The Categorical Imperative and Sidgwick’s Intuitionist Legacy

Abstract

The paper presents H. Sidgwick’s interpretation of the categorical imperative found in The Methods of Ethics and the influence this interpretation has had on the next generations of English–speaking philosophers. In his reading of Kant Sidgwick relied on a complex of ideas which had been present in British moral philosophy before the Victorian era and which differed fundamentally from Kant’s. The authority of Sidgwick has led many later philosophers to accept his interpretation and criticisms of Kant’s views without a thorough study of the texts of the Königsberg thinker. The interpretation has had its own life in many history of ethics textbooks and has indirectly been shaping the thinking of many contemporary moral philosophers.