On the Philosophy of Ethics: An Analytical Essay (19th Century British Philosophy S.) - Hardcover

This book is a systematic treatment from an independent point of view, of the foundations of ethics. Chapters include "The Moral Sense", "The Criterion of Right and Wrong", "The Happiness of Man", "Ends and Motive", "Act and Agent", "Sanctions", "Justice" and "The Supreme Good". Laurie explicitly rejects the theory that right and wrong are determined by an "arbitrary" moral sense, ie a special moral faculty distinct from all our other faculties. "The felicity of man", he insists, must be at the end and the criterion of all our actions. This does not mean, however, that Laurie simply endorses the utilitarian position; we know that he regarded Bentham's views as immoral and John Stuart Mill's as incoherent. We thus need a conception of the "felicity of man" richer than that of the utilitarians - an ethics, Laurie insists, always presupposes an anthropology.