Thomas Hill Green

First published Wed Dec 29, 2021

Thomas Hill Green (1836–82) is widely regarded as the foundingand most influential figure in the tradition of British idealism thatflourished in England, especially Oxford, and Scotland, especiallyGlasgow and Edinburgh, in the second half of the nineteenth centuryand early in the twentieth century (see, e.g., Mander 2011).Green’s idealism was systematic, embracing metaphysics andepistemology, ethical theory, political philosophy, and philosophy ofhistory and religion. In metaphysics and epistemology, Green reflectedthe influence of Immanuel Kant, criticizing the British empiricistlegacy of John Locke and David Hume. Green argued that empiricalknowledge is the workmanship of the human mind, that reality dependson thought and cannot transcend it, and that the possibility ofobjectivity requires the existence of a single corporate or divineconsciousness of which individual minds are proper parts. The onlydefensible form of idealism, Green thought, is absolute idealism, inwhich all aspects of reality are operations of a single consciousness.In ethics, Green embraced a form of perfectionism that identifies thehuman good with self-realization and the perfection of our nature asmoral persons and agents. But self-realization must reflect the way inwhich individuals participate in associations and communities and, asa result, must reflect the demand that individuals pursue a commongood. In articulating this conception of perfectionism, Green seeshimself as synthesizing the best elements in two different ethicaltraditions—Greek eudaimonism and Kantian rationalism.Green’s perfectionist ethics influence his politics. He providesthe philosophical foundations for a new progressive form of liberalismthat transcends the laissez-faire liberalism characteristic of somestrands in nineteenth century British liberalism. The state has a dutyto promote the common good, and individual rights are constrained bythe common good. This gives the state not just negative duties torefrain from interfering with the freedoms and opportunities of itscitizens but also positive duties to provide resources andopportunities for individual self-realization. The ethical andpolitical demand for self-realization, Green thinks, is freedom,properly understood. He believes that moral and political progress inhistory consists in the gradual and increasingly more adequaterealization of the values of perfection, the common good, and freedom.Because Green identifies God with the metaphysical, ethical, andpolitical principles in human nature, he sees God as immanent in theprogressive developments in human history.

1. Green’s Life, Works, and Influence

Green was born in Birkin, Yorkshire, April 7, 1836. His mother diedwhen he was very young, and he was educated by his father, ValentineGreen, until he attended Rugby School in 1850. Green entered BalliolCollege, Oxford University, in 1855, where he was taught by BenjaminJowett and Charles Parker. Under Jowett’s mentorship, Green wasintroduced to both classical Greek and eighteenth and nineteenthcentury German philosophy and earned a First in Greats.

Green remained at Oxford after receiving his degree. He was appointedas a Lecturer in Ancient and Modern History at Balliol in 1860 and waselected Whyte’s Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford in 1877,a position he held until his death in 1882. Green was among thoseresponsible for reforming the philosophical curriculum to includemodern as well as ancient sources. His influence on undergraduates wasconsiderable—inspiring many students by his intellectual, moral,and spiritual seriousness.

Green became active in Liberal Party politics in the mid-1860s. In1876 he was elected to the Oxford town council; he was the first donto serve as a representative of the citizens rather than theUniversity of Oxford. His principal policy reforms concerned landreform, labor regulation, education, and temperance. He supported theIrish Land Act of 1881, which sought to secure property rights ofpeasant farmers in Ireland. In education, he argued that primaryeducation should be compulsory and state-financed. He served as anassistant commissioner on the Taunton Commission on SecondaryEducation in 1865–66, arguing for significant reforms ineducation to equalize opportunity for higher education. He was amember of the Oxford School board and played a part in the foundationof the Oxford School for Boys. He was an important factor in theuniversity extension movement, he sought to open university educationto women, and he advocated the use of scholarships and other subsidiesto make a university education available to the working classes.

Green was married in 1871 to Charlotte Symonds. The Greens had nochildren. Never a man of robust health, Green fell ill with sepsis in1882 and died on March 15, just a few days before his forty-sixth birthday.^[1]

Green published a fairly small number of articles, reviews, andpamphlets during his lifetime. He wrote the influential criticalcommentary on Hume’sTreatise of Human Nature, whichwas part ofThe Philosophical Works of David Hume, that heand T.H. Grose edited and published in 1874. In addition, he wrote athree-part article “Can There Be a Natural Science ofMan?” published inMind in 1882, the year he died.These two works reflect metaphysical and epistemological themes thatwere incorporated into Book I of Green’sProlegomena toEthics, published posthumously in 1883. In addition,Green’s “Lecture on Liberal Legislation and the Freedom ofContract” was published in 1881 (Works III).Green’s other main philosophical works were publishedposthumously. This includes Green’s most important work, theProlegomena to Ethics. TheProlegomena wassubstantially completed prior to Green’s death, except for20–30 pages which he had hoped to add. At Green’sinstructions, A.C. Bradley oversaw theProlegomena’spublication in 1883.^[2] Other important posthumous publications include his essay “Onthe Different Senses of ‘Freedom’ as Applied to Will andto the Moral Progress of Man,” his Lectures on the Philosophy ofKant, and hisLectures on the Principles of PoliticalObligation (all inWorks II).

Green’s metaphysical, ethical, and political views wereinfluential, especially in Britain (Nettleship 1888; Richter 1964).Because Green’s most important work was published posthumously,his direct influence on others results largely from his teaching,public lectures, and political activities. Though Green sometimesdespaired of his ability to present idealist principles in a clear andrigorous fashion, he nonetheless inspired many students and peers byhis intellectual, moral, and spiritual seriousness (Works V444–48, 485).^[3] His metaphysical and ethical views were sympathetically received anddeveloped in Britain by Bernard Bosanquet, A.C. Bradley, F.H. Bradley,Edward Caird, R.B. Haldane, J.S. Mackenzie, J.H. Muirhead, R.L.Nettleship, Hastings Rashdall, D.G. Ritchie, Arnold Toynbee, andWilliam Wallace.

Green’s political influence was also significant. Beyond thespecific economic, political, and educational reforms for which Greenadvocated, he had an important impact on the direction of the LiberalParty in Britain. His egalitarian concern with human perfection,especially his insistence that laws and institutions serve the commongood, provided an intellectual foundation for the development of a newform of liberalism that required the state not simply to forbear frominterfering in the liberties and opportunities of its citizens butalso to provide various positive conditions and resources on whichcitizens may draw in pursuing better lives. Despite significantdifferences among them, a number of influential figures in the NewLiberalism can claim to be heirs of Green’s politicalphilosophy, including Bosanquet, Ritchie, and L.T. Hobhouse.

2. Idealist Metaphysics and Epistemology

The most systematic presentation of Green’s idealist metaphysicsand epistemology occurs in the first book of theProlegomena.Green introduces his metaphysical and epistemological inquiries inresponse to a naturalistic approach to ethical theory that he thinksis prominent in British moral philosophy. He associates ethicalnaturalism with hedonism and focuses on the utilitarian tradition,especially John Stuart Mill and Henry Sidgwick (PE §2).Green associates naturalism with a kind of empiricism that attempts toconstruct knowledge on the basis of the senses, uncorrupted by theunderstanding. But Green thinks that there can be no empiricalknowledge without operations of the understanding and concludes that apurely naturalistic or empirical science of morals is impossible(PE §8; cf.Works II 83–85).

Green has four main aims in the first book of theProlegomena. (1) He wants to reject the empiricist view thatknowledge can be analyzed into two separable components—thedeliverances of the senses and the operations of theunderstanding—in which what is given by nature is real and thecontributions of the understanding are not (PE§§9–10, 20, 70). By contrast, Green argues, even thesimplest experience involves operations of the understanding andrelations to other elements of a self-conscious mind. (2) The attackon empiricism is supposed to support the idealist claim that nature isthe product of the understanding (PE §20). Green’sattack on empiricism is clearly indebted to Kant’s claims in theCritique of Pure Reason, especially Kant’s account ofthe synthetic unity of apperception in the Transcendental Analytic.But, in defending idealism, Green argues that Kant did not carry hisidealist principles to their logical conclusion (PE§41); he rejects the Kantian dualism of appearances andthings-in-themselves (PE §§11, 30–41). (3) Inorder for the idealist to distinguish between appearance and reality,it is necessary to posit an “eternal” and“unalterable” system of relations in a self-consciouscorporate agent that includes the finite systems of relationscontained in the self-conscious minds of individual persons(PE §§13, 26, 69). (4) Though much of the firstbook of theProlegomena is concerned with the role ofself-consciousness in apparently discrete episodes of experience,Green is also concerned with the role of self-consciousness inknowledge. Knowledge requires more than acting on appearances; itinvolves assenting to true appearances for good reasons. This requiresthe ability to distance oneself from appearances and to assess theevidence for appearances, especially their congruence with otherelements of consciousness. This sort of epistemic responsibilityrequires self-consciousness.

2.1 Empiricism and Skepticism

Green is concerned with a form of empiricism that he finds incommonsense, as well as philosophical, thought (PE §20).Though Green believes that Locke’sEssay was largelyresponsible for making empiricism philosophically influential, hethinks that only Hume adheres to empiricist principles consistently(Works I 1–5, 132) and that, as a result, the fullmetaphysical and epistemological difficulties with empiricism becomeclear only in Hume’s work, especially theTreatise. Theempiricist program on which Green focuses sees all knowledge asresting on the deliverances of the senses. On this view, knowledge isbuilt up from a foundation of simple discrete sensory experiences. Inthis sort of experience, the mind is supposed to play a purely passiverole. The mind can then play an active role by performing variousoperations on these simple experiences, such as combining simpleexperiences to form complex ideas, comparing simple experiences forsimilarity and dissimilarity, and abstracting the common elements outof distinct ideas. In this tradition, reality is associated withsimple ideas delivered to the senses and contrasted with theworkmanship of the understanding and relations, which are in somesense conventional or mind-dependent.

