The Moral Philosophy of T.H. Green

The intellectual impact of Thomas Hill Green (1836-82) is clear to any student of nineteenth-century British political thought, as Green's views on the proper social and economic role of the state influenced a generation of social reformers and political theorists. His place in the history of ideas is secure; it is his philosophical status which has declined, undergoing almost a complete eclipse. This book presents Green's moral philosophy from a radically new perspective. Green is depicted as an independent thinker, not as the devoted partisan of Kant or Hegel. Geoffrey Thomas sees in Green's moral philosophy a widely misunderstood defence of free will, an innovative model of deliberation which rejects both Kantian and Humean conceptions of practical reason, a barely recognized theory of character, and an account of moral objectivity which involves no dependence on religion. He argues that Green's ethical theory and moral psychology yield a coherent body of moral philosophy which raises important problems neglected in contemporary ethics.