E. E. Constance Jones on the dualism of practical reason

Abstract

ABSTRACT E. E. Constance Jones (1848–1922), a regular contributor to Mind and the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, and the author of several textbooks and a monograph, worked in both philosophical logic and ethics. The current paper focuses on Jones’ central contribution to ethics – her response to Sidgwick’s “dualism of practical reason”. Sidgwick held that practical reason has an allegiance to two distinct ‘methods’: self-love and benevolence. Yet, while both methods are independently rational, they may potentially come into conflict. This, for Jones, presented “the most important difficulty of the system of [Sidgwick’s] Universalistic Hedonism”. Jones returned to this problem a number of times in the course of her career. We discuss the evolution of her thinking on this problem and argue that her work presents an original and promising line of response to the dualism that worried Sidgwick.