Green thinks that this empiricist program suffers rot at thefoundations; he thinks that simple sensory experience that is notrelational and in which the mind plays a purely passive role isimpossible. All experience presupposes certain formal conceptions thatthe subject of experience employs—those of subject and object,substance and quality, cause and effect, spatiality, and temporality(Works I 12–13, 16–17, 40–41,43–50).

Some sensory judgments are clearly relational, as when we perceive oneevent A to be the cause of another B. To say that A is the cause of Bis clearly to relate one event to another. Similarly, to say that A isa brittle thing is to say that A does or would stand in relations of acertain sort to other things with which it might come into contact.This shows that such relational judgments are products of theunderstanding and not proper sensory judgments. Pure sensory judgmentswould be simple and would not reflect the operation of theunderstanding. Perhaps they include only reports of currentexperience, such as “This thing appears red”. But Greenbelieves that even these judgments are implicitlyrelational—“imply sequence and degree”—andrequire comparison of one element of experience with another(PE §46). To judge that something is a thing orsubstance in which properties inhere presumably requires assigning itsome diachronic stability, however limited, and this requires seeingit as persisting through some changes—as a part of some seriesof events and not others. And to judge something red is to predicate aproperty of an object, but properties or universals are, for theempiricist, ideas formed by abstraction from our ideas of simpleexperiences.

Green thinks that this conclusion about the relational character ofexperience has important implications for skepticism. If theempiricists are right that reality is given in experience untainted bythe understanding, then recognition of the relational character ofexperience would imply skepticism (PE §§20, 25,30).

Green himself accepts the skeptical conclusion insofar as he deniesthe possibility of empirical knowledge of objects independently of howthey appear to us. There can be no knowledge of perceiver-independentreality. But there can be knowledge of perceiver-dependent reality.Green’s idealism implies that this is the only defensibleconception of reality that allows us to avoid the skepticalconclusion. He avoids the skeptical conclusion by denying empiricistassumptions about what is real.

However, we can avoid skepticism without endorsing idealism if weabandon the claim that relations are the workmanship of theunderstanding, rather than given in experience. In particular,Green’s case for idealism is undermined if, as Moore and Russellwill later claim, relations can be given in experience and are not theproduct of the understanding (see Hylton 1990: 110–112).

Green argues that the relational character of experience implies thatexperience depends upon the activities of a self-consciousness agent(PE §70). Rejecting Hume’s conception of the selfas illusory or no more than a bundle of sensations (TreatiseI.iv.6), Green argues that cognition requires a self that isindependent of and prior to experience (PE §16, 32).Green thinks that experience of the world presupposes the operationsof a self-conscious agent. Could the world itself be the product of aself-conscious mind?

2.2 Idealism

Green recognizes that there are obstacles to this idealist conclusionthat account for the plausibility of empiricist and Kantian dualismsbetween the world of appearances and things as they are independentlyof appearance. We seem to need nature, as distinct from appearances,in order to account for the source or causes of our appearances and toaccount for fallibility—the possibility of error—whichseems to be a precondition of objectivity (PE §§13,69). By contrast, the idealist, who denies a reality independent ofappearances, seems unable to explain the source of appearances and thepossibility of fallibility. This, Green thinks, is what leads Kant,who rightly insists on the relational character of experience(PE §33), to distinguish between phenomena—thingsas they do or can appear to us—and noumena—things as theyare in themselves, independently of how they appear to us (PE§§11, 21–2, 30, 34).

But, like Kant’s idealist critic J.G. Fichte, Green thinks thatthis Kantian dualism is an unstable resting point between empiricalrealism and idealism. He believes that the consistent application ofKantian principles should lead to the rejection ofthings-in-themselves (PE §41).^[4] Kant’s dualism is both unacceptable and unnecessary. It isunacceptable, because it leaves cognitive success a mystery.

It leaves us without an answer to the question, how the order ofrelations, which the mind sets up, comes to reproduce those relationsof the material world which are assumed to be of a wholly differentorigin and nature. (PE §34)

Indeed, Green thinks that the notion of things-in-themselves is empty,because we can have no conception of things of themselves.

Green also thinks the Kantian dualism is unnecessary. The idealist canexplain error. We can never have access to things-in-themselves. Butwe can have access to other appearances that, in various ways, mightrepresent a particular appearance as anomalous. Here, we check oneappearance by appeal to others (PE §§12–13,64). On this view, we can distinguish between individual appearancesor clusters of experiences and reality but not between reality and theentire system of appearances entertained by a particular mind(PE §13). We avoid answering the question how ourconceptions of the world come to match a world that is independent ofthem by identifying reality and objectivity with the way it isconceived holistically by a self-conscious mind (PE§§10, 13, 36–37, 63).

Green says that reality and the system of appearances are equallydependent on each other (PE §36) and warns against themisunderstanding of idealism that results from thinking that itreduces facts to ideas (PE §37). In the discussion ofthe possibility of bare sensations, he does not deny that they wouldbe facts but insists that they would be facts that would not exist forconsciousness (PE §§48–9). This suggests, notthe metaphysical claim that facts are mind-dependent, but theepistemic claim that only structured experience can be thebasis of knowledge. However, this epistemological claim is much lessradical than the metaphysical claim. Nor is it clear how it isinconsistent with Kantian dualism; it appears to reaffirm Kant’sclaim that we can only have knowledge of appearances and not to denythat there are things-in themselves. Perhaps Green’s claim isonly that we are unable to say anything about things-in-themselves,even to say of them that they exist, without bringing them in relationto a conscious subject (PE §40).

But it’s not even clear that Green can distinguish himself fromKant in this way. For Green treats the subject of consciousness asnoumenon, outside of space and time (PE §§51, 52,65). The subject of consciousness is a precondition of experience butis completely distinct from any element of experience (PE§32). Because the self is not given in experience, it is, Greenthinks, outside of space and time (PE §§52, 65).This dualism between elements of conscious experience that are inspace and time and the selves or epistemic agents who areself-conscious and are outside of space and time resemblesKant’s own dualism between appearances andthings-in-themselves.

One might question Green’s dualism and anti-naturalism.Particular episodes of conscious experience presuppose a subject ofconsciousness that is prior to and independent of those episodes ofconsciousness. However, this does not imply that the self is prior toand independent of all experience. Perhaps the self is a set or seriesof experiences. Green may seem to rule out this possibility, becausehe distinguishes between a succession of conscious states andconsciousness of a succession of such states and claims thatself-consciousness requires the latter, and not just the former(PE §§52, 55, 62–65). But if conscious statescan take other conscious states as their objects, it is not clear whythe self could not be a suitably diachronically ordered andinterrelated set of conscious experiences. In any case, the need for aself that is the bearer of discrete self-conscious experiences doesnot preclude the self from being an object of consciousness, thought,or knowledge. Indeed, Green’s entire theoretical and practicalphilosophy turns crucially on the possibility of self-consciousnessand its causal role in thought and action. As we will see, importantaspects of Green’s views about moral responsibility presupposethat the self is not outside space and time but rather plays afundamental causal role in responsible action.

2.3 Absolute Idealism

So far, Green’s idealism would seem to involve a plurality oflocal idealisms. Reality (or knowable reality) is the product offinite self-conscious minds, with the result that there would be asmany realities (knowable realities) as there are finiteconsciousnesses. Green finds such a conception of objectivityinsufficiently robust; objectivity requires a single inclusive andeternal self-consciousness (PE §§26, 67, 69;Works II 85).

We must hold then that there is a consciousness for which therelations of fact, that form the object of our gradually attainedknowledge, already and eternally exist; and that the growing knowledgeof the individual is a progress towards this consciousness.(PE §69)

This corporate consciousness makes Green’s version of idealism aversion of absolute idealism. The consciousnesses of individuals standto this single corporate consciousness much as stages or parts of aperson’s life stand to the person.

Green’s main argument for this form of absolute idealism seemsto be his concern with the possibility of error (PE§26). Just as we must make room for the possibility of localerror in an individual’s conscious experience, so too we have toallow for the possibility of systematic error within anindividual’s conscious experience. But just as the idealistexplains the possibility of local individual error against thebackground of larger patterns in the individual’s experience, sotoo she must explain the possibility of systematic individual erroragainst the background of some larger pattern of experience. In orderto find a larger pattern of experience, we must go outside individualconsciousness. But the experiences of other individuals cannot, assuch, form part of a common and larger set of experiences. If thecontent and truth conditions of an individual’s thoughts aredependent on the relations between those thoughts and other elementsof his consciousness, then individuals, as such, would haveincommensurable experiences and thoughts. We can block thisrelativistic conclusion if there is a single trans-historicalcorporate mind of which particular finite minds are proper parts. Forthen there will be a common determinant of the content and truthconditions of the experiences and thoughts of different finite agents.Green’s view seems to be that knowledge and, hence, inquirypresuppose absolute idealism (PE §26).

Many idealist metaphysical views are responses to skeptical worriesthat our realist conclusions about objective reality outstrip thenature of our evidence. The idealist responds by denying that realityis objective in a way that could exceed our evidence. Green’sidealism fits this pattern. By denying that our beliefs about theworld concern things in themselves, independently of the way that theydo or can seem to us, Green denies the skeptic’s gap between ourevidence and reality.

There are various questions one might raise about this sort ofidealism. First, one might think that the idealist response concedestoo much to the skeptic. Perhaps we can and should accept a gapbetween our evidence and the claims for which they are evidence,resisting the skeptic’s demand that evidence guarantee the truthof the propositions it supports. We can concede that our justifiedbeliefs about the world are fallible. Second, we might note thatabsolute idealism cannot guarantee truth either, because it outstripsthe knowledge available to individual conscious minds. The existenceof a corporate consciousness is something outside the conscious graspof any of us individually. This is especially true, given that Greenthinks that the corporate consciousness lies outside of space andtime. Third, Green can be read as offering a transcendental argumentthat empirical knowledge is possible only on the assumption thatabsolute idealism is true. Even if that argument were otherwisesuccessful, it would establish absolute idealism only if empiricalknowledge is possible. But if absolute idealism is the price ofempirical knowledge, then one might wonder if we do indeed haveempirical knowledge.

