- Lived:
- 1838–1900 · Skipton, Yorkshire, then Cambridge, England — almost all of it inside one college
- Tradition:
- Victorian moral philosophy; classical utilitarianism at its most rigorous
- The Big Idea:
- If you audit the ways ordinary people actually reason about right and wrong — self-interest, common-sense rules, the greatest happiness — utilitarianism survives the audit best; but reason alone cannot settle the final fight between "what's best for me" and "what's best for everyone."
- In their words:
- "The good of any one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view (if I may say so) of the Universe, than the good of any other."
- If you remember one thing:
- Sidgwick followed his arguments wherever they went — out of his church, out of his job, into séance rooms and women's colleges — and when his life's work ended in an unsolved problem, he had the honesty to say so.