Green was born at Birkin, a village in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, of which his father was rector.
Green represents primarily the reaction against doctrines which, when carried out to their logical conclusion, not only "rendered all philosophy futile," but were fatal to practical life.
Green emphasizes that this approach to ethics, which claims that moral conduct is motivated by a desire for perfection and by a desire for the common good, has practical value when complex moral questions cannot be answered by intuition.
Green argues that the attainment of an object of desire may bring pleasure, but that pleasure is not always the object of desire.
Green’s answer is that we do not have to know the nature of the ultimate good in order to make our actions 'better.' We can improve our own conduct, even though we may not be able to fully define the nature of the ultimate good which is the goal of moral conduct.
Green, Thomas Hill. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-01)
In his Prolegomena to Ethics (1883) Green submitted an ethics of self-determination, which he epitomized in the phrase “Rules are made for man and not man for rules.” Self-determination is present when humanity is conscious of its own desires, and freedom occurs when people identify themselves with what they consider morally good.
Green’s ethics are believed to have influenced, among others, John Dewey and Alfred North Whitehead.
Politically, Green was a liberal; he asserted that government must represent the general will and that when it fails to do so it should be changed.
ThomasHillGreen was born on April 7, 1836 in Birkin, a tiny village in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where his father was rector.
Green theorises the progressive element of experience (involving the construction of complex mental objects) claiming that as more sensations are experienced the individual comes to recognise that the system of categories and relations ‘comprehended’ by the eternal consciousness (‘nature’) is a unified entity.
Green attacks the view that there are moral rights which people possess merely as individuals: that is, moral rights which they possess without reference to their existence as members of a society founded on a common purpose.
His work was constructive in aim and, to a large extent, in achievement; and it was inspired by a belief in the importance of right-thinking for life.
The latter characteristic Green shared with most of the writers who sympathised with his philosophical views, and it accounted for much of the enthusiasm with which these views were received.
Green’s dissection of the latter appeared, in 1874, in the form of two elaborate “introductions” to a new edition of Hume’s Treatise.
www.bartleby.com /224/0132.html (450 words)
Thomas Hill Green(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-01)
Green argues that desires are emotional impulses felt by the individual and recognised by him as forming an indispensable part of his being.
Green holds that “by reason, in the practical sense, [is meant] the capacity on the part of [the individual] to conceive of a better state of [himself] as an end to be attained by action” (PE 177).
Green extends this argument to claim that, by virtue of his possession of rights within a particular society, the individual has the right to non-interference from all members of all societies (to the extent that he recognises their rights to non-interference).
THG: (#241) Moral development then will not be merely progress in the discovery and practice of means to an end which throughout remains the same for the subject of the development.
THG: (#243) Already in the earliest stages of the development of the human soul, of which we have any recorded expression, th[e] distinction [between the good things of the soul and of the body] is virtually recognized.
THG: (#285) It would not be to the purpose here to enter on the complicated and probably unanswerable question of the share which different personal influences may have had in gaining acceptance for the idea of human brotherhood, and in giving it some practical effect in the organization of society.
ThomasHillGreen was a leading British philosopher and political figure and founder of the school of British Idealism.
Green's lectures delivered in Oxford in 1879: “Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation” and “Prologema to Ethics” are the beginning of the transformation of Englishliberalism in a social liberal direction.
Green played an important role in changing liberal assumptions, by moving from a ‘negative' conception of freedom, i.e.
A Conversation With Thomas Hill Green, by George J. Irbe(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-01)
A Conversation With ThomasHillGreen, by George J. Irbe
Professor Green, I want first of all to say that some of us think that the pejorative label of 'Hegelian' with which you have been tagged does not fit you.
Professor Green, I would now like to ask you to explain your understanding of how man came to possess his moral characteristics.
ThomasHillGreen was an active reformer and reform writer on education, temperance, politics, religion, and philosophy.
His reform work in support of temperance was prompted by personal motives, for one member of his family proved to be an alcoholic, and Green made many addresses on behalf of temperance groups to which he belonged.
ThomasHillGreen from Dictionary of Literary Biography.
This is a new edition of T. Green's Prolegomena to Ethics (1883), a classic of modern philosophy, in which Green sets out his perfectionist ethical theory.
The political writings of T. Green, with notes and an introductory essay.
"This edition combines the work of Green's early editors (Nettleship and A.C. Bradley) with a range of lectures, speeches and correspondence unearthed and expertedly edited by a leading modern Green scholar.
Green Thomas Hill from FOLDOC(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-01)
Green's defense of the idealism of Hegel found its best expression in the critical introduction to his editions of Hume's Treatise and in his own Prolegomena to Ethics (1883), where he argued that all human knowledge and action derive from abstract thought.
In Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation (1885) Green applied Hegelian notions in opposition to laissez-faire liberal politics.
Recommended Reading: T. Green, The Theory of Free Will and the Compulsion of Human Actions (Caribe, 1991); Geoffrey Thomas, The Moral Philosophy of T. Green (Oxford, 1987); The Politics of Conscience: T. Green and His Age, ed.
(1874), Green struck a heavy blow at traditional British empiricism.
(1883) Green submitted an ethics of self-determination, which he epitomized in the phrase “Rules are made for man and not man for rules.” Self-determination is present when humanity is conscious of its own desires, and freedom occurs when people identify themselves with what they consider morally good.