2.4 Self-Consciousness and Epistemic Responsibility

Much of the first book of theProlegomena is concerned withthe role of self-consciousness in apparently discrete episodes ofexperience in individual minds. But Green is also concerned with therole of self-consciousness in knowledge. For the most part,non-rational animals accept the way things appear to them—theirdoxastic impulses. If they reason, they select instrumental means tothe satisfaction of their desires, but they do not reason aboutwhether things are as they appear. They lack the capacity to distancethemselves from their appearances, to assess the credentials of theirdoxastic impulses, and to assent to appearances for good reasons.Brutes may often have true appearances, but they are notepistemically responsible with respect to their appearances.On the assumption that knowledge requires something like epistemicresponsibility, and not just true belief, Green argues that knowledgerequires self-consciousness, inasmuch as epistemic responsibilitypresupposes self-consciousness. For epistemic responsibility requiresa cognizer to be able to pose the question of whether she shouldassent to an appearance and to assess the reasons for assent byrelating this appearance to other elements of her consciousness.Indeed, any extended piece of reasoning requires consciousness ofdifferent appearances as parts of a single system. For instance, Irecognize and trust the results of previous deliberations as premisesin my present deliberations. This requires a self that is conscious ofand synthesizes a set of appearances. On this view, knowledgepresupposes epistemic responsibility which presupposesself-consciousness (PE §§84, 120, 125). This linkbetween knowledge and self-consciousness via epistemic responsibilityis arguably the most important metaphysical claim for understandingGreen’s ethical argument in the rest of theProlegomena.

3. Idealist Ethics

The remaining three books of theProlegomena concern issuesin moral psychology and ethical theory. Green criticizes forms ofethical naturalism that attempt to ground morality in a science ofdesire and pleasure. In particular, he targets those in theutilitarian tradition who defend hedonism. He rejects the hedonistconception of motivation, arguing that moral agents have capacitiesfor practical reason that allow them to distinguish between theintensity and authority of their desires, to deliberate about theirdesires, and to regulate their action in accordance with theirdeliberations. Agents needn’t act on their strongest desires;they can and should act on the basis of a judgment about what it isbest for them to do. This, Green claims, is to act on a conception ofone’s own overall good. Here, Green aligns himself with theGreek eudaimonist tradition, which he interprets in terms ofself-realization. Because Green derives the demand forself-realization from an understanding of agency itself, he regardsits demands as categorical, rather than hypothetical, imperatives.Self-realization for Green requires self-consciousness, which requiresproper cognizance of others. In this way, he agrees with those Greeks,such as Aristotle, who claim that the proper conception of theagent’s own good requires a concern with the good of others,especially the common good. However, Green thinks that the Greeks hadtoo narrow a conception of the common good. It is only withChristianity and enlightenment philosophical views, especially Kantianand utilitarian traditions in ethics, Green thinks, that we haverecognition of the universal scope of the common good. This leadsGreen to claim that full self-realization can take place only wheneach rational agent regards all other rational agents as ends inthemselves on whom his own happiness depends. In such a state, therecan be no conflict or competition among the interests of differentrational agents. Green links self-realization and freedom; freedom isbest understood in terms of self-determination and self-realization.Because Green thinks that self-realization aims at the common good, hethinks that freedom also aims at the common good. Green concludes thatmoral progress consists in the gradual realization of this sort offreedom, which requires the progressive realization of the commongood.

3.1 Self-Consciousness and Practical Responsibility

In Book II Green picks up the theme from Book I about the role ofself-consciousness in epistemic responsibility and explicitly makesthe parallel argument about the role of self-consciousness inpractical and moral personality. Responsibility neither is threatenedby determinism nor requires indeterminism; it requiresself-consciousness (PE §§87, 90, 106,109–110). Moral responsibility requires capacities for practicaldeliberation, and practical deliberation requires self-consciousness.Non-responsible agents, such as brutes and small children, appear toact on their strongest desires or, if they deliberate, to deliberateonly about the instrumental means to the satisfaction of their desires(PE §§86, 92, 96, 122, 125). By contrast,responsible agents must be able to distinguish between theintensity andauthority of their desires, todeliberate about the appropriateness of their desires and aims, and toregulate their actions in accord with these deliberations (PE§§85–86, 92, 96, 103, 107, 220). Responsibilityrequiresmoral personality. Here, Green shows the influenceof Butler, Reid, and Kant (see, e.g., Irwin 1984).

Green considers the apparent threat to responsibility resulting fromthe claim that agents necessarily act on their strongest desires(PE §§103–106, 139–42). He thinks thatthe threat is specious, because it rests on an ambiguity. Some desiresare stronger because more intense, but desires can also be strongerwhen they are endorsed after deliberation. The action of non-rationalanimals is just the vector sum of the intensity of their desires; theydo act on their strongest desires, in this first sense. Butresponsible agents—who have moral personality and candistinguish between the strength and authority of desire and act onthese judgments—need not act on their strongest desire in thisfirst sense. Instead, they can be moved by the strongest desire afterdeliberation. It’s only by failing to distinguish these twodifferent kinds of strength, Green thinks, that one could see a threatto responsibility here.

Green makes clear that the sort of moral personality that is requiredby responsibility is acapacity to recognize and be guided byreasons. This is clear from his defense of Kant’s conception offreedom against criticisms. As we have seen, Green does not think thatfreedom and responsibility require Kant’s doctrine oftranscendental freedom. But Green is sympathetic with Kant’sclaims about positive freedom and autonomy in theGroundwork.There, Kant identifies positive freedom or autonomy with a willdetermined by practical reason and the moral law (4: 447). Sidgwickcriticizes this conception of freedom in his essay “The KantianConception of Free-Will,” reprinted in the Appendix toTheMethods of Ethics, for being unable to show how someone might befree and responsible for making the wrong choices, as well as theright ones (Methods 511–16). The possibility of freelychosen wrongdoing shows that Kant’s conception of positivefreedom, as conformity with practical reason, cannot be freedom of thekind required by moral responsibility. In his lectures on Kant’sethics, Green recognizes the same problem for Kantian freedom thatSidgwick does (Works II 107).^[5] But Green thinks that this is a case where the essentials of theKantian view can be defended, even if this requires amending Kant.Kant’s considered view, Green thinks, contrasts two kinds ofpositive freedom—(a) thecapacity to conform topractical reason and (b) theexercise of this capacity.Freedom as responsibility requires (a), not (b) (Works II136). On this capacitarian reading of moral personality andresponsibility, the person who has the capacity to conform topractical reason and the moral law but fails to exercise it is just asresponsible as the person who has the capacity and does exercise it(Works II 107–08, 119, 136).^[6]

Green thinks that the process of forming and acting on a conception ofwhat it is best for me on the whole to do is for me to form and actfrom a conception of my own overall good (PE§§91–92, 96, 128).

A man, we will suppose, is acted on at once by an impulse to revengean affront, by a bodily want, by a call of duty, and by fear ofcertain results incidental to his avenging the affront or obeying thecall of duty. We will suppose further that each passion …suggests a different line of action. So long as he is undecided how toact, all are, in a way, external to him. He presents them to himselfas influences by which he is consciously affected but which are nothe, and with none of which he yet identifies himself …. So longas this state of things continues, no moral effect ensues. It ensueswhen the man’s relation to these influences is altered by hisidentifying himself with one of them, by his taking the object of oneof the tendencies as for the time his good. This is towill,and is in itself moral action …. (PE §146)

To identify reflectively with a desire is towill it and toact frommotive andcharacter, rather than meredesire (PE §153).

However, we might wonder why Green assumes that in acting on someconception of an overall good I am thereby acting on a conception ofmy own good.

It is superfluous to add, good tohimself, for anythingconceived of as good in such a way that the agent acts for the sake ofit, must be conceived ashis own good, though he may conceiveit as his own good only on account of his interest in others, and inspite of any suffering on his own part incidental to its attainment.(PE §92)

This may seem to confuse theownership of the conception ofthe good (whose conception it is) with itscontent (whetherit is a conception of my good or simply of what is good). I may act onmy conception of the good, but that does not make it a conception ofmy own good.

However, Green may think that the transition from ownership to contentis legitimate. He may think that when one adopts an end as good andstructures one’s plans, emotions, and desires around it that onethereby makes that end one’s own and makes it part ofone’s personal good such that the value of the end andone’s success in achieving it determine in part the quality ofone’s life. If I choose to become a parent, then theconstitutive aims of being a good parent, including the success of mychildren, become part of my good such that the well-being of mychildren directly affects my own happiness or personal good.

3.2 Self-Realization and Normative Perfectionism

Green develops his ideas about the personal good in Book III of theProlegomena. There he criticizes hedonism and develops hisown perfectionist claims. Hedonism can be a psychological doctrine oran evaluative doctrine about the personal good. Green’sdiscussion of hedonism focuses on the utilitarian tradition,especially the views of Mill and Sidgwick. Green thinks that Millcombines psychological and evaluative hedonism, though that isdisputable (Brink 2013: chs. 2–3). Sidgwick clearlydistinguishes the two forms of hedonism, rejecting psychologicalhedonism and defending evaluative hedonism. Since Sidgwick explicitlyaccepts evaluative hedonism while rejecting psychological hedonism,Green must argue differently against Sidgwick.

