Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics: An Epicurean Review
In many ways, he’s on our side
Henry Sidgwick is generally considered to be the last of the three major classical Utilitarians, after Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. His masterwork is universally declared to be The Methods of Ethics, a hefty 500-page tome first published in 1874 that compares three different ethical systems, including our own favored egoistic hedonism. Although the book is not exactly in vogue today, partially perhaps due to its length and somewhat dry style (Mill’s Utilitarianism and On Liberty are far more approachable books), it has had many prominent admirers. Derek Parfit, for instance, considered it the best book on ethics ever written.
For our purposes, what is especially valuable about The Methods of Ethics compared to much contemporary ethical philosophy is that it takes Epicureanism seriously, even if it is not an outright defense of the system. The “methods” of the title are three: egoistic hedonism (Epicureanism), universalistic hedonism (utilitarianism), and intuitionism (now usually called deontology, by which Sidgwick primarily meant the collection of seemingly independent ethical intuitions expressed by “commonsense” morality). In the book, Sidgwick considers the reasonableness and internal consistency of each system in great depth, refreshingly giving egoism equal standing with its two competitors, rather than relegating it to an easily dismissed subsidiary position, as is commonly found in modern textbooks.
Giving a comprehensive account of this massive landmark in philosophy is beyond the scope of today’s essay, but I would like to draw attention to why Epicurean sympathizers might want to read Sidgwick, focusing both on areas where he capably defends our positions and on aspects where he intelligently challenges our thinking.
First Things First: A Recap of Terminology
For those who have not studied ethics in a formal, systematic fashion, some review of the relevant vocabulary is in order. And even if you have, explicitly defining the position of Epicureanism in relation to the available alternatives is a very useful and important task for anyone trying to clarify their own philosophic convictions.
In Sidgwick’s attempt at laying out the viable ethical options, he concludes that there are only two possible final ends that “have a strongly and widely supported claim”—either happiness or what could be termed perfection or excellence (1.1.4).1 Among those who believe happiness to be the most rational objective of human behavior, he believes there to be two camps: those who believe we should pursue the happiness of all (Utilitarianism) and those who believe we should pursue our own happiness (Epicureanism). By the pursuit of “perfection or excellence,” Sidgwick generally means adherence to some vision of the right or good conceived separately from happiness. Sometimes he puts this in terms of the work of Kant (the foremost representative of what we now typically refer to as deontology), but most of his discussion focuses on the commonsense morality of his time. The main term Sidgwick uses, however, is Intuitionism: many everyday people assert that there are various freestanding moral intuitions such as “one should not lie” and “one should keep one’s promises,” for instance.
There are a few things to note already, then, about how Sidgwick situates Epicureanism relative to other philosophical schools.
Sidgwick understands Epicurean “hedonism” correctly, as perfectly parallel to that of Utilitarianism. For largely historical reasons, Utilitarianism is usually spoken of accurately as advocating for maximizing “utility,” a somewhat specialized term of philosophy that is generally understood to mean the same thing as maximizing “happiness,” while ancient Epicureanism is often described simply as pursuing “pleasure,” a word that has of course given rise to all kinds of misinterpretation. Sidgwick understands that the pursuit of “pleasure,” “utility,” and “happiness” are all the same thing. For more, see my essay on Epicurean hedonism.
The difference then between Epicureanism and Utilitarianism is then simply one between egoistic hedonism (the term Sidgwick usually uses) and universalistic hedonism (which Sidgwick usually calls Utilitarianism). This clarifies and sets the stage for one of the main questions of the book: is either self-interest or altruism a defensible, self-evident first principle? Sidgwick’s answer is roughly “both”—a famous conclusion known as “the dualism of practical reason.” Read on for more.
Sidgwick’s opposition between the two hedonistic schools and the camp of the “perfection or excellence”-seeking Intuitionists similarly boils down the core dispute: do we really have independent intuitions against lying, stealing, killing, etc., or are those seeming “intuitions” really only valid insofar as they actually contribute to happiness?
