The Cosmos of Duty

Abstract This book is a comprehensive and critical interpretation of Henry Sidgwick’s masterpiece The Methods of Ethics, first published in 1874. It shows how Sidgwick thought that the common-sense morality accepted by him and his contemporaries was underpinned by an impartial form of universal hedonism, but that this kind of impartial hedonism or utilitarianism could not be made consistent with egoism. Topics covered include Sidgwick’s views on the nature of ethics and metaethics, free will, well-being and hedonism, moral epistemology and intuitionism, virtue and the principles of common-sense morality, utilitarianism and egoism.