Green agrees with Butler that psychological egoism (hedonism) isimplausible but thinks that people mistakenly accept it because theymistake the pleasure that can be expected to attend the satisfactionof desires for the object of desire. Because the pleasure isconsequential on the satisfaction of desire, the object of desirecannot be that pleasure. This point is relevant, Green thinks, toMill’s alleged evaluative hedonism (PE§§162–69). Green notes that in Mill’s higherpleasures doctrine and in the proof that Mill seems to assignintrinsic value to objective pleasures, that is, to activities andpursuits that exercise our higher capacities. Green thinks that theseclaims about the superior value of such activities areanti-hedonistic, but he thinks that Mill fails to see this onlybecause he focuses on the (subjective) pleasure that is expected fromengaging in such activities. But this confuses, Green thinks, what wevalue and a by-product of what we value.

Green focuses on Mill’s explanation of the preferences ofcompetent judges for modes of existence that employ their higherfaculties. Higher pleasures are those things (e.g., activities) that acompetent judge would prefer, even if they produced less pleasure inher than the lower pleasures would (MillUtilitarianism II 5inWorks X 211). Butwhy should competent judgesprefer activities that they often find less pleasurable unless theybelieve that these activities are more valuable? Mill explains thefact that competent judges prefer activities that exercise theirrational capacities by appeal to their sense ofdignity(Utilitarianism II 5 inWorks X 212). Green thinksthat the dignity passage undermines hedonism (PE§164–66, 171). In claiming that it is the dignity of a lifein which the higher capacities are exercised and the competentjudge’s sense of her own dignity that explains her preferencefor those activities, Mill implies that her preferences reflectjudgments about the value that these activities have independently oftheir being the object of desire or the source of pleasure. We takepleasure in these activities because we recognize their value; theyare not valuable, because they are pleasurable.

Green not only criticizes the evaluative hedonism he finds in Mill; healso rejects evaluative hedonism outright. One argument he makes isthat evaluative hedonism is actually inconsistent with psychologicalhedonism. Evaluative hedonism says that our ultimate aim ought to beto maximize net pleasure or to seek the largest sum of pleasures,whereas psychological hedonism claims that pleasurable experience isthe ultimate object of desire. But a sum of pleasures is not itself apleasure, and so, according to psychological hedonism, we could notact on the requirements of evaluative hedonism (PE§221). This may be a problem for someone who combines bothevaluative and psychological hedonisms. However, this is not a problemfor an evaluative hedonist such as Sidgwick who eschews psychologicalhedonism (PE §§222, 334, 351). Green must offersome other argument against the person who thinks a self-consciousagent would identify his personal good with pleasure. Green’sreal disagreement with Sidgwick concerns whether the only thingsreflectively desirable for an agent are her own states ofconsciousness. Green recognizes “ideal goods” for an agentthat involve her own activities and her relations to other members ofher community (PE §§159–61, 357; cf.Methods 113–15).

Green argues not only against hedonism but also for self-realization.He suggests that it is the very capacities that make moralresponsibility possible in the first place that determine the properend of deliberation (PE §176). Responsible actioninvolves self-consciousness and is expressive of the self. The self isnot to be identified with any desire or any series or set of desires;moral personality consists in the ability to subject appetites anddesires to a process of deliberative endorsement and to form newdesires as the result of such deliberations. So the self essentiallyincludes deliberative capacities, and if responsible action expressesthe self, it must exercise these deliberative capacities. Thisexplains why Green thinks that the proper aim of deliberation is alife of activities that embody rational or deliberative control ofthought and action (PE §§175, 180, 199, 234,238–39, 247, 283).

One can ask about any conception of the good why one should care aboutthe good, so conceived. Why should the good, so conceived, benormative? Green’s defense of self-realization makes the contentof the good consist in the exercise of the very same capacities thatmake one a rational agent, subject to reasons for action, in the firstplace. This promises to explain why a rational agent should care aboutthe good conceived in terms of self-realization.

This justification of self-realization also explains why Green treatsthe imperative of self-realization as a categorical imperative. LikeKant, Green seeks an account of the agent’s duties that isgrounded in her agency and does not depend upon contingent andvariable inclinations. The goal of self-realization, Green thinks,meets this demand.

At the same time, because it [self-realization] is the fulfilment ofhimself, of that which he has in him to be, it will excite an interestin him like no other interest, different in kind from any of hisdesires and aversions except such as are derived from it. It will bean interest as in an object conceived to be of unconditional value;one of which the value does not depend on any desire that theindividual may at any time feel for it or for anything else, or on anypleasure that … he may experience….[T]he desire for theobject will be founded on a conception of its desirableness as afulfilment of the capabilities of which a man is conscious in beingconscious of himself. … [Self-realization] will express itselfin [the] imposition … of rules requiring something to be doneirrespectively of any inclination to do it, irrespectively of anydesired end to which it is a means,other than this end, which isdesired because conceived as absolutely desirable. (PE§193)

Because the demands of self-realization depend only on those verydeliberative capacities that make one a responsible agent, they arecategorical imperatives.

Green recognizes that his conception of the good in terms ofself-realization and perfection is abstract and perhaps vague incomparison with the apparent definiteness of the hedonist’sconception of the good (PE §193). Nonetheless, hisconception of the good in terms of self-realization or the exercise ofdeliberative capacities is not empty.

3.3 Self-Realization and the Common Good

In particular, Green links self-realization and a common good. Hebelieves that full self-realization can take place only in a communityof ends (PE §§183–84, 190–91, 199, 232)in which each person cares about others for their own sakes(PE §§199–200) and aims at a common good(PE §202, 236). But why? At one point, Green suggeststhat this concern for others, at least for those within one’simmediate circle, is given or natural.

Now the self of which a man thus forecasts the fulfilment, is not anabstract or empty self. It is a self already affected in the mostprimitive forms of human life by manifold interests, among which areinterests in other persons. These are not merely interests dependenton other persons for the means to their gratification, but interestsin the good of those other persons, interests which cannot besatisfied without the consciousness that those other persons aresatisfied. The man cannot contemplate himself as in a better state, oron the way to the best, without contemplating others, not merely as ameans to that better state, but as sharing it with him. (PE§199)

Green might simply be invoking this familiar concern that one has forone’s intimate associates. If I do care about the welfare of myassociates, and these desires survive deliberative endorsement, then,according to Green, I make their welfare part of my own personal good(PE §§91–92). But this may make anagent’s interest in others dependent on her contingent desires.To explain how the demands of the common good are categoricalimperatives, we need to explain how pursuit of a common good is aningredient in self-realization.

Green claims that a rational agent’s interest in others isrooted in her search for a “permanent” good (PE§§223, 229–32, 234). Moral personality requiresimpulse control and the abilities to distinguish myself from myappetites and to frame the question what it would be best forme—a temporally extended agent—on the whole to do. Thiswill involve endorsing some goals as good and as worth makingshort-term sacrifices or investments for. This is to value goals andprojects in which I am involved that have some degree of permanence.Green seems to think that the right sort of association with othersextends this permanence in a natural way—indeed, that itprovides a kind of counter-balance to mortality or surrogate forimmortality.

That determination of an animal organism by a self-consciousprinciple, which makes a man and is presupposed by the interest inpermanent good, carries with it a certain appropriation by the man tohimself of the beings with whom he is connected by natural ties, sothat they become to him as himself and in providing for himself heprovides for them. Projecting himself into the future as a permanentsubject of possible well-being or ill-being—and he must soproject himself in seeking for a permanent good—he associateshis kindred with himself. It is this association that neutralises theeffect which the anticipation of death must otherwise have on thedemand for a permanent good. (PE §231)

Self-realization involves a kind of quest for intrapersonalpermanence. In the intrapersonal case, I preserve myself when theactions and intentional states of a future self depend in the rightway on the actions and intentional states of my present and pastselves. But interpersonal association involves deliberativeconnections between associates, in which the intentional states andactions of each depend on those of the other. This might explain whyGreen thinks self-realization aims at interpersonal permanence aswell. I more fully realize my capacities in association with others,and this association gives me reason to treat the good of myassociates as part of my own good.

In linking moral virtue with pursuit of a common good, Green acceptsAristotle’s claims about the importance of the fine(kalon) and the common good to an agent’s owneudaimonia or happiness (Irwin 1992, 2009:§§1242–1244). Though Green sees the Aristotelian rootsof his own perfectionism, he does not accept Aristotle’s accountof thescope of the common good. Whereas Aristotle’spolitics recognize significant restrictions on the scope of the commongood excluding slaves and women (Politics II 4–7,12–13), Green thinks its scope should be universal (PE§§205–17, 249, 253, 271, 285).

The idea of a society of free and law-abiding persons, each his ownmaster yet each his brother’s keeper, was first definitelyformed among the Greeks, and its formation was the condition of allsubsequent progress in the direction described; but with them …it was limited in its application to select groups of men surroundedby populations of aliens and slaves. In its universality, as capableof application to the whole human race, an attempt has first been madeto act upon it in modern Christendom. (PE §271)

Green’s own conception of the common good is universal; fullself-realization and the securing of a really permanent good occursonly when each person respects the claims made by other members of amaximally inclusive community of ends (PE §§214,216, 244, 332). In this respect, Green’s belief that eudaimonismcan and should support cosmopolitan concern for others is perhapscloser to the Stoic than the Aristotelian conception of the commongood (see Brink 2018).

Green associates this cosmopolitan conception of the common good withEnlightenment ethical conceptions, in particular, Kantianism andutilitarianism. He regards the philosophical and political influenceof utilitarian and Kantian conceptions of impartiality as progressiveinfluences (PE §§213–14). According to theutilitarian conception, everyone should count for one and no one formore than one (PE §213). According to the Humanityformula of Kant’s Categorical Imperative, one must treathumanity, whether in your own person or in others, always as an end initself and never merely as a means (PE §214). ThoughGreen thinks both utilitarian and Kantian conceptions of impartialityare right to insist on the wide scope of the common good, Greenaccepts the distributed concern with each moral person that heassociates with Kant’s Humanity formula of the CategoricalImperative (PE §§215, 217).

