Abstract
Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics (ME) seems to be about methods of ethics. However, what exactly is meant by methods and how they are related to principles is notoriously in need of clarification. In this paper, I elaborate a Sidgwickian conception of moral theorizing that emerges from ME when these questions are examined more closely. Through a critical discussion of differing interpretations (e. g. by Schneewind 1977, Brink 1988, Daurio 1997, Crisp 2015), I argue that, according to Sidgwick,
- moral theorizing has a theoretical and a practical aim: (a) to obtain systematic and general knowledge about the ultimate reasons that determine the deontic status of an action, and (b) to provide agents with deliberative guidance in answering the practical question “What ought I to do?”;
- principles are meant to serve the first aim and to answer the question “What ought I to do?” by identifying those ultimate reasons, i. e. the right-making properties;
- methods are meant to serve the second aim and to answer the question “What ought I attend to (or be guided by) when deliberating on the question ‘What ought I to do?’?” by identifying the rightness-indicating properties;
- a moral theory is composed of two elements, a principle and a method;
- in an adequate moral theory, principles are teleologically related to methods: in practical deliberation on what one ought to do, we ought to use the method that best achieves the ultimate aims (i. e. the method that is best supported by the ultimate reasons) given by the principle.
The latter is a substantial assumption that clearly distinguishes the Sidgwickian conception of moral theorizing from a more Kantian, constitutivist view (according to which the right-making properties necessarily coincide with the rightness-indicating properties and the method that ought to guide practical deliberation constitutes the principle). I conclude by discussing the ramifications of the proposed interpretation (a) for understanding the dialectic progression of the principal argument in ME, and (b) for understanding the dualism of practical reason.
