Abstract
A MOST useful though modest and unpretentious little work. In the nine essays of which it is composed the author summarises the main features of the doctrine of the “Methods of Ethics,” and discusses from the point of view of an admiring but candid and discriminating reader the principal difficulties of Sidgwick's position. On the vexed question whether Sidgwick is in his ethics fundamentally an egoist or not, Mr. Hayward decides, after a careful examination, in the affirmative, with good reason as the writer of this notice thinks. A good feature of the book is the very full and impartial statement of the contro versial arguments against Sidgwick urged by evolutionists on the one side, and neo-Kantians on the other. The care with which the changes in the successive editions of the “Methods” have been noted and allowed for and the thoughtful provision in the opening pages of a sum mary of Sidgwick's often prolix argument add to the value of a book which all students of ethics will find useful and suggestive. If the book should reach a second edition perhaps the author will tell us more definitely how far he regards the presence of apparently conflicting points of view in the “Methods” as due to excessive care in formulating a delicately balanced and consistent theory, and how far to the attempt to unite together elements which are really irreconcilable. At present he seems to hesitate in his verdict. As a scholar it is to be trusted he will purge future editions of such misspellings as “Königsbwrg” and ɛνɛγɛια, and such ugly formations as “perfectionistic” and “introspectionist.”
The Ethical Philosophy of Sidgwick.
By F. H. Hayward. Pp. xxiv + 275. (London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co., Ltd., 1901.) Price 4s. 6d.
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T., A. The Ethical Philosophy of Sidgwick . Nature 65, 412 (1902). https://doi.org/10.1038/065412b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/065412b0