Green thinks that we each have reason to promote this sort ofcosmopolitan conception of the common good. But he goes further,claiming that the common good involves no conflict between the good ofthe agent and the good of others (PE §244).

Because Green thinks that self-realization aims at the common good, anoncompetitive conception of the common good is a substantive andcontroversial commitment. We may wonder if there are any genuinelynoncompetitive goods, such that one person can’t enjoy themunless all others do. And even if there are genuinely noncompetitivegoods, we might doubt that the personal good would be exhausted bysuch a common good. If we think of the personal good as that which anindividual has reason to want in itself for her own sake, it seemsplausible that the personal good and the good of others will overlapbut not coincide perfectly.

3.4 Self-Realization and Freedom

Freedom is not a concept that looms large in Green’sperfectionism in theProlegomena. However, Green focuses onfreedom in the posthumously published essay “On the DifferentSenses of ‘Freedom’ as Applied to Will and the MoralProgress of Man” (Works II), where he defends atripartite conception of freedom.

Juridical Freedom
Moral Freedom
Real or Perfect Freedom

Juridical freedom is the absence of compulsion or restraintby others. This is freedom as non-interference prized by Locke andother liberals.Moral freedom is the sort of freedom requiredfor responsibility, which is manifested in both praiseworthy andblameworthy conduct. Moral freedom, Green believes, requires thecapacity for reasons-responsiveness. This is the kind of freedom heproposes as a response to the problem Sidgwick identifies for Kant.Real or perfect freedom exists insofar as an agent exercisesher moral freedom properly, pursuing her own personal good and itsconstitutive commitment to the common good. This sort of freedom justis self-realization or the perfection of one’s agency.

Though each form of freedom is valuable, both juridical and moralfreedom are subordinate to real and perfect freedom (Works II308–09). Real freedom is the regulative ideal of agency andcannot be achieved without juridical and moral freedom, but neitherare sufficient to produce real freedom (Works II 324). Greenends up endorsing a version of the Hegelian view that freedom is amatter of degree, and moral progress can be understood as theprogressively more perfect realization of real freedom (WorksII 324–30).^[7]

In “Two Concepts of Liberty” Isaiah Berlin famouslydistinguishes betweennegative andpositive libertyand criticizes various conceptions of positive freedom, includingGreen’s (1958: 132–33, 141–54). Negative liberty,for Berlin, is focused exclusively on the absence ofexternalcompulsion by other individuals or the state. By contrast, positivefreedom involves self-determination in which the rational part ofone’s soul is controlling. The rational self is the true self,and the true self is realized in the perfection of one’srational nature (1958: 131–34, 141–53). Berlin thinks thatpositive freedom is pernicious, because true freedom is negativefreedom and because positive freedoms smuggle other alleged moralgoods in under the guise of freedom, leading us to ignore the costs tofreedom that pursuit of these goods involves.

But Berlin’s criticisms misunderstand Green’s claims aboutfreedom. For Green, negative liberty as noninterference is embodied injuridical freedom, and juridical freedom is an important andlegitimate part of freedom. But juridical freedom does not exhaustfreedom for Green, as it does for Berlin. He puts the point this wayin “Liberal Legislation”

Thus, though of course there can be no freedom among men who act notwillingly but under compulsion, yet on the other hand the mere removalof compulsion , the mere enabling a man to do as he likes, is initself no contribution to true freedom. (Works III 371)

Green also recognizes moral freedom and real or perfect freedom. Moralfreedom is the capacity for reasons-responsive conduct, and real orperfect freedom is the proper exercise of this capacity, resulting inself-realization and its commitment to the common good. These forms offreedom involve positive freedom.

Green believes that juridical freedom, moral freedom, and real orperfect freedom all involve aspects of self-determination(“Freedom,”Works II 315–16). Bothjuridical freedom and moral freedom are essential to responsibility.Responsibility depends on an agent’s normative capacities andher opportunity to exercise them free from undue interference withothers. We can see this because significant impairment of either theagent’s capacities or her opportunities is excusing. Whereasjuridical freedom depends on the agent’s opportunities, moralfreedom depends on her capacities. If so, then self-determination asresponsibility requires both juridical and moral freedoms.

If self-determination involves determination by my rational self, thenit requires self-realization and real freedom. Here, we shouldremember Green’s Kantian claim that rational nature provides notonly the ground of duty but also its content. Moral personality andfreedom involve a will that has reasons-responsive capacities. Butthen self-determination should be expressed in activities that reflectand realize these rational capacities (PE §§175,180, 199, 234, 238–39, 247, 283). Full or completeself-determination requires not just the capacity to be guided byreasons but this aretaic sense of self-determination. On Green’sview, this kind of self-determination and self-realization involve aconstitutive commitment to a cosmopolitan concern for the commongood.

4. Idealist Politics

Green’s political philosophy is expressed in his posthumouslypublishedLectures on the Principles of Political Obligationand his 1881 essay “Liberal Legislation and Freedom ofContract”. His perfectionist ethics influence his politics. Heprovides the philosophical foundations for a new progressive form ofliberalism that transcends the laissez-faire liberalism characteristicof some strands in nineteenth century British liberalism (Nicholson1990). The state has a duty to promote the common good, and individualrights are constrained by the common good. This gives the state notjust negative duties to refrain from interfering with the freedoms ofits citizens but also positive duties to provide resources andopportunities for individual self-realization.

4.1 Rights and the Common Good

Green’sLectures on the Principles of PoliticalObligation discuss a number of issues in political philosophy andjurisprudence, including the adequacy of social contractjustifications of the nature and limits of state authority, the natureof rights, the right to private property, and the justification ofpunishment. Most relevant to understanding Green’s distinctiveperfectionist conception of liberalism is his conception ofrights.

Green’s focus on political obligation concerns the nature andlimits of the state’senforceable demands on itscitizens (LPPO §§1, 12). Social contract theoryseeks to anchor political obligation in agreement, whether actual orhypothetical. Green discusses the social contract theories of Spinoza,Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. Though critical of social contract theoryin general, he is especially critical of Hobbes and expresses sympathywith important elements in Locke and Rousseau.

Green’s criticisms of social contract theory reflect hisconception of rights. According to Green, rights are claims thatindividuals possess to those powers that are socially recognizable ascontributing to a common good (LPPO §§25–26,113–115, 138, 143). In particular, Green thinks that my rightsagainst others to certain normative powers are conditional on myrecognition that others possess rights to these same powers against me(LPPO §138). Green rejects the idea of natural rights asrights prior to society but accepts the idea of natural rights asprior to and independent of the positive rights established bypolitical association (LPPO §§9, 16, 30).

This conception of rights leads Green to be skeptical of attempts toexplain how rights might emerge from a pre-social state of nature.Hobbes is Green’s primary target here, because Hobbes views thestate of nature as an anti-social condition involving the war of allagainst all (Leviathan XIII 8–9) and claims thatindividual rights, or at least individual rights to anything otherthan non-interference, are possible only when individuals agree toleave the state of nature and transfer powers to a sovereign(Leviathan XIII 10, 13; XIV 1; XV 3). Green is skeptical intwo ways. First, he doesn’t see how agreement could establishpolitical obligation if there are no moral duties in the state ofnature (LPPO §46). If the sovereign is necessary to makepromises binding, then we can’t explain how the sovereign couldhimself arise out of binding pre-political compact. Second,Green’s conception of rights leads him to deny the Hobbesianclaim that rights and duties depend on the existence of the sovereign.Rights depend on the common good, and there are facts about the commongood prior to political association and positive right.

Green’s criticisms of Hobbes apply less clearly to Locke andRousseau. Locke’s state of nature, though pre-political, is notanti-social, and Locke recognizes duties and rights in the state ofnature (Treatises II.ii.6; II.i.14; II.iii.16–21;II.vi.57). For Locke, the transition from the state of nature to civilgovernment is to facilitate the more reliable and efficient protectionof natural rights, the protection of property, and the promotion ofthe public good, all of which are moral demands within the state ofnature (Treatises II.vii.85; cf.LPPO§§55–58).

Green has even more in common with Rousseau. Rousseau sees the problemof political obligation as one of reconciling political associationand its constraints with individual autonomy. The state of nature is apre-political state but one in which individuals are sociallyinterdependent. The problem is to

Find a form of association which defends and protects with all commonforce the person and goods of each associate, and by means of whicheach one, while uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself andremains as free as before. (Social Contract I.vi.4)

The solution to this problem is for individuals to submit toconstraints embodied in forms of association and institutions that areregulated by the general will (SC I.vi.9; II.i.1). Thegeneral will is distinct from the will of all (SC I.vi.7;II.iii2) and concerns the common good—those basic interests ofmoral persons that must be respected and protected for all(SC II.iii.1–2; II.iv.5; II.xi.1–2). Green agreeswith Rousseau that the general will, understood as the common good, isa source of rights and that these rights are conditional on a kind ofmutual recognition among members of society.^[8]

Green disagrees with those strands in social contract theory that seeconsent to live in political society as the source of rights. Hethinks that rights are grounded in the common good and mutualrecognition and so predate any social contract. In assessingGreen’s criticisms of social contract theory, one must assessGreen’s own conception of rights. Are rights grounded in thecommon good, and do rights require social recognition in some way?

It seems we do need to ground rights in some way. Grounding them inthe common good seems promising, though we won’t know whatrights this conception supports without knowing more about the contentof the common good. Insofar as the common good is one in which peoplepartake equally insofar as they are moral persons, this conceptionseems likely to support a conception of equal rights to thoseconditions necessary for developing and exercising moral powers ofpersons as agents. These claims about the content of the common goodare reflected in Green’s brand of perfectionist liberalism.