This clarity of categorization alone is a good reason to read Sidgwick. Many summaries of Epicureanism treat the philosophy from a merely historical perspective. Sidgwick puts egoistic hedonism into a live debate with the two dominant ethical systems of his time, both of which continue to be hugely influential today. And despite egoism being the least respected option among philosophers of both his day and our own, Sidgwick is a consistently fair-minded and detail-oriented thinker, who never simply brushes Epicureanism aside without careful consideration of its arguments.
Sidgwick the Epicurean Ally: Things He Affirms
Let’s next consider some points where Sidgwick is generally in support of the Epicurean position.
Hedonism is right
A large part of the book is given over to an extensive analysis of the commonsense morality of Sidgwick’s day, with several chapters analyzing different virtues or principles such as self-control, justice, promise-keeping, and so on. (In lecture notes printed in the preface to the sixth edition, Sidgwick noted that this was the original core of the book, conceived as a modern imitation of Aristotle’s practice in the Nicomachean Ethics.) The basic result of his analysis is that all of these seemingly disparate “intuitions” all boil down to hedonism: in cases where “keeping a promise,” for instance, would reduce the happiness of all the relevant parties, he thinks the intuition of moral obligation no longer holds. Instead, the principles of commonsense morality should be treated as helpful rules-of-thumb that usually, but not always, lead to good hedonistic outcomes.
Most reactions against hedonism are simply aversion to the word “pleasure,” combined with unreflective allegiance to inherited societal rules. Sidgwick, however, sees such arguments for what they really are: terminological confusion and a fundamental lack of reflection about the true nature of our learned moral rules.
In practice, egoism is usually aligned with Utilitarianism
Sidgwick and Epicurus agree that egoists will generally agree with Utilitarians on the best course of action, because the publicly beneficial course of action is most often beneficial to the individual too. Sometimes, this occurs in a very natural and subconscious way, where the egoistic benefits of cooperation are obvious: most of the time, each individual wants to follow the rules of the road, because driving against traffic or in flagrant disregard of lane markers would be very hazardous to his own safety. In other cases, there might be legal sanctions that help align the egoistic and altruistic interests: people may be held back from shoplifting by the thought of the punishment they will experience if they are caught, for instance. According to Epicurus, the fear of legal penalties or adverse social reactions is essentially inescapable, so wise egoists will nearly always follow the course of action that is approved of by society.
When someone secretly violates the covenants that men form to neither harm nor be harmed, it is impossible for him to be sure that he will escape detection, even if up to now he has escaped a thousand times. (Principal Doctrine 35)
Sidgwick also recognizes the practical effectiveness of sanctions in the majority of cases and gives a very useful extended account of how they can influence the rational egoist:
[Legal sanctions] We must indeed admit that in an even tolerably well-ordered society… all serious open violation of law is contrary to prudence. (2.5.2)
[Social disapproval] No doubt the hope of praise and liking and services from one’s fellow-men, and the fear of forfeiting these and incurring instead aversion, refusal of aid, and social exclusion, are considerations often important enough to determine the rational egoist to law-observance, even in default of adequate legal penalties. (2.5.3)
[Social benefits] A rational egoist will generally be strict and punctual in the fulfilment of all his engagements, and truthful in his assertions, in order to win the confidence of other men; and he will be zealous and industrious in his work, in order to obtain gradually more important and therefore more honorable and lucrative employment; and he will control such of his passions and appetites as are likely to interfere with his efficiency; and…[etc.] (2.5.3)
[“Internal sanctions”—the pleasure or pain we habitually come to feel in performing socially-approved actions] There is every reason to believe that most men, however firmly they might adopt the principles of Egoistic Hedonism, would still feel sentiments prompting to the performance of social duty, as commonly recognized in their society, independently of any conclusion that the actions prompted by such sentiments were reasonable and right. For such sentiments would always be powerfully supported by the sympathy of others, and their expressions of praise and blame, liking and aversion. (2.5.4)
Now, to be clear, Sidgwick’s final conclusion is that all of these collective sanctions are not sufficient to bring egoistic and universalistic hedonism into perfect alignment. Officially, in Sidgwick’s attempt to craft perfectly consistent ethical frameworks, this means that any assertion of altruistic duty needs to be independently demonstrated—one cannot simply wave one’s hands and say “egoism poses no problems to conventional ideas of duty and virtue,” because he thinks we can always come up with some scenario in which an egoistically-motivated action will face no social consequences of any kind, even though the action in question is socially detrimental.
