Overview

Does being virtuous make you happy? Roger Crisp examines the answers to this ancient question provided by the so-called 'British Moralists', from Thomas Hobbes, around 1650, for the next two hundred years, until Jeremy Bentham. This involves elucidating their views on happiness (self-interest, or well-being) and on virtue (or morality), in order to bring out the relation of each to the other. Themes ran through many of these writers: psychological egoism, evaluative hedonism, and—after Hobbes—the acceptance of self-standing moral reasons. But there are exceptions, and even those taking the standard views adopt them for very different reasons and express them in various ways. As the ancients tended to believe that virtue and happiness largely coincide, so these modern authors are inclined to accept posthumous reward and punishment. Both positions sit uneasily with the common-sense idea that a person can truly sacrifice their own good for the sake of morality or for others. This book shows that David Hume—a hedonist whose ethics made no appeal to the afterlife—was the first major British moralist to allow for, indeed to recommend, such self-sacrifice. Morality and well-being of course remain central to modern ethics, and Crisp demonstrates how much there is to learn from this remarkable group of philosophers.

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9780198896562

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Reviews

Roger Crisp's excellent book concerns the relation between morality and self-interest in the British Moralists . . . Each chapter begins with a critical account of the moral theory of the moralist, followed by a critical discussion of the moralist's view of the relation between morality and self-interest. . . . Even readers not so concerned with the relation between morality and self-interest will benefit from the state-of-the-art treatments of the moral theories. You can piece together a fine short history of utilitarianism from the chapters on Cumberland, Hutcheson, Hume, Gay, Tucker, Paley and Bentham (and a short history of objections to utilitarianism from the chapters on Butler, Smith, and Price). And you can trace histories of certain strategies, such as (remarkably common) split-level defences of psychological egoism, rational egoism, or consequentialism. * Robert Shaver, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews * Roger Crisp offers a fresh look at the foundations and development of British moral philosophy from Hobbes to Bentham, in the process demonstrating a mastery of the writings of a legion of philosophers. . . . Sacrifice Regained is an unambiguously unique contribution to the secondary literature on modern British moral philosophy, and the reader curious about the contributions made by Crisp's selection of philosophers to our understanding of morality and its challenges, and what makes their ideas still so very interesting, will not be disappointed by his acute examination of the relevant texts. * James E Crimmins, Utilitas * Roger Crisp gives a fresh perspective on the debates of the British Moralists in this book that will be essential reading for anyone interested in the British Moralists or in the historical background of utilitarianism, theories of well-being, or the weight of moral reasons. Crisp uses foundational and precise contemporary conceptual distinctions to tease apart interesting differences in these historical texts. Crisp compellingly argues that this period of thought crucially advances the idea that genuine self-sacrifice for the sake of moral reasons is possible. A stimulating and informative read on its own, and it would also be useful as a companion to both Raphael's British Moralists volumes and other recent books on these figures. * Erin Frykholm, Mind *

Author Information

Roger Crisp is Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford and Uehiro Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at St Anne's College, Oxford. He is the author of Reasons and the Good (Oxford 2006) and The Cosmos of Duty: Henry Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics (Oxford 2015), co-editor of Well-Being and Morality: Essays in Honour of James Griffin (with Brad Hooker; Clarendon Press 2000), and editor of The Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics (Oxford 2013) and Griffin on Human Rights (Oxford 2014).

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