Recent Tendencies in Ethics / Three Lectures to Clergy Given at Cambridge

This work offers three lectures surveying contemporary ethical thought, first outlining how late nineteenth-century discussion concentrated on the origin of moral ideas and the criterion of moral value, contrasting empiricist/utilitarian accounts with intuitional claims about moral consciousness. It then examines attempts to reconcile ethical theory with evolutionary perspectives, assessing how naturalistic explanations affect responsibility and moral normativity. Finally it considers idealist responses that defend moral truths as rooted in the spiritual nature of mind. Throughout the argument the author traces social and intellectual influences, critiques each position, and aims at constructive guidance for clergy and students of morality.