CAPITALISM'S ACHILLES HEEL Dirty Money and How to

Philosophy Becomes Culture 315
introvert, and not a particularly keen observer of society. He wrote widely
on science, meteorology, music, gold, coal, trade, currency, taxes, trade
unions, and married women in factories. He embarrassed himself attempting
to relate sun spots to agricultural cycles. But he never wandered far from
his utilitarian foundations, placing objective utility above all other considerations:
“[T]hrow aside all supposed absolute rights or inflexible principles.” 5
“The liberty of the subject is only the means towards an end; it is not itself
the end; hence, when it fails to produce the desired end, it may be set aside,
and other means employed.” 6 “I conceive that the State is justified in passing
any law, or even in doing any single act which, without ulterior consequences,
adds to the sum total of happiness.” 7 Thus, rights, inflexible principles,
liberty, justice, all can be subjugated if they do not produce desired
ends. “We must hold to the dry old Jeremy, if we are to have any chance of
progress in Ethics.” 8
Jevons fixed utility at the forefront of economics and opened the door
for mathematics to be the principal tool of analysis. He largely initiated the
shift from political economy to pure economy. At the same time another
shift was occurring, to Cambridge University, which came to dominate economic
study for nearly 75 years.
A leading luminary at Cambridge was Henry Sidgwick, who was perhaps
the last of nineteenth century thinkers able to converse with equal authority
on both ethics and economics. He published The Methods of Ethics in
1874 and Principles of Political Economy in 1883, and then returned again to
philosophy with Practical Ethics in 1898.
Sidgwick attempted to prove that utilitarianism’s fundamental precept
of the “greatest happiness for the greatest number” was superior to other
philosophical hypotheses focused more inwardly. He referred to these two
governing motivations as “duty” and “interests,” constituting the “dualism
of practical reason.” Alas, he was unable to make an irrefutable case for the
former, lamenting that “Utilitarian Duty . . . cannot be satisfactorily
demonstrated on empirical grounds.” 9 As he sadly concluded, “[T]he prolonged
effort of the human intellect to frame a perfect ideal of rational conduct
is seen to have been foredoomed to inevitable failure.” 10
This did not prevent Sidgwick from retaining utilitarianism at the center
of his convictions. Attempting to apply his attachment to the greatest
good, he tried to argue for more equal income distribution and against unbridled
laissez-faire. But Sidgwick’s innate conservatism and preference for