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ABSTRACT
This paper addresses the question of the ethical significance of the theory of evolution in W. R. Sorley’s The Ethics of Naturalism (1st Edition 1885; 2nd Edition 1904). Sorley’s treatment is compared with that of his more influential contemporary, Henry Sidgwick, as well as with other works of the same period. The relevance of Sorley’s treatment for discussions of this topic in contemporary philosophy is explained. In addition, Sorley’s work is located within the historical and institutional context of its period.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the journal editors, two anonymous referees and colleagues at the Birkbeck Philosophy work in progress seminar for comments and suggestions that led to substantial improvements of this paper.
Notes
1 There is no reference to Sorley’s work in the magisterial Irwin (2009). The same goes for other standard works on the period, such as Schneewind (Sidgwick’s Ethics and Victorian Moral Philosophy) and Hurka (British Ethical Theorists). Some forensic attention is devoted to Sorley’s work in Metz (A Hundred Years of British Philosophy); Mander (British Idealism) and Mander (Idealist Ethics); more so than in Ewing (Idealism), in which Sorley is subject to Ewing’s ‘heartfelt thanks’ (Ewing, Idealism, v). Ewing’s selection of Idealist texts (Ewing, The Idealist Tradition) finds no space for Sorley’s work, although Sorley (Moral Values and the Idea of God) does appear in the bibliography.
2 One exception is Sorley (Moral Values and the Idea of God), which contains a brief discussion of Moore (on value and organic wholes) and Russell (on infinity and external relations); both subjects of which will have interested Sorley because of his Idealist commitments. Sorley also had a very different (and non-philosophical) run-in with Russell and Keynes, to which I shall return in the Epilogue.
3 Sorley’s A History of English Philosophy is notable for its discussion of Irish and Scottish philosophers as well, not just English ones.
4 Apart from The Ethics of Naturalism, Sorley’s main philosophical works are Recent Tendencies in Ethics (1904); The Moral Life and Moral Worth (1911); Moral Values and the Idea of God (1918); and A History of English Philosophy (1920). See, e.g. Metz, A Hundred Years of British Philosophy, 253–8; 393–6. I shall make references to some of these works in what follows where there this is relevant to the focus of discussion, but I shall make no attempt to give a synoptic view of Sorley’s philosophical outlook in this paper.
5 This aspect of Sidgwick’s work is not addressed in Schultz (Essays on Henry Sidgwick), but is discussed in Lillehammer (“Methods of Ethics and the Descent of Man”) and Lazari-Radek and Singer (The Point of View of the Universe). See also Crisp, The Cosmos of Duty.
6 The one naturalist philosopher explicitly mentioned by Green in this discussion is David Hume (1711–1776). His discussion of Sidgwick later in Prolegomena is primarily focused on Sidgwick’s hedonism, not on the implications of evolutionary theory for ethical thought. See, e.g. Dimova-Cookson and Mander, T.H. Green for a recent collection of papers on Green’s thought.
7 I am grateful to Ross Harrison for generously providing this, and other, personal information about Sorley’s time at King’s.
8 Commenting on the First Edition, Mander comments that in spite of the book showing ‘some originality’, the constructive parts read like ‘a virtual paraphrase of Green’ (Mander, British Idealism, 219). It is therefore not without interest that the Second Edition includes only two passing references to Green’s work. In any case, the present paper is focused on an aspect the book where the ‘some originality’ aspect is more in evidence.
9 The contrast with Recent Tendencies in Ethics (Sorley, Recent Tendencies in Ethics), published in the same year as the new edition of The Ethics of Naturalism, is striking in this regard. (The same can be said, and even more emphatically, about Sorley (Moral Values and the Idea of God).
10 The most important reference in this regard is arguably T. H. Huxley’s 1893 Romanes Lecture, “Evolution and Ethics” (see Huxley, Evolution and Ethics). It does not include G. E. Moore’s Principia Ethica (Moore, Principia Ethica); a work to which Sorley makes no reference. The fact that Moore’s work is hardly discussed in Sorley’s later work either suggests that this is not down to Sorley’s being unaware of, or being unable to consult, it (see, e.g. Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God). A more plausible hypothesis is that Sorley regarded Moore’s ethics as a representative of a discredited form of Intuitionism.
11 When discussing the question of ‘origin and validity’ as applied to politics, G. D. Ritchie makes a point that strongly resonates with Sorley’s argument on this score when he writes: “It is a mistake to suppose that, because an institution now serves certain purposes, it was created for these purposes; but, when we know how an institution came into being, we have still, as practical persons, to ask ourselves: ‘What purposes does it now serve? – else we do not estimate it rightly” (Ritchie, “Origin and Validity”, 78). Ritchie’s example is The House of Lords, which only serves to confirm the continuing relevance of the question. Sorley does not refer to Ritchie’s discussion in Sorley (The Ethics of Naturalism), although the title of Ritchie’s paper appears virtually verbatim in Sorley (A History of English Philosophy, 270),
12 The sentence invoking the concept of a ‘hypothetical imperative’ is one of a small number of passages in this chapter of the 1904 edition that do not occur in the 1885 edition. One example given by Sorley of a judgement that would survive knowledge of its historical pedigree on his terms is ‘respect for the rights of property’ (Sorley, The Ethics of Naturalism, 174). Both the property example and the talk of ‘ends’ in this passage can be traced back to Pollock (“Evolution and Ethics”), which Sorley also cites in this context.
