SIDGWICK, HENRY. - Philosopher, b. 31 May 1838 at Skipton (Yorkshire), d. 28 Aug. 1900 at Cambridge. He studied at Cambridge. A Fellow of Trinity College (1859), he was entrusted (1869) with the teaching of moral philosophy and, later, also of political philosophy. In 1882 he was elected president of the Society for psychical research, of which he was one of the principal promoters.
S. continues the line of Bentham’utilitarianism (v.) and that of J. MELLO (v.), while demonstrating, as a result of his studies of Kant’s philosophy, a keener awareness of the difficulties of reconciling the system’s altruistic imperative with its hedonistic conception of the good. The act by which the “desirability” of a thing is apprehended possesses, for S., an objective and interpersonal value and is, at the same time, a pleasant state of consciousness. The very hedonistic orientation of subjective life therefore requires the choice of ends valid for all, and the overcoming of egoistic tendencies. In the field of parapsychology, he deserves credit for having initiated one of the first experimental investigations into the phenomena of telepathy (v.).
Principal works: Methods of ethics (London 1875, 6th ed. 1901); History of ethics (ibid. 1879, 4th ed. 1896); Principles of political economy (ibid. 1883); The elements of politics (ibid. 1891); Practical ethics (ibid. 1898); Philosophy, its scope and relations (ibid. 1902); The philosophy of Kant and other lectures and essays (ibid. 1905).