Such criticisms of my Ethical opinions and reasonings as have come under my notice, since the publication of the fourth edition of this treatise, have chiefly related to my treatment of the question of Free Will in Book i. chap. v., or to the hedonistic view of Ultimate Good, maintained in Book iii. chap. iv. I have accordingly rewritten certain parts of these two chapters, in the hope of making my arguments more clear and convincing: in each case a slight change in view will be apparent to a careful reader who compares the present with the preceding edition: but in neither case does the change affect the main substance of the argument. Alterations, in one or two cases not inconsiderable, have been made in several other chapters, especially Book i. chap. ii., and Book iii. chaps. i. and ii.: but they have chiefly aimed at removing defects of exposition, and do not (I think) in any case imply any material change of view.
My thanks are again due to Miss Jones, of Girton College, for reading through the proofs of this edition and making most useful corrections and suggestions: as well as for revising the index which she kindly made for the fourth edition.
PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION
The revision of The Methods of Ethics for this edition was begun by Professor Sidgwick and carried through by him up to p. 276, on which the last of his corrections on the copy were made. The latter portion of his revision was done under the pressure of severe illness, the increase of which prevented him from continuing it beyond the point mentioned; and by the calamity of his death the rest of the book remains without the final touches which it might have received from his hand. In accordance with his wish, I have seen pp. 277 to 509 through the press unchanged—except for a few small alterations which he had indicated, and the insertion on pp. 457-459 of the concluding passage of Book iv. chapter iii.[6] Such alterations as were made by Professor Sidgwick in this edition prior to p. 276 will be found chiefly in chapters i.-v. and ix. of Book i., and chapters iii. and vi. of Book ii.
The Appendix on “The Kantian Conception of Free Will,” promised in note 1 on p. [58] of this edition, is substantially a reprint of a paper by Professor Sidgwick under that heading which appeared in Mind, vol. xiii. No. 51, and accurately covers the ground indicated in the note.
There is one further matter of importance. Among the MS. material which Professor Sidgwick intended to be referred to, in preparing this edition for the press, there occurs, as part of the MS. notes for a lecture, a brief history of the development in his thought of the ethical view which he has set forth in the Methods of Ethics. This, though not in a finished condition, is in essentials complete and coherent, and since it cannot fail to have peculiar value and interest for students of the book, it has been decided to insert it here. Such an arrangement seems to a certain extent in harmony with the author’s own procedure in the Preface to the Second Edition; and in this way while future students of the Methods will have access to an introductory account which both ethically and historically is of very exceptional interest, no dislocation of the text will be involved.
In the account referred to Professor Sidgwick says:—
“My first adhesion to a definite Ethical system was to the Utilitarianism of Mill: I found in this relief from the apparently external and arbitrary pressure of moral rules which I had been educated to obey, and which presented themselves to me as to some extent doubtful and confused; and sometimes, even when clear, as merely dogmatic, unreasoned, incoherent. My antagonism to this was intensified by the study of Whewell’s Elements of Morality which was prescribed for the study of undergraduates in Trinity. It was from that book that I derived the impression—which long remained uneffaced—that Intuitional moralists were hopelessly loose (as compared to mathematicians) in their definitions and axioms.
The two elements of Mill’s view which I am accustomed to distinguish as Psychological Hedonism [that each man does seek his own Happiness] and Ethical Hedonism [that each man ought to seek the general Happiness] both attracted me, and I did not at first perceive their incoherence.