Section 1
Sidgwick's Three Principles
It is well known that Henry Sidgwick propounded a version of utilitarianism based on the three self-evident principles and the hedonistic theory of the ultimate good. The three principles are:
(1) The Principle of Justice: this constrains the judgment of 'right' or 'ought' as follows. "whatever action any of us judges to be right for himself, he implicitly judges to be right for all similar persons in similar circumstances" (Sidgwick 1907, 379).
(2) The Principle of Prudence: this is related to the notion of the good on the whole of a single individual, and is stated as follows. "Hereafter as such is to be regarded neither less nor more than Now"; "the mere difference of priority and posteriority in time is not a reasonable ground for having more regard to the consciousness of one moment than to that of another" (381).
(3) The Principle of Rational Benevolence: this is about the universal good, i.e. the good of all individuals, and is stated as follows. "the good of any one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view of the Universe, than the good of any other"; so 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" (382; I prefer this formulation in this paper, because the two components are stated separately).
One may notice that all may be regarded as a kind of impartiality, the object of impartial treatment being different in each case. However, we have to be careful. In stating these three principles, Sidgwick is insisting that all the three are non-tautological, i.e. not provable on logical grounds alone and have some substantive content; and, further, that (1) is a substantive principle obtained from the consideration of a Logical Whole, whereas (2) and (3) are a substantive principle obtained from the consideration of a Mathematical or Quantitative Whole (380-381). It is of vital importance for our interpretation of Sidgwick's three principles that we understand the exact implications of this assertion.
Henry Sidgwick as an undergraduate
[Photo from Arthur and Eleanor Sidgwick,
Henry Sidgwick: A Memoir, Macmillan, 1906;
reprint, Thoemmes Press, 1996]
To 2. Hare's Analysis of the Universalizability
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July 20, 1998, last modified April 17, 2006. (c) Soshichi Uchii
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