Must such rights be socially recognized? Even if social recognitionallows Green to distinguish natural and legal right, we might wonderif he can distinguish between natural rights and duties and rights andduties recognized by positive morality (see, e.g., Ross 1930:50–52). The social recognition thesis may seem to precludemaking sense of minority rights or unrecognized rights. Greenaddresses this issue and makes two replies, which clarify the socialrecognition thesis (LPPO §§137–147). First,he does not claim that particular rights need to be the object ofsocial recognition. It is rather that rights must be contributory to acommon good that is the object of mutual recognition. My claim torespect and rights are conditioned on my recognition that others havethe same claim to respect and rights, because we are equally moralpersons (LPPO §§138; cf. Hinton 2001). Still, thisclaim might suggest that individuals lack rights if others do notrecognize them as equal moral persons, and this might seem to imply aform of moral conventionalism or parochialism, which would be at oddswith Green’s own cosmopolitanism. For this reason, it isimportant that Green insists that the sort of social recognition thatrights require ispotential, rather than actual,recognition.

The condition of its [a right’s] being so claimable is that itsexercise should be contributory to some social good which the publicconscience is capable of appreciating, not necessarily one which inthe existing prevalence of private interest can obtain dueacknowledgement, but still one of which men in their actions andlanguage show themselves to be aware. (LPPO §143)

In this way, Green recognizes that slaves have natural rights tofreedom that are violated, even in societies in which slavery issocially condoned (LPPO §140). Provided that others arecapable of recognizing someone’s common humanity, their failureto do so is no obstacle to the recognition of the rights ofothers.

4.2 Progressive Liberalism

Like Mill, Green is committed to liberal essentials—a largelysecular state, democratic political institutions in which thefranchise is widespread, private property rights, market economies,equal opportunity, and a variety of personal and civic liberties. Alsolike Mill, Green is a perfectionist liberal, who thinks that thejustification of liberal essentials is grounded in a conception of thecommon good that understands the good of each in terms ofself-realization.

Green’s perfectionist liberalism was influential in theformation of a New Liberalism in late 19^th century Britain(e.g., Richter 1964; Nicholson 1990; Brink 2003: §XXIV). The OldLiberalism was concerned with negative liberty and sought to undostate restrictions on liberties and opportunities and was expressed inthe repeal of the Corn Laws, opposition to religious persecution, andseveral electoral reforms that extended the scope of the franchise toinclude the rural and urban poor. By contrast, the New Liberalismthought that the defense of liberty and opportunity had to besupplemented by social and economic reforms in labor, health, andeducation to address the effects of social and economic inequality(e.g., Freeden 1978; Nicholson 1990: ch. 5; Simhony and Weinstein2001). Green was viewed by many as an important intellectual sourcefor the New Liberals. He supported

regulation of labor contracts to limit workplace hours and factoryconditions (Works II 515; III 365–69, 373),
measures to provide greater opportunities for agricultural workersto own land (Works II 515, 532–34; III377–82),
public health and safety regulations (Works II 515; III373–74),
education reforms, improving access to elementary, secondary, andhigher education, regardless of socioeconomic status (WorksII 515; III 369, 387–476; V 285–86, 326–28),and
the improvement of educational and economic opportunities forwomen (PE §267;Works V 326–28).

Green’s liberalism is a perfectionist liberalism in which thestate aims to promote the self-realization of its citizens, and thisgives the state a number of positive duties in relation to itscitizens. But the importance of autonomy to self-realization meansthat the state’s positive role is restricted toenabling its citizens to perfect themselves.

[I]t is the business of the state, not indeed directly to promotemoral goodness, for that, from the very nature of moral goodness, itcannot do, but to maintain the conditions without which a freeexercise of the human faculties is impossible. (“LiberalLegislation,”Works III 374)

Green’s claim here bears comparison with Kant’s insistencein theMetaphysics of Morals on a self/other asymmetry inwhich we must aim at our own perfection but at the happiness, ratherthan the perfection, of others. In explaining this asymmetry, Kantwrites:

So too, it is a contradiction for me to make another’sperfection my end and consider myself under an obligation topromote this. For theperfection of another human being, as aperson, consists just in this: that hehimself is able to sethis end in accordance with his own conception of duty; and it isself-contradictory to require that I do (make it my duty to do)something that only the other himself can do. (6: 386)

Green makes sense of Kant’s admonitions against aiming at theperfection of another by interpreting them as constraints onhow we aim at the perfection of others (Brink 2019:12–15). Given the role of one’s own agency in one’sperfection, I can’t perfect others any more than I can wincompetitive races for them. But just as I can help another to win arace by training with her, discussing strategy, and sharingnutritional tips, so too I can help others perfect themselves byhelping them develop their normative competence and deliberating withthem, identifying options, discussing the comparative merits of theseoptions, and providing them with opportunities to exercise theirnormative powers. I can help others perfect themselves, just not inways that bypass their agency. In this way, the state can and shouldpromote the self-realization of its citizens by enabling, rather thancoercing, them.

Though the Old Liberals see themselves as the advocates of freedom,Green thinks that the New Liberals have a claim to beings liberals inthe fullest sense, because only a mix of negative and positive reformscan enable the perfection and self-realization of its citizens and,hence, true freedom.

5. Idealist Religion and History

Green had profoundly moralized conceptions of religion and history.Both conceptions were influenced by his idealist metaphysics andethics.

Green was a deeply religious person, but his conception ofChristianity was unorthodox and animated by moral and humanisticprinciples. He was raised in the Evangelical faith by his father, anEvangelical minister. At Balliol, his religious sensibility was shapedin part by Jowett, who sought to present fundamental Christianprinciples in a contemporary and rational idiom, free of superstition,ritual, and dogma. Jowett’s example shaped Green’sdeveloping conception of a form of Christianity that admits ofrational philosophical reconstruction, that denies the literalsignificance to miracles or other supernatural events described in theBible, and that finds Christianity’s best expression in socialand political service in pursuit of a common good.^[9]

Green’s own conception of God is ambivalent. On the one hand, heidentifies the eternal self-consciousness of absolute idealism withGod. Green thinks that self-conscious minds are conditions ofconscious experience and not themselves part of conscious experience,with the result that they are outside of space and time. What is trueof individual minds is true of the corporate mind that Green thinksmakes objectivity possible. This would make God a transcendentreality. On the other hand, Green has strong reason to regard God asimmanent in the world. Self-consciousness expresses itself in thewill, which is the cause of action. If so, self-consciousness cannotbe outside of space and time. Moreover, Green saw God as immanent inindividuals and in history. The higher principle of practical reasonwithin each person that regulates his desires and makes him a moralagent is a divine principle, the common good is the proper object ofthe divine principle in humanity, and its progressive realization inhuman laws and institutions is how God manifests himself to the world(Works III 223–27). One cannot separate Green’sunorthodox form of Christianity from his idealist philosophy and hisethical demand that individuals subordinate their lower selves to thepursuit of a higher, common good.

As we have seen, Green treats perfection, freedom, and the common goodas regulative ideals at which we aim, which humanity betterapproximates over time. This is illustrated in the gradual expansionof the scope of the common good to include persons previously excludedfrom full moral personality, such as slaves, women, and workers(PE Book III, esp. §§205–206, 271, 285). Itis also illustrated in our progressively more adequate conception ofthe conditions of self-realization and the demands on government topromote the perfection of its citizens. Like Hegel, Green has aprogressive view of history, which he sees as the progressively moreadequate realization of the demands of perfection, the common good,and true freedom (PE §§172–76;“Freedom,”Works II 330;LPPO§6).

6. Idealist Metaphysics and Ethics

Now that we have surveyed Green’s metaphysics and ethics,it’s worth asking how they are related. One question is whetherGreen’s ethics is dependent on his metaphysics and, if so, inwhat ways. Another question is about the priority, if any, betweenindividual and collective levels of self-consciousness and value.

Is Green’s perfectionist ethical theory dependent on hisidealist metaphysics? If so, his perfectionism is hostage to hisidealism, and doubts about his metaphysics may threaten hisperfectionism. TheProlegomena to Ethics is Green’smost systematic work, and its structure might suggest that hisperfectionist ethics of self-realization developed in Books II-IV reston the idealist metaphysics defended in Book I. Certainly, manyinterpreters have accepted this kind of interdependence ofGreen’s metaphysics and ethics (e.g., Nicholson 2006, Armour2006, and Mander 2006). However, several of Green’s writings inpractical philosophy—notably, the essay “LiberalLegislation” and hisLectures on the Principles of PoliticalObligation—are not preceded by elaborate metaphysicaldiscussions or arguments for absolute idealism. Moreover, even if welook at theProlegomena, much of the argument againsthedonism and in favor of perfectionism and the common good areintelligible and assessable without recourse to doctrines of absoluteidealism. It’s true that self-consciousness plays a crucial rolein both epistemic and practical agency. If idealism meant nothing morethan the importance of self-consciousness to knowledge and moralpersonality, that might provide a kind of unity to Green’smetaphysics and ethics. It would represent the crucial idealistmetaphysical claim as a comparatively modest and plausible one. Butthose claims about the importance of self-consciousness do not requireany specifically idealist metaphysical claims that reality is limitedto what is or can be an object of consciousness. Indeed, we have seenthat there is a tension between Green’s moral psychology and hisidealist metaphysics. Green thinks that responsibility consists incapacities for self-conscious reflection and assessment of one’sdesires and options and that self-realization or perfection consistsin the proper exercise of these reasons-responsive capacities.Green’s perfectionist ethics require that self-conscious mindsplay this causal role in the will and action, and that is inconsistentwith the assumption in Green’s idealist metaphysics thatself-conscious minds lie outside of space and time (Irwin 2009:§1235).