The disagreement with Epicurus here is a relatively subtle one. At first glance, Epicurus seems to simply state that egoism and conventional virtues will always coincide:
It is impossible to lead a pleasurable life without also living prudently, honorably, and justly; it is also impossible to lead a life of prudence, honor, and justice without living pleasurably. (PD 5)
Some fragments suggest, however, that Epicurus is aware that this alignment is not in fact perfect. Most notoriously:
In his Problems, [Epicurus] asks whether a wise person will do something that the laws forbid, if he knows that he will escape detection. And he answers that it is not easy to give an unqualified response. (Usener 18, Plutarch Against Colotes 1127D)
Epicurus knows that sanctions are not actually 100% effective at making egoism agree with conventional morality. In my reading, he is simply less concerned than Sidgwick with achieving 100% consistency. The life of the egoist will on the whole be what normal people would consider virtuous, but in effectively invisible situations where negligible harm is done to others, the egoist will not worry about an abstract idea of justice. For instance, when I file my California state income taxes, I am supposed to report any out-of-state purchases I’ve made from retailers too small to submit the sales tax for me. But I don’t. There are probably a few dozen people who do (estimates put it in the range of 1% compliance), but this law is effectively unenforced and there is no stigma against failure to comply, so I don’t worry about it. For Sidgwick’s project, however, this is a complication: he needs to ask whether we actually have a moral obligation to exhibit maximum socially-defined virtue even in cases where egoistically effective sanctions are lacking.
Personally, I think the Epicurean position that since sanctions are 99% effective at making socially beneficial behavior also egoistically beneficial, we shouldn’t worry too much about the rare discrepancies, is a good one. Additionally, one should note that Epicureans are not opposed to either the deployment of external sanctions (legal penalties) or the nurturing of internal sanctions (moral education in support of prosocial emotional defaults), so as far as public policy goes, there is essentially no dispute.
Finally, Sidgwick is also fair enough to note that in some prominent cases, egoistic impulses can be more socially beneficial than their absence would be: most normal people would consider it a good thing that people have more sympathy for their spouses and children than for anonymous strangers, for instance:
There are very few persons, however strongly and widely sympathetic, who are so constituted as to feel for the pleasures and pains of mankind generally a degree of sympathy at all commensurate with their concern for wife or children, or lover, or intimate friend: and if any training of the affections is at present possible which would materially alter this proportion in the general distribution of our sympathy, it scarcely seems that such a training is to be recommended as on the whole felicific. (Concluding chapter, section 3)
Egoism does not mean that you only consider yourself as an isolated being; it means that you consider the people closest to you as more important in your decision-making process than universalizing abstractions. Sometimes, Sidgwick admits, the best way to promote universal happiness is to endorse egoistic motivation.
Most cursory textbook treatments of egoism miss these factors. They might include legal penalties in the discussion, but they often exclude the benefits of trusting social reciprocation, the existence of internalized sanctions, or the fact that the widely admired traits of familial, friend-based, or patriotic loyalty are all ultimately egoistic impulses. Refreshingly, Sidgwick actually wants to make the best case he can for egoism, despite his Utilitarian inclinations.
