The Methods of Ethics (Seventh Edition)

This Hackett edition is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the seventh (1907) edition as published by Macmillan and Company, Limited.

From the foreword by John Rawls:

"In the utilitarian tradition Henry Sidgwick (1838-1900) has an important place. His fundamental work, The Methods of Ethics (first edition 1874, seventh and last edition 1907, here reprinted), is the clearest and most accessible formulation of what we may call 'the classical utilitarian doctrine.' This classical doctrine holds that the ultimate moral end of social and individual action is the greatest net sum of the happiness of all sentient beings. Happiness is specified (as positive or negative) by the net balance of pleasure over pain, or, as Sidgwick preferred to say, as the net balance of agreeable over disagreeable consciousness. . . . "