Another question about Green’s metaphysics and ethics is therelation between individual and collective levels of analysis.Consider the priority of individual and corporate consciousness inGreen’s metaphysics. It is clear that the individual is prior inorder of discovery. We begin by trying to understand anindividual’s conscious experience and knowledge. This leadsGreen to embrace local idealism, understood as the claim that realityor knowable reality cannot concern things as they are in themselves,independently of how they do or can appear to individual thinkers.Indeed, discussion of an individual’s experience and knowledgeoccupies the bulk of Book I of theProlegomena. Green theninvokes the supposition that there is a single corporate consciousnessof which individual consciousnesses are proper parts to avoid anincommensurable plurality of individual-specific realities and toexplain the possibility of objectivity. On one reading, individualidealism remains primary, not just in the order of discovery but alsoin the order of explanation and justification. Green thinks inquirysupports individual idealism, and absolute idealism is a kind ofphilosophical speculation about how one might try to groundobjectivity for individual consciousness. On another reading, Greenmight think that though individual idealism is prior in the order ofdiscovery to absolute idealism, reflection about the possibility ofobjectivity shows that absolute idealism is prior in order ofexplanation or justification. On this view, corporate or eternalconsciousness is the only substance and individual consciousness areaccidents of this substance.

There are also interesting issues about the individual and collectivelevels of analysis in Green’s ethics. On the one hand, there isa tendency to read the British idealists as anti-individualists, whichmight seem to apply to Green (e.g., Berlin 1958, Quinton 1971). Afterall, there is the reading of his ethics on which it depends not juston his idealism but also on his absolute idealism. Moreover,Green’s claims about the importance of individuals seeking apermanent good that transcends their individual limitations and aboutthe regulation of each person’s good by a noncompetitive commongood might seem to support this anti-individualist reading.

On the other hand, there are a number of reasons to resist thisanti-individualist reading of Green. First, as we have seen, it maynot be necessary or desirable to see Green’s perfectionistethics as resting on his idealist metaphysics, much less his absoluteidealism. Second, Green’s claims about the importance of apermanent good and the common good may be defensible fromindividualist premises. Book II of theProlegomena beginswith a focus on individual practical agency and the personal good,much as Book I begins with a focus on individual epistemic agency andknowledge. Green argues that individuals have reason to see their owninterests extended by participation in larger projects in communitywith others, and this, he claims, gives them reason to seek a commongood.

We can identify two different ways of linking the personal good andthe common good. One way is from theoutside-in, arguing thatthe common good is explanatorily prior to the personal good and thatthe good of individuals is just whatever is contributory to the goodof some collective, whether that be God, humanity, or some more localcommunity. Another way is from theinside-out, arguing thatthe personal good is more complete when it includes the right sort ofassociation with others and includes the pursuit of a common good.Framed this way, there’s a strong case to be made for theinside-out reading of Green’s ethics. As we’ve seen, thestructure of the argument in Books II–III of theProlegomena has this inside-out character. Thisinterpretation is reinforced by claims Green makes in his“Freedom” essay. Recall that Green identifies true freedomwith determination by practical reason and perfect self-realization.He distinguishes between Christian (Pauline) and Kantian conceptionsof freedom, on the one hand, and a Hegelian conception, on the otherhand (Works II 312–15). The principal difference seemsto be in whom freedom is realized. Green thinks that the Christian andKantian see the individual as the locus of freedom, whereas Hegeltreats the state as the locus of freedom. In this debate, Green sideswith the Christian and Kantian.

On the other hand, it would seem that we cannot significantly speak offreedom except with reference to individual persons; that only in themcan freedom be realised; that therefore the realisation of freedom inthe state can only mean the attainment of freedom by individualsthrough influences which the state (in the wide sense spoken of)supplies—“freedom” here, as before, meaning not mereself-determination which renders us responsible, but determination byreasons, “autonomy of the will”…. (WorksII 314)

Here, Green makes explicit that he understands the link between thepersonal good, freedom, and the common good from the inside-out.

This fits with a common observation about the traditions andindividuals who influenced Green. Perhaps the strongest influences arethe Greeks, especially Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel. It is not uncommonfor readers to emphasize the Hegelian dimensions of Green. But despiteGreen’s sympathy with some Hegelian commitments—idealism,a progressive view of history, and the importance of freedom—hisversion of these commitments and the ways he defends them show fairlylittle direct influence by Hegel.^[10] Moreover, many of the most important elements of Green’sperfectionism—especially the ethics of self-realization, itsgrounding in rational agency, and its concern with the commongood—are traceable to the influence of Aristotle and Kant. It isperhaps not unreasonable to follow Sidgwick who regards Greenprincipally as a Kantian (Lectures 3; Irwin 2009: §1234)or, even better, Green’s student D.G. Ritchie who suggests thatit is perhaps best to say that Green “… corrected Kant byAristotle and Aristotle by Kant” (1891: 139–140).

7. Concluding Remarks

Green was perhaps the most important figure within the tradition ofBritish idealism. But the significance of his idealism extends beyondthat tradition. His defenses of idealist metaphysics and epistemologyand absolute idealism make interesting contributions to an idealisttradition that includes Berkeley, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Bradley,among others. His idealist approach to ethics embraces a perfectionisttheory of self-realization committed to rich conceptions of freedomand the common good that aims to synthesize the best elements in Greekeudaimonism and Kantian rationalism. Though perfectionism is anunderappreciated tradition, Green makes enduring contributions to thattradition. Green’s perfectionism leads him to develop aprogressive conception of liberalism that was influential in Britishpolitics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and thatbears comparison with contemporary conceptions of liberalism.

Bibliography

The references are divided into primary sources, including bothGreen’s writings and other relevant historical texts, andsecondary sources. The division between other primary historicalsources and secondary sources is sometimes somewhat arbitrary. Primarysources are cited using short titles or abbreviations, as indicated,and secondary sources are cited by year of publication.

A. Primary Sources

A.1 Green’s Writings

This is a list of Green’s principal published and unpublishedphilosophical writings on which the present entry draws.

Works of T.H. Green, 3 vols., Richard Lewis Nettleship(ed.), London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1885–1888. Nettleship’sedition contains Green’s main philosophical publications (excepttheProlegomena to Ethics), miscellaneouslectures, and Nettleship’s memoir of Green.
[Works]Collected Works of T.H. Green, 5 vols.,Peter P. Nicholson (ed.), Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1997. Cited asWorks. The first three volumes of Nicholson’s editionreprint Nettleship’s edition, the fourth volume contains the1883 edition of theProlegomena to Ethics, and the fifthvolume contains additional unpublished essays, lectures, and selectedcorrespondence.
1874–75,The Philosophical Works of David Hume, 4vols., T.H. Green and T.H. Grose (eds), London: Longmans, Green, andCo. Green wrote the introductions to Hume’sTreatise inthe first and second volumes. Green’s introductions to theTreatise are reprinted inWorks I, 1–371, and itsmain themes are incorporated into Book I of Green’sProlegomena to Ethics.
1881, “Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract”.Originally published in 1881 and inWorks III, 365–386. Citedas “Liberal Legislation.”
1882, “Can There Be a Natural Science of Man?”Mind, original series, 7(25): 1–29, 7(26):161–185, 7(27): 321–348. This three-part article appearedin the year of Green’s death and was incorporated into Book I oftheProlegomena. [doi:10.1093/mind/os-VII.25.1, doi:10.1093/mind/os-VII.26.161, doi:10.1093/mind/os-VII.27.321]
[PE] 1883,Prolegomena to Ethics, A.C. Bradley(ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press. Cited asProlegomena orPE. TheProlegomena was published posthumously in1883. A.C. Bradley edited Green’s unfinished manuscript andsupplied a useful analytical table of contents.TheProlegomena was out of print for many years. It is reprinted inWorks IV. A recent edition is T.H. Green,Prolegomena toEthics, edited by D. Brink, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003, whichfollows Bradley’s 1883 edition and contains a substantialintroduction.
Lectures on the Philosophy of Kant. Publishedposthumously inWorks II, 1–155, and cited asLectures onKant. There are two lectures, one on Kant’sCritique ofPure Reason and one on Kant’s Metaphysics of Ethics.]
“On the Different Senses of ‘Freedom’ as Appliedto Will and the Moral Progress of Man”. Published posthumouslyinWorks II, 308–333, and cited as“Freedom.”
[LPPO]Lectures on the Principles of PoliticalObligation. Published posthumously inWorks II, 335–553,and cited asLPPO by section number.

More comprehensive bibliographies of Green’s published andunpublished writings can be found inWorks V; Thomas 1987;and Tyler 2018.

