Tag Archives: sensualism

Henry Sidgwick

Plato’s reason for claiming that the life of the Philosopher has more pleasure than that of the Sensualist is palpably inadequate. The philosopher, he argues, has tried both kinds of pleasure, sensual as well as intellectual, and prefers the delights of philosophic life; the sensualist ought therefore to trust his decision and follow his example. But who can tell that the philosopher’s constitution is not such as to render the enjoyments of the senses, in his case, comparatively feeble?

Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed., London, 1907, bk. 2, chap. 3, sect. 7