Egoism is hard to disprove
The majority of moralists seem to find all forms of egoism to be inherently worthy of suspicion or disdain. Sidgwick, however, has the self-awareness to step back and make a real, good faith attempt to evaluate egoism neutrally. And while he stops quite a way short of a full endorsement (since he believes that he also feels a valid moral intuition to act on behalf of others), he does make a major concession that it is “difficult not to admit the ‘authority’ of self-love, or the ‘rationality’ of seeking one’s own individual happiness (3.1.1).
As supporting context, Sidgwick notes that many widely respected sources do in fact grant egoistic impulses a great deal of legitimacy—something else which is often left out of the modern textbooks. He notes that many Christian moralists promise that living virtuously will lead to happiness (2.1.1), as does Aristotle, perhaps the most influential ancient ethicist (2.1.2). Even Bentham, the originator of modern universalistic hedonism, considered it “right and proper” that each individual “should aim at his own greatest happiness.” And all of these philosophical precursors are largely following what is in many respects still the popular consensus: Sidgwick notes that there is a “wide acceptance of the principle that it is reasonable for a man to act in the manner most conducive to his own happiness” (2.1.1).
All of this should be recognized, not as “proof of egoism” per se, but as empirical evidence in favor of egoism’s fundamental reasonableness. While immersion in altruistic theories can distort this view, it is fundamentally very difficult to assert that people should not pursue their own happiness, or that the fate of a man’s wife and children should not be regarded as more important to him than the fates of distant strangers.
Sidgwick the Epicurean Skeptic: Two Clear But Minor Disagreements
While Sidgwick takes egoistic hedonism seriously, there are some points where he clearly diverges from Epicurus.
Psychological Hedonism
Epicurus believes in psychological hedonism—the proposition that all human motivation comes down to the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain. We eat cookies because they taste good, sure. But we also do uncomfortable physical exercise: maybe we are thinking strategically of the future pleasure of health and fitness, maybe on net we enjoy the accompanying competition or companionship of a group activity, maybe we are trying to avoid the mental pain of guilt and shame at being fat and lazy—all of these could be seen as hedonistic motivations in the understanding of Epicurus (or of John Stuart Mill, for that matter).
Sidgwick, however, is unconvinced. In his paraphrase of Butler, which he often considers applicable, “we could not pursue pleasure at all, unless we had desires for something else”—we would take no net pleasure in exercise unless we wanted to be healthy, lean, or hardworking (1.4.2). Furthermore, in certain situations, many people have an impression of choosing between pleasure and other motivating factors (duty, for example). Sidgwick thinks this is a real phenomenon, while psychological hedonists would maintain that if we “do our duty” it is because we are receiving a psychological reward for doing so, such as avoiding painful shame or guilt.
In the end, I think much of this dispute is an irresolvable question of preferred definition. Sidgwick acknowledges, for instance, that the enlightened egoist experiences “sympathetic pleasures and pains, which have to be taken into account in the calculations of egoistic hedonism,” but asserts that there are also other “impulses to altruistic action” that do not fall under the name of pleasure and pain (Concluding Chapter, Section 3). Personally, I think “pleasure” is a reasonable word to use to describe the fulfillment of an impulse and find the recourse to other, vaguely motivating “impulses” to be an unhelpful complication.
That the Absence of Pain is Pleasurable
That the complete absence of pain constitutes the highest degree of pleasure is one of Epicurus’ more controversial takes (presented explicitly in both Principal Doctrine 3 and the Letter to Menoeceus). Sidgwick formally disagrees with this, stating that this “paradox of Epicurus” is “opposed to common sense and common experience” (2.2.1). Still, he disagrees with it less completely than many do, since he acknowledges that the theoretical “hedonistic zero” is not our normal condition, but rather that the normal condition of healthy human life is a largely pleasant one.