A.2 Other Primary Sources

Aristotle,Nicomachean Ethics, T. Irwin (trans.), thirdedition, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2019.
–––,Politics, inThe RevisedOxford Translation of the Complete Works of Aristotle, 2 vols.,J. Barnes (ed.), Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Bradley, F.H., 1876,Ethical Studies, Oxford: ClarendonPress. Second edition, revised, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927.
–––, 1893,Appearance and Reality,London: George Allen and Unwin.
–––, 1914,Essays on Truth and Reality,Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Butler, Joseph, 1726,Fifteen Sermons Preached at RollsChapel, London: J. and J. Knapton. Collected inFifteenSermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel and, A Dissertation Upon theNature of Virtue, Walter Robert Matthews (ed.), G. Bell, 1914.Reprinted 1953.
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 1794,Grundlage der gesammtenWissenschaftslehre, Leipzig. Translated asThe Science ofKnowledge, P. Heath and J. Lachs (eds/trans), New York: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1982.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1807,Phänomenologie desGeistes, Bamburg and Würzburg: Goebbardt. Translated asPhenomenology of Spirit, A. V. Miller (trans.), Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1977.
–––, 1821,Grundlinien der Philosophie desRechts, Berlin. Translated asHegel’s Philosophy ofRight, Thomas Malcolm Knox (trans.), Oxford: Clarendon Press,1952.
Hobbes, Thomas, 1651,Leviathan, London. Reprinted, E.Curley (ed.), Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1994. Cited by chapter andparagraph number.
Hume, David, 1739–40,A Treatise of Human Nature, 3volumes, London. Reprinted, P.H. Nidditch (ed.), Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1978. Cited asTreatise, by book, part, and sectionnumber.
Kant, Immanuel, 1781/1787,Kritik der reinen Vernunft,Riga. Translated asCritique of Pure Reason, N.K. Smith, NewYork: Macmillan, 1963. Citations to A/B editions.
–––, 1785,Grundlegung zur Metaphysik derSitten, Riga. Translated asGroundwork of the Metaphysics ofMorals in hisPractical Philosophy, 37–108. CitedasGroundwork, by volume (4) and page number in the PrussianAcademy edition.
–––, 1788,Kritik der praktischenVernunft), Riga. Translated asCritique of PracticalReason in hisPractical Philosophy, 133–272. Citedby volume (5) and page number in the Prussian Academy edition.
–––, 1797,Die Metaphysik der Sitten,Königsberg. Translated asThe Metaphysics of Morals inhisPractical Philosophy, 353–604. Cited by volume (6)and page number in the Prussian Academy edition.
–––, 1996,Practical Philosophy, MaryJ. Gregor (ed./trans.), New York: Cambridge University Press.doi:10.1017/CBO9780511813306
Locke, John, 1689,Two Treatises of Government, London.Reprinted, Peter Laslett (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1968. Cited asTreatises, and by treatise, chapter, andsection number.
–––, 1690,An Essay Concerning HumanUnderstanding, London. Reprinted, P.H. Nidditch (ed.), Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1979. Cited asEssay, by book, chapter, andsection number.
Mill, John Stuart,The Collected Works of John StuartMill, 33 volumes, John M. Robson (ed.), Toronto: University ofToronto Press, 1963–91.
–––, 1859,On Liberty, London: John W.Parker & Son. Reprinted inCollected Works XVIII.
–––, 1861,Utilitarianism, London:Parker, Son, and Bourn. Reprinted inCollected Works X. Citedby chapter and paragraph number and by page number inCollectedWorks.
–––, 1861,Considerations on RepresentativeGovernment, London: Parker, Son, and Bourn. Reprinted inCollected Works XIX.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1762,Du contrat social;ou Principes du droit politique, Amsterdam: Marc Michel Rey.Translated asOn the Social Contract inJean-JacquesRousseau, The Basic Political Writings, ed. D. Cress,Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987. Cited asSocial Contract orSC and by book, chapter, and paragraph number.
Sidgwick, Henry, 1874 [1907],The Methods of Ethics,London: Macmillan. Seventh edition, London: Macmillan, 1907. Cited asMethods; page numbers from the 1907 edition.
–––, 1888, “The Kantian Conception of FreeWill,”Mind, original series, 13(51): 405–412.Reprinted as an appendix to the 1907 edition ofMethods.doi:10.1093/mind/os-XIII.51.405
–––, 1901, “The Philosophy of T. H.Green,”Mind, 10(1): 18–29.doi:10.1093/mind/X.1.18
–––, 1902,Lectures on the Ethics of T.H.Green, Mr. Herbert Spencer, and J. Martineau, London: Macmillan.Cited asLectures.

B. Secondary Sources

Armour, Leslie, 2006, “Green’s Idealism and theMetaphysics of Ethics,” in Dimova-Cookson and Mander 2006:160–186. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199271665.003.0007
Berlin, Isaiah, 1958, “Two Concepts of Liberty,”inaugural lecture, Oxford, 31 October, 1958, Oxford:Clarendon Press; reprinted in Isaiah Berlin,Four Essays onLiberty, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969, 118–172.
Bosanquet, Bernard, 1899,The Philosophical Theory of theState, London: Macmillan; fouth edition, London: Macmillan,1923.
Brink, David O., 1997, “Self-Love and Altruism,”Social Philosophy and Policy, 14(1): 122–157.doi:10.1017/S0265052500001709
–––, 2003,Perfectionism and the CommonGood: Themes in the Philosophy of T. H. Green, Oxford: ClarendonPress. doi:10.1093/0199266409.001.0001
–––, 2006, “Self‐Realization and theCommon Good: Themes in T. H. Green,” in Dimova-Cookson andMander 2006: 17–46.doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199271665.003.0002
–––, 2013,Mill’s ProgressivePrinciples, Oxford: Clarendon Press.doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199672141.001.0001
–––, 2018, “Eudaimonism and CosmopolitanConcern,” inVirtue, Happiness, and Knowledge: Themes fromthe Work of Gail Fine and Terence Irwin, David O. Brink, SusanSauvé Meyer, and Christopher Shields (eds.), Oxford: ClarendonPress, ch. 15, 270–292.
–––, 2019, “Normative Perfectionism andthe Kantian Tradition,”Philosopher’s Imprint,19: art. 45. [Brink 2019 available online]
Cohen, Joshua, 2010,Rousseau: A Free Community ofEquals, New York: Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199581498.001.0001
Dimova-Cookson, Maria, 2001,T.H. Green’s Moral andPolitical Philosophy: A Phenomenological Perspective, London:Palgrave.
Dimova-Cookson, Maria and William J. Mander (eds.), 2006,T.H. Green: Ethics, Metaphysics, and Political Philosophy, Oxford:Clarendon Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199271665.001.0001
Freeden, Michael, 1978,The New Liberalism: An Ideology ofSocial Reform, Oxford: Clarendon Press.doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198229612.001.0001
Gaus, Gerald F., 2006, “The Rights Recognition Thesis:Defending and Extending Green,” in Dimova-Cookson and Mander2006: 209–235.doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199271665.003.0009
Hinton, Timothy, 2001, “The Perfectionist Liberalism of T.H.Green,”Social Theory and Practice, 27(3):473–499. doi:10.5840/soctheorpract20012736
Hobhouse, L.T., 1911,Liberalism, London: HenryHolt.
–––, 1918,The Metaphysical Theory of theState: A Criticism, London: Allen & Unwin.
Hurka, Thomas, 1993,Perfectionism, Oxford: ClarendonPress. doi:10.1093/0195101162.001.0001
Hylton, Peter, 1990,Russell, Idealism, and the Emergence ofAnalytic Philosophy, Oxford: Clarendon Press.doi:10.1093/019824018X.001.0001
Irwin, Terence H., 1984, “Morality and Personality: Kant andGreen,” inSelf and Nature in Kant’s Philosophy,Allen W. Wood (ed.), Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,31–56.
–––, 1992, “Eminent Victorians and GreekEthics: Sidgwick, Green, and Aristotle,” inEssays on HenrySidgwick, Bart Schultz (ed.), New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 279–310. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139172363.012
–––, 2006, “Green’s Criticism of theBritish Moralists,” in Dimova-Cookson and Mander 2006:106–136. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199271665.003.0005
–––, 2009,The Development of Ethics(Volume 3:From Kant to Rawls), Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.
Mander, William J., 2006, “In Defence of the EternalConsciousness,” in Dimova-Cookson and Mander 2006:187–206. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199271665.003.0008
–––, 2011,British Idealism: A History,New York: Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199559299.001.0001
––– (ed.), 2014,The Oxford Handbook ofBritish Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century, Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199594474.001.0001
–––, 2016,Idealist Ethics, New York:Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198748892.001.0001
Martin, Rex, 2001, “T. H. Green on Individual Rights and theCommon Good,” in Simhony and Weinstein 2001: 49–68.doi:10.1017/CBO9780511558337.003
Nettleship, Richard Lewis, 1885, “Memoir of T.H. Green,”inWorks III, xi-clxi.
Neuhouser, Frederick, 1990,Fichte’s Theory ofSubjectivity, New York: Cambridge University Press.doi:10.1017/CBO9780511624827
–––, 2000,Foundations of Hegel’sSocial Theory: Actualizing Freedom, Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press.
Nicholson, Peter, 1990,The Political Philosophy of theBritish Idealists, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
–––, 2006, “Green’s ‘EternalConsciousness’,” in Dimova-Cookson and Mander 2006:139–159. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199271665.003.0006
Quinton, Anthony M., 1971. “Absolute Idealism,” DawesHicks Lecture on Philosophy, read 27 October 1971,Proceedings ofthe British Academy, 57: 303–329.
Richter, Melvin, 1964,The Politics of Conscience: T.H. Greenand His Age, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ritchie, D.G., 1891,The Principles of State Interference:Four Essays on the Political Philosophy of Mr. Herbert Spencer, J.S.Mill, and T.H. Green, London: Swan Sonnenschein.
Ross, W.D., 1930,The Right and the Good, Oxford:Clarendon Press.
Simhony, Avital, 2001, “T. H. Green’s Complex CommonGood: Between Liberalism and Communitarianism,” in Simhony andWeinstein 2001: 69–91. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511558337.004
Simhony, Avital and David Weinstein (eds.), 2001,The NewLiberalism: Reconciling Liberty and Community, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511558337
Skorupski, John, 2006, “Green and the Idealist Conception ofa Person’s Good,” in Dimova-Cookson and Mander 2006:47–75. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199271665.003.0003
–––, 2021,Being and Freedom: On Late ModernEthics in Europe, New York: Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/oso/9780198716761.001.0001
Thomas, Geoffrey, 1987,The Moral Philosophy of T.H.Green, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Tyler, Colin, 2010,The Metaphysics of Self-Realisation andFreedom: Part 1 of The Liberal Socialism of Thomas Hill Green,Exeter: Imprint Academic.
–––, 2018,Bibliography of Thomas Hill Green(1836–1882), Working Paper Series: Number 3, Centre forIdealism and the New Liberalism [Tyler 2018 available online].
Ward, Mary Augusta [Mrs. Humphry], 1888,Robert Elsmere,London: Macmillan.

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Tyler, Colin, “Thomas Hill Green,”Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2021 Edition),Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2021/entries/green/>. [This was the previous entry on this topic in theStanfordEncyclopedia of Philosophy — see theversion history.]
Centre for Idealism and the New Liberalism, University of Hull.
Green’s Grave and Memorial Information at St. Sepulchre’s Cemetery, Oxford.

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