Henry Sidgwick

Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900) was an English philosopher, Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge from 1883. In 1869 he resigned his fellowship at Trinity because he could no longer subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles, an act that helped end religious tests at the universities. The Methods of Ethics, published in 1874 and revised through six editions, is regarded as the classic statement of utilitarian ethics and of its unresolved conflict with self-interest. He also wrote The Principles of Political Economy and The Elements of Politics, was a founder of Newnham College for women with his wife Eleanor Balfour, and was first president of the Society for Psychical Research.