Henry Sidgwick and John Rawls on the neutrality of normative moral theory

Abstract

The paper describes similarities and differences between Henry Sidgwick’s and John Rawls’ conceptions of the program of moral philosophy. It is shown how the moral theory of the author of The Methods of Ethics should be understood and in what ways Rawls’ project is a development of it. According to Sidgwick, moral theory is a comparative study of different methods of ethics found in common sense. Moral theory is independent from metaphysical or psychological questions like those concerning freedom of will or the origin of the moral faculty. The author of A Theory of Justice refers directly to Sidgwick’s view of moral theory. Rawls says: “By ‘moral theory’ I mean the systematic and comparative study of moral conceptions, starting with those which historically and by current estimation seem to be the most important”. The independence of moral theory should be understood as independence of normative ethics from such philosophical disciplines as metaphysics, epistemology, and even moral philosophy. The task of moral philosophy is to answer questions related to traditional philosophical (e.g. metaphysical or epistemological) topics, which include the questions of moral truth. The goal of moral philosophy is to provide us with a deeper insight into the structure of moral conceptions.