SIDGWICK, HENRY. - Philosopher, b. May 31, 1838 at Skipton (Yorkshire), d. Aug. 28, 1900 at Cambridge. He studied at Cambridge. A Fellow of Trinity College (1859), he was appointed (1869) to teach moral philosophy and, later, political philosophy as well. 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 the utilitarianism of Bentham (v.) and of J. Stuart Mill (v.), demonstrating however, as a consequence of his studies of Kant's philosophy, a more vivid awareness of the difficulties of reconciling the altruistic imperative of the system with its hedonistic concept of the good. The act by which one apprehends the "desirability" of a thing possesses, for S., an objective and interpersonal value and is, simultaneously, a pleasant state of consciousness. The same hedonistic orientation of subjective life therefore requires choosing ends valid for all, and overcoming egoistic tendencies. In the field of parapsychology he has the merit of having instituted one of the first experimental investigations of 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).
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