Green's Ethics

Abstract

According to Sidgwick, Green does not present a clear and consistent conception of an ethical system in Prolegomena to Ethics. In its most comprehensive form, Green’s doctrine of morality is stated to be a ‘Theory of the Good as Human Perfection’. This pursuit of the ultimate end of rational conduct is taken to be realization of certain human faculties or capacities, that is to say, the self-realization of the divine principle in man. Amongst other things, Sidgwick questions not only how this relation of man to God is to be philosophically known, but also how the human spirit is to aim at any kind of perfection except the increase of knowledge (something that Green affords too subordinate a position to equate it to his moral ideal).