Alan Grinnell Jones on Mon0’s Substack

Thank you for a fine essay. I’ve just reread Brand Blanchard on Sidgwick in his “Four Reasonable Men.” Sidgwick obviously had unusual (synesthetic?) and amazing mental faculties, including a fantastic memory, and reasoning abilities. Blanchard also describes and extols his compassionate and positive personality. He describes a moral sphere much larger than what was common for his time. Given Sidgwick’s agnosticism regarding religion and his application of a naturalist’s empirical thinking when exploring psychic phenomena, I wonder why he used the thinking of a nonempirical metaphysician when exploring ethics. It has me questioning his honesty, his integrity. What do you think? How might Sidgwick’s ethical reasoning have differed had he access to current neuropsychological understandings?