13 For more on the substance of this accusation, see Lillehammer (“Ethics, Evolution and the A Priori”).
14 The idea that a generalized sceptical evolutionary debunking challenge would be self-undermining reappears elsewhere in Sorley’s work as well (See, e.g. Sorley, “The Philosophical Attitude”, 164ff; A History of English Philosophy, 72).
15 Space does not permit a detailed discussion of the merits and significance of the distinction between a coherentist and a foundationalist approach to moral epistemology here. For further discussion, see, e.g. Audi, The Good in the Right.
16 In a footnote, Sorley briefly mentions Pollock’s discussion of the possibility of applying ‘a utilitarian test on inherited instincts’, a possibility towards which Sidgwick could in principle have taken a positive view (Pollock, “Evolution and Ethics”; Sorley, The Ethics of Naturalism, 173). One respect in which Pollock’s approach differs from Sorley’s is in Pollock’s rejection of the existence of what he calls ‘absolute’ or ‘non-relative’ value (Pollock, “Evolution and Ethics”, 338). To pursue the implications of this disagreement here would take me too far afield.
17 In his History of English Philosophy, Sorley argues that Sidgwick got himself into this pickle by conflating the distinction between egoism and altruism with one between temporal relativity and temporal neutrality (Sorley, A History of English Philosophy, 280–1). Establishing the merits of this diagnosis is beyond the scope of this paper.
18 The most comprehensive view of how Sorley’s ethics is integrated with the rest of his thought is contained in Moral Value and the Idea of God, in which he offers the reader something that he calls ‘the moral argument’. He writes: “And I cannot here do better than give the argument in the words of Dr. Rashdall … ‘A moral ideal can exist nowhere and nohow but in a mind; an absolute moral ideal can exist only in a Mind from which all reality is derived. Our moral ideal can only claim objective validity in so far as it can rationally be regarded as the revelation of a moral ideal eternally existing in the mind of God’” (Sorley, Moral Values and the Idea of God, 351). (The text quoted by Sorley is from Rashdall (The Theory of Good and Evil, 212). See also Martineau (Types of Ethical Theory, 424)).
19 For further discussion of the Idealist tradition which Sorley’s later work is associated, see, e.g. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics; Ritchie, Darwinism and Politics; Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles; Sturt, Personal Idealism, v–viii; Long, Twentieth-Century Western Philosophy; Metz, A Hundred Years of British Philosophy; Mander, British Idealism; Boucher, “British Idealism and Evolution”; Mander, Idealist Ethics.
20 It is ironic, if not entirely surprising, that the ‘transcendental’ form of argument associated with Idealism has seen something of a revival in recent meta-ethics, albeit without invoking any of its associated Idealist baggage. (See, e.g. Enoch, Taking Morality Seriously for an appeal to the ‘deliberative indispensability’ of moral truths in defence of a ‘robust’ form of moral realism.)
21 The same could be said for contemporary cognitivists who shy away from the ‘realist’ label while purporting to offer a substantial explanation of ethical truth on explicitly non-realist terms. See, e.g. Skorupski, The Domain of Reasons.
22 The symptoms of this tendency towards conservatism are arguably present in the following passage from Pollock (“Evolution and Ethics”): “On the Evolution-hypothesis there is a presumption in favor of existing moral rules; and I may add that in a civilized and free community like our own that presumption is exceedingly strong” (343).
23 In his obituary of Sidgwick, Sorley writes kindly of his predecessor in this respect, although without venturing any views of his own on the matter (Sorley, “Henry Sidgwick”, 170).
24 Ridgeway further argued that women would have an unfair advantage over men in that they would be able to use their female charms to manipulate their examiners (all of whom he may, or may not, have assumed to be male).
25 A parallel move to admit women to Oxford met with less formidable resistance, ensuring their right to take University degrees in 1920.
26 The influence of Sorley’s religious associations and theological beliefs are arguably a significant factor on this matter, but space does not permit the pursuit of this issue here.
27 Another illustration of Sorley’s political conservatism, but one that for tragic reasons is less helpful for present purposes, is provided by Sorley’s attitude to the Great War, in which he lost his son Charles (1895–1915), who was shot by a German sniper and has subsequently come to be regarded as one of the great poets of his generation. Sorley the elder’s attitude to the War is documented in a spat he had with Bertrand Russell in The Cambridge Review in 1914. (In a letter to Ottoline Morrell, Russell describes Sorley as one of ‘the old fogies’ (Monk, Bertrand Russell, 396)). In response to the prospect of war, Russell advocated the establishment of a neutral, international, peace-keeping force. Sorley was against the idea. When it was later proposed that King’s should commemorate the dead Austro-Hungarian alumnus Ferenc Békássy along with Sorley the younger and other British fallen in the Chapel, Sorley objected until a compromise was negotiated by Keynes, whereby Békássy’s name would appear (as it now does) on a different part of the Chapel wall. (The Austrian Wittgenstein is said to have complained to O.K. Bouwsma about Sorley’s attitude at the time.) I am grateful to Peter Jones for bringing these biographical details to my attention. (See Jones, ‘Epilogue’).