This is, in a sense, Epicurus’ main pragmatic takeaway: removing all sources of pain and achieving a state of untroubled health will render your life a pleasurable one. If certain modern readers balk at taking Epicurus quite literally here and wish to stick with Sidgwick’s position that an essentially neutral state must presumably exist at some point within our lives of fluctuating pains and pleasures, while still retaining Epicurus’ practical position that pain removal is paramount and that the normal state of a healthy mind is a pleasurable one, I am not too bothered.
The Big Question: Is There a Valid “Maxim of Benevolence”?
Sidgwick is thus highly sympathetic to a number of core Epicurean positions: he thinks hedonism is the most rational basis for an ethical system, he agrees that egoistic considerations will generally lead to prosocial outcomes, and he thinks that the basic rationale of self-interest is essentially undeniable. Even his disagreements regarding psychological hedonism and the pleasurableness of a pain-free state are nuanced and technical, rather than truly cutting at the root of the Epicurean system.
But there is one big reason why Sidgwick is a Utilitarian, rather than an egoist: he believes in the intuitional validity of a “maxim of benevolence.” He first defines this as part of his tour of the moral intuitions proposed by commonsense morality, proposing a self-evident principle that
the good of any one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view (if I may say so) of the Universe, than the good of any other… it is evident to me that as a rational being I am bound to aim at good generally,—so far as it is attainable by my efforts,—not merely at a particular part of it. (3.13.3)
Sidgwick recognizes that moral intuitions are in a sense unprovable—they are first principles rather than logical conclusions from previously accepted premises. He attempts to provide some criteria that he thinks can help us distinguish self-evident truths from mere opinion, but ultimately concedes that the self-evidence of the maxim of benevolence feels true to him, while there are rational egoists who do not accept it (4.2.1).
Personally, I don’t feel that the above maxim is self-evident: there is no clear reason to me why an individual should adopt “the point of view of the Universe.” There are reasonable grounds for thinking that a strong sense of sympathy with other people evolved because it was biologically useful for survival and reproduction (and that this could explain the feeling of an intuition), but there is no reason to consider such an impulse a form of “self-evident truth” in a rational sense. Biological impulses are real and important, but they are not logically truth-tracking.
Sidgwick, however, is unwilling to drop this intuition. Combined with his already mentioned difficulty in disproving egoism, he is left with a famous though controversial conclusion known as the “dualism of practical reason,” which states that there is an irresolvable discrepancy between these two seemingly self-evident propositions: that we should seek our own happiness and that we should seek everyone’s happiness. He does raise a caveat: one way that the two could be resolved is if we posit a deity who will ensure that those who act in the interest of universal happiness will be individually rewarded. It was for this reason that Keynes bitingly said of Sidgwick:
He never did anything but wonder whether Christianity was true and prove that it wasn’t and hope that it was.2
Sidgwick wanted to justify altruism, the teaching of his philosophical mentors. He wanted to disprove egoism, to which he felt an aversion. But he was also a careful and painstaking thinker, who endlessly qualifies, specifies, circles around and reapproaches every topic throughout the course of this sprawling book. And so, despite his own inclinations, Sidgwick ultimately concedes both that egoism cannot be dismissed as irrational and that the maxim of benevolence is fundamentally unprovable to those who do not consent to it. The reverse, perhaps, is true as well.
If everyone who expressed their opinions on ethics were similarly cautious, restrained, and reasonable, many discussions would be more fruitful. And if we are willing to put on hold the project of obtaining universal consent to a single, unified system, then we can embrace the vast possibilities found in the overlap between advocates of universalistic and egoistic hedonism.
That real world is where Epicurus worked. In that real world, you will occasionally encounter situations for which “it is not easy to give an unqualified response.” But far more often you will find that the path of justice and benevolence is the path of pleasure after all.
All parenthetical citations are to the standard book, chapter, and section numbers of The Methods of Ethics.
Quoted in the very helpful guide to The Methods by David Phillips: Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics: A Guide, 220.