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ABSTRACT
E. E. Constance Jones (1848–1922), a regular contributor to Mind and the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, and the author of several textbooks and a monograph, worked in both philosophical logic and ethics. The current paper focuses on Jones’ central contribution to ethics – her response to Sidgwick’s “dualism of practical reason”. Sidgwick held that practical reason has an allegiance to two distinct ‘methods’: self-love and benevolence. Yet, while both methods are independently rational, they may potentially come into conflict. This, for Jones, presented “the most important difficulty of the system of [Sidgwick’s] Universalistic Hedonism”. Jones returned to this problem a number of times in the course of her career. We discuss the evolution of her thinking on this problem and argue that her work presents an original and promising line of response to the dualism that worried Sidgwick.
Acknowledgements
This paper was delivered at the workshop “Women in the History of Analytic Philosophy”, held at Tilburg University on 27 October 2019. Thanks to the participants for their instructive comments and suggestions. Thanks also to Ray Buchanan, Mark Halfon, Jeanne Peijnenburg, Consuelo Preti, Frank Pupa, Katrien Schaubroeck and two anonymous referees for helpful comments on an earlier draft.
Notes
1 Ostertag, “Emily Elizabeth Constance Jones”, Section 5, provides an account of their exchange.
2 This is no exaggeration. In order to show that his ethical principles “possess the characteristics by which self-evident truths are distinguished from mere opinions” Sidgwick provides four general conditions (see Methods, 338–43) that a proposition must meet in order to possess “the highest degree of certainty attainable” (338).
3 Sidgwick distinguishes between ‘principles’ – as in first principles – and ‘methods’ – “rational procedures for determining right conduct in any particular case” (Methods, 78; quoted in Schultz, Henry Sidgwick, 150). While we don’t strictly follow his usage here, when we speak of self-love and benevolence we take these to be methods in Sidgwick’s sense.
4 Note that Sidgwick assumes, with Butler, that the motivation for self-love is rational. The conflict is not between egoism of a purely psychological sort and altruism. It is between two rational principles. Moreover, although in this passage Sidgwick presupposes that altruism, or ‘Universal Benevolence’, should be subordinated to self-love, our concern in what follows concerns the conflict itself rather than Sidgwick’s preferred resolution. As Jones writes, the conflict is “not between Reason and Unreason, but between competing reasonable Ends” (“Rational Hedonism”, 36). And Sidgwick is clear that such a conflict cannot be left unresolved: “I … assume as a fundamental postulate of Ethics, that so far as two methods conflict, one or other of them must be modified or rejected” (Methods, 6).
5 While the dualism of practical reason may provide a basis for skepticism about practical reason, the challenge it presents is not the familiar Humean one. The Humean argument targets internalism: the thesis that if there exists a normative proposition p, then believing p entails a desire for q to obtain, for some descriptive proposition q. If I believe that it’s good to keep promises, then, all things being equal, I will desire to keep my promise to pick up my friend at the train station. But, so the Humean (or ‘externalist’) argues, it is perfectly consistent for me to have the relevant belief and yet lack the corresponding desire, thus throwing into question the idea that there can be contents that are distinctly normative. (This follows Schiffer, Things, 240–42; but see also Smith, The Moral Problem, Chapter 3.)
While Sidgwick doesn’t endorse the extremely strong claim that the normative judgement that p implies a particular conative attitude, he does hold that the judgement provides “some degree of motivation to behave accordingly” (Schultz, Henry Sidgwick, 154). Thus, although he does acknowledge a potential conflict between benevolence and self-love, this does not, for Sidgwick, call into question the idea that one or the other principles possesses genuine normative force. Indeed, the mere fact that both principles are rational gives them such force.
6 Due to considerations of space we pass over Jones’ suggestion that a belief in the “moral government of the world” (“Rationality”, 41) provides a resolution.
7 This point is made parenthetically, in the context of the argument that constitutes Response B, below. Since it is made as an aside, so to speak, we treat it as an independent response.
8 This is not of course an identity statement in the strict sense, but rather an existential quantification. Since Jones did not see this subtlety, we will ignore it in what follows.
9 See Beiser, Late German Idealism, 185–6, for a useful discussion of Lotze’s argument.
10 Note that the analogy with dualism in the theory of content doesn’t help here, since a parallel conflict does not arise with respect to propositional content.
11 Again, Jones is attempting to establish that the dualism is not, or should note be viewed as, a problem for Sidgwick.
12 In suggesting an innate or natural basis for benevolence, Jones echoes Mill:
If there be anything innate in the matter, I see no reason why the feeling which is innate should not be that of regard to the pleasures and pains of others. If there is any principle of morals which is intuitively obligatory, I should say it must be that. If so, the intuitive ethics would coincide with the utilitarian, and there would be no further quarrel between them.
13 A referee has suggested to us a more substantive reading of response A, one which places greater emphasis than we have on the mutual dependency of benevolence and self-love. (Jeanne Peijnenburg suggested a similar reading.) On the suggested reading, the resolution of the dualism involves our grasping “the unity of the determinations [i.e. the concepts of self love and benevolence] in their opposition” (Hegel, Encyclopaedia, 131). As the referee notes, this has the advantage of unifying the three responses.
Such a reading deserves extended discussion – more than we can provide here. But let us note the following: First, there is no explicit mention of such a dialectical opposition in Jones’ writings, including, crucially, her one piece fully dedicated to the dualism (the late-career “Practical Dualism”). In addition, Jones saw herself as a defender and expositor of Sidgwick’s views. She would thus have avoided any resolution that would have been unacceptable to Sidgwick – and a dialectical solution surely would have been off the table for him.
14 Sidgwick would presumably have responded that our sympathies are restricted in strength and scope – they generally extend most powerfully only to a limited range of people (see Methods, 502). But notice that this concern applies with equal force to rational self-interest: There are very few persons who are as concerned with the quality of moments of their life ten or twenty years hence as they are with the next few days, weeks, or years. But no one would challenge the idea of rational egoism on such a basis. So it is unclear why these same considerations should provide a challenge to benevolence.