Abstract

Brink reminds us that T. H. Green’s Prolegomena to Ethics is a neglected classic in the history of ethics, comparable to F. H. Bradley’s Ethical Studies and Henry Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics. This is saying quite a bit when it is considered that no less a figure than John Rawls has claimed that Sidgwick’s version of utilitarianism is the most sophisticated and carefully reasoned to date. On Green’s view, however, perfectionism is the main rival in ethical theory to utilitarianism. Green defends a version of perfectionism that relies on both the ancients and Kant, thereby anticipating recent readings of Kant that emphasize the importance of virtue in that thinker.