The Methods Of Ethics

The Methods Of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick is a rigorous, analytic survey of how people determine what they ought to do, exploring egoism, utilitarianism, and intuitionism, and assessing how Common Sense morality relates to a scientific ethics. Sidgwick analyzes two rational ends—perfection and happiness—and outlines five natural methods, emphasizing Egoism, Intuitionism, and Utilitarianism (including both egoistic and universalistic forms). The work surveys how ethics intersects with law, politics, and social practice, and critiques external sanctions as sufficient guides to duty. It develops a framework for virtue, justice, benevolence, and the intellectual virtues, and investigates how motives, actions, and consequences bear on moral judgment. The author aims to show how common-sense moral judgments can be subsumed under or revised by utilitarian reasoning, while acknowledging the difficulties of measuring happiness, reconciling conflicting duties, and extending benevolence across persons and generations. The book lays the groundwork for a systematic, universal code that evolves with empirical understanding.