Three Dualisms: Sidgwick, Green, and Bradley
Sidgwick reluctantly embraced a dualism of practical reason between egocentric and impartial hedonism. By contrast, the British idealists Green and Bradley criticized hedonism and embraced a perfectionist ethical theory of self-realization that promises to overcome the dualism between
self and others by insisting that agents can only fully perfect themselves in a community that pursues a common good. Sidgwick rightly thinks that the idealists must face their own perfectionist version of the dualism. However, perfectionist and hedonistic dualisms are different. Hedonism
sees no inherent connection between the good of different people, which produces a gap between self and others that can be bridged only by instrumental and strategic means. By contrast, perfectionism claims that the right forms of interpersonal association extend an agent's interests
and contribute constitutively to her self-realization. The idealists may not eliminate potential conflict between self and others, but they constrain its extent.
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: Professor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego., Email: [email protected].
Publication date: 01 January 2019
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