E. E. Constance Jones on the dualism of practical reason (original) (raw)

Sidgwick and the Dualism of Practical Reason: Mitigated Aporia

In this dissertation, I reconstruct Sidgwick’s dualism of practical reason. On the basis of this reconstruction, I defend a distinct interpretation of it. This interpretation, in turn, helps me to develop a response to what Sidgwick deemed ‘the profoundest problem of Ethics’. Chapter one explores the relation between Sidgwick’s axioms and the dualism of practical reason. I contend that these axioms fail to meet Sidgwick’s epistemic standards unless they are revised. These revised axioms may be read from two points of view: the universal and the personal. The former reflects the fact that we are part of a larger whole; the latter, that we each constitute a distinct whole in ourselves. From the universal viewpoint, the axioms support morality. From the personal viewpoint, they support egoism. When egoism and morality conflict, our practical reason is divided against itself, and gives us no guidance. This conflict, I contend in chapter two, challenges moral realism, the internal coherence of practical reason, and the rational authority of morality. I defend three further claims about the conflict between morality and egoism: a) it has an existential dimension; b) it is contingent; and c) it is not just a problem, but also an insight. On the basis of this interpretation, I argue that common scholarly responses to the dualism of practical reason address ‘the profoundest problem of Ethics’ only superficially. The resulting aporia leads me to explore, in the third and final chapter, the possibilities of a different approach. Given that the dualism of practical reason is an insight, we must find a way to sustain it. We may do so by changing the contingencies that give rise to the discord between morality and egoism. I explore two such mitigating strategies: one private, and one political.

What is Sidgwick's Dualism of Practical Reason

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2000

Sidgwick's "Dualism of Practical Reason" has attracted the attention of many interpreters, and the Dualism itself seems to be an historically important version of the view, recently defended by Thomas Nagel, Susan Wolf, and others, that there exists a fundamental fragmentation of value -that the "cosmos of duty is reduced to chaos," in Sidgwick's words. In this paper, I consider and reject the leading interpretations of Sidgwick's Dualism, and propose an alternative reading. I conclude by offering what I hope is a plausible but Sidgwickian way out of the Dualism.

The dualism of practical reason

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 129.67.176.68 on Mon, M uch moral philosophy can be classed either as moralism or as egoism. By 'moralism', I mean the view that all reasons for action are moral reasons. The most obvious example is Kantianism, but other common views, such as utilitarianism, are also moralistic; thus, our strongest, or even only, reason at any time might be said to be to act on a universalised maxim or to maximise utility. Egoism, on the other hand, is the view that all reasons for action are ultimately self-interested. Much of ancient Greek moral philosophy can plausibly be described as egoistic, as can most versions of modern contractualism. According to egoism, we always have strongest reason to promote our own self-interest.

The Dualism of Practical Reason: The Profoundest Problem of ethics

ethic@ - An international Journal for Moral Philosophy

The aim of this article is to discuss and revisit what Sidgwick called the profoundest problem of ethics: the dualism of practical reason. I argue that Crisp's dual source view provides a good solution for the dualism via the small cost principle showing that we have to balance agent relative and agent neutral reason in a kind of a rational "negotiation" between our egoistic and our altruistic motivations. I suggest, however, that in order to justify his solution it is necessary to go beyond Sidgwick establishing a limit for the acceptance of egoism as a legitimate method of ethics. I argue that the pure egoism is a threat to reason and civilization and in order to show this I put forward two arguments: a Kantian logic argument and a utilitarianist argument. I propose then that the dualism is not only the profoundest problem of ethics, but also one of the more serious; it is the biggest contemporary ethical puzzle of humankind, and whose practical solution is of paramount importance for the future of life on earth.

The Objectivity of Ethics and the Unity of Practical Reason*

Ethics, 2012

Sidgwick’s defence of esoteric morality has been heavily criticized,for example in Bernard Williams’s condemnation of it as ‘Govern-mentHouseutilitarianism.’Itisalsoatoddswiththeideaofmorality defended by Kant, Rawls, Bernard Gert, Brad Hooker, and T.M.Scanlon. Yet it does seem to be an implication of consequentialismthatitissometimesrighttodoinsecretwhatitwouldnotberighttodoopenly,ortoadvocatepublicly.WedefendSidgwickonthisissue,and show that accepting the possibility of esoteric morality makesit possible to explain why we should accept consequentialism, even while we may feel disapproval towards some of its implications

Defending the Dualism of the Practical Reason Against Parfit’s" - eScholarship

2008

Famously, Sidgwick claimed that practical reason is divided, since the contradictory demands of two competing principles, Rational Egoism and Rational Benevolence, seem equally compelling. John Skorupski (in "Three Methods and a Dualism") argued that there are no competing standards of pure practical reason. Recently, Derek Parfit (in Chapter 2 of his unpublished manuscript Climbing the Mountain) tamed Sidgwick's dualism of practical reason by regarding it as the idea that in certain cases one might have a sufficient reason either to promote one's own good or to promote impartially the good. This paper reacts to these views. First, Parfit's account is assessed. The main conclusion defended is that Parfit's alleged improvement of Sidgwick's dualism is not dualist at all, and therefore misrepresents the original dualism. Second, the plausibility of a competition between the demands of impartiality and the ideal of prudence within a welfarist framework is defended, against Skorupski's contentions. The main argument here relies on a challenge to the idea that the boundaries and the content of pure practical reason can be precisely determined.

Sidgwick's utilitarianism in the context of the rise of Idealism: a reappraisal

Revue d'études benthamiennes , 2013

Henry Sidgwick’s great work, "The Methods of Ethics" (1874), was an attempt to give Utilitarianism an Intuitional basis. The six papers he gave at the Metaphysical Society (1869-1880) on nearly the same subject throw a new light on his ideas and how he revised his work several times in the light of religious, scientific and political changes which were taking place at the time. His criticism of what was to become Idealism and the criticism he was subjected to from an Idealist such as Bradley were also of influence on his work. By trying to bring together Utilitarianism and Intuitionism – two opposed ethical methods – he was seeking to defend a revamped form of “utilitarianism”, that is a form of utilitarianism which would incorporate a self-effacing morality. That he failed to do so is not the point, but he did try and the six papers he gave at The Metaphysical Society help to understanding his own version of utilitarianism.

Sidgwick’s coherentist moral epistemology

The Scientific Annals of "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University of Iasi (New Series). Philosophy, 2012

I discuss the ideas of common sense and common sense morality in Sidgwick. I argue that, far from aiming at overcoming common-sense morality, Sidgwick aimed purposely at grounding a consist code of morality by methods allegedly taken from the natural sciences, in order to reach also in the moral field the same kind of “mature” knowledge as in the natural sciences. His whole polemics with intuitionism was vitiated by the a priori assumption that the widespread ethos of the educated part of humankind, not the theories of the intuitionist philosophers, was what was really worth considering as the expression of intuitionist ethics. In spite of the naïve positivist starting point Sidgwick was encouraged by his own approach in exploring the fruitfulness of coherentist methods for normative ethics. Thus Sidgwick left an ambivalent legacy to twentieth-century ethics: the dogmatic idea of a “new” morality of a consequentialist kind, and the fruitful idea that we can argue rationally in normative ethics albeit without shared foundations.