evil.(7) Hereby, he means to criticize the value Mill places on individuality and eccentricity and how he as a result also views laws as contrary to liberty. Mill namely assumes that individuality – and hence originality – depend upon the absence of law and obligation. He further, according to Bosanquet, implies that eccentricity is the ultimate point of the developed self, and that the community, which is penetrated by a sense of universal relations (7), is entitled to monotony and uniformity (which Mill apparently views as negative). Then, Bosanquet concludes, needs no further words to show that law is a curtailment of human nature, the necessity of which remains inexplicable, so that self-government is a contradiction in terms. (7)
Still, Mill does not totally seem to oppose government. Bosanquet describes it as a "transition form administrative nihilism to administrative absolutism" (7). Mill argues that an individual should not be punished for doing himself wrong, because this would be an attack on individuality. But if this disabling himself causes damage for anyone else, or makes it impossible for the person to perform social duties, it is a social or moral issue. Here, Bosanquet gets sarcastic, stating that every act that carries a definite damage to any other person belongs to the sphere of law, and every act that can be supposed likely to cause such a damage, to that of morality; and individuality has what is left." (7)
In the same chapter, chapter III of Philosophical Theory of the State, Bosanquet discusses Herbert Spencer. He was influenced by Bentham. Spencer is a leader in the “natural rights” philosophy, which he founds upon biological principles. Spencer also discusses the rights of individuals versus those in societies, stating that it’d be ridiculous that a person would have many rights as a member of a society, but none as an individual. Here, Bosanquet thinks that Spencer is simply preferring the opposite to what Bentham prefers. Bosanquet explains:
If it is a plain fact that "a right" can only be recognised by a society, it is no less plain that it can only be real in an individual. (7)
In the 1870s, the Utilitarians and the British Idealists had started their fight to become influential in Britain. Henry Sidgwick was one of the utilitarians. He rivalled Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill as an architect of the classical utilitarian doctrine that the ultimate normative standard in ethics and politics ought to be the greatest happiness. Sidgwick was also a guiding spirit in the causes of women's higher education and parapsychology, a founder of Newnham College, Cambridge, and the Society for Psychical Research. (50) During this time, two ethical writings were being published – the Methods of Ethics by Sidgwick and Ethical Studies by F.H. Bradley. Sidgwick’s book got published first in 1874. In 1876, Ethical Studies followed. Bradley’s aim in this writing was to criticize determinism, hedonism, Kantianism, egoism, utilitarianism and the foundational empiricism at the root of these. (70) To Essay III, which Bradley had already completed before the publication of Methods of Ethics, he added a note stating that it was immediate philosophical reputation of ME which called forth some response. (70) He criticized here Mill’s Utilitarianism. Bradley's note, though fairly cursory, contended that Sidgwick "had left the question [of Hedonism] exactly where he had found it'" (70) Sidgwick, who had become the more popular of the two philosophers and remains more read than Bradley, reviewed Ethical Studies in Mind in 1876, responding to the note on Essay III. Bradley immediately responded, to which Sidgwick again responded in 1877. Bradley published a pamphlet with comments on Methods of Ethics, at which Sidgwick waited before publishing his second edition. It appears that some modifications have been made because of the comments Bradley had.
What, then, is so different between Bradley and Sidgwick? The matter is not as simple as an analytical utilitarian and Idealist in contest. (70) Neither of the two can, namely, be categorized so rigidly. Both were very analytical, which made Bradley a sort of “enigma” philosophically, and which caused Sidgwick to be so self-critical that he at times undermined his own work.
Much of the debate between Sidgwick and Bradley was about the actual meaning of philosophy. According to both, philosophy does not have a prescriptive function. Bradley thinks that moral philosophy is only there to signal what is. Political philosophy is not there to criticize the state, and nor is religious philosophy there to make a new religion. According to Sidgwick, philosophy should clarify what is, but was not mere ordinary opinion and should not be reduced to things like psychology or biology. Boucher and Vincent however remark that Sidgwick’s writing was “grey on grey” (70). He held ideas about utilitarianism which state that it is within its own time and culture, referring to Victorian culture. Sidgwick also uses “common sense” as an argument for utilitarianism. Sidgwick’s writing, all in all, is pretty puzzling. Bradley’s writing, on the other hand, is much more playful and ironic in style.
Both Bradley and Sidgwick were distanced from normative moral philosophy, which is especially strange for Sidgwick, for Utilitarianism is generally pretty normative. Bradley remarked that Sidgwick might be forming a "hedonistic utilitarianism” (70).
Sidgwick’s utilitarian ethics are noticeable. He views both ethics as a reflection on “methods” (hence the title of his writing) and uses utilitarianism as the “common sense” ethics. This is strange, for he also claims not to prefer one ethical method over another because the ethical thinker empathetically enters into and expounds the varying methods used in daily practice and criticizes them from an 'impartialist perspective. (70) Bradley does not object to the idea of the morally good being the achievement of as much happiness as possible, if happiness be viewed in the ancient Greek meaning. He does, however, object to happiness as mere pleasure. Sidgwick, however, criticizes any attempt to label him a utilitarian, hedonist or whatever. In a note to the second edition of Methods of Ethics, he writes that one writer (Bradley) "has gone to the length of a pamphlet under the [wrong] impression [...] that the "main argument of my treatise is a demonstration of Universalistic hedonism'" (ME, x). (70)
All in all, it is clear that there is an active mutual criticism between the utilitarians and the British Idealists, both on the topic of philosophy itself (Bradley vs. Sidgwick) and on ethical and political implications of their philosophies.