Thomas Hill Green

Thomas Hill Green 1836-82, English idealist philosopher. Educated at Oxford, he was associated with the university all his life. He was professor of moral philosophy there from 1878 until his death. In his Introduction to Hume's Treatise on Human Nature (1874), Green struck a heavy blow at traditional British empiricism. Rejecting sensationalism, he argued that all reality lies in relations, that relations exist only for a thinking consciousness, and that therefore the world is constituted by mind. 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. See his Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation (1895).

Bibliography: See M. Richter, The Politics of Conscience: T. H. Green and His Age (1983).

Green, Thomas Hill (1836–82), philosopher. From 1866 he taught in Oxford. He sought to rethink and propagate in England the idealistic doctrines of I. Kant and G. W. F. Hegel. He held that the analysis of consciousness showed that reality was an organic whole and not a mere aggregate; that the evidence of art, morality, and religion all pointed to the spiritual nature of reality; that God, the eternal consciousness, was realized in each individual person; and that, since personality alone gave meaning to the evolutionary process, the permanence and immortality of the individual were assured.

Green, Thomas Hill (1836–82). Philosopher. Born in Yorkshire, educated at Rugby and Balliol College, Oxford, Green became Whyte's professor of moral philosophy at Oxford in 1878. He made a lasting contribution to moral and political philosophy by attacking the prevailing materialism and empiricism of utilitarian thinkers, arguing for a Hegelian sense of duty to promote the common good. His ideal was human self-perfection—a condition in which people voluntarily chose to develop their potential as active citizens in pursuit of the good life. In his essay ‘Liberal Legislation and Freedom of Contract’ (1881) Green claimed that the inequality of power between employer and worker vitiated freedom in the labour contract and prevented workers from achieving perfection. But Green was no ivory tower academic; he took an active interest in politics and social affairs, participating in the work of a royal commission on education in 1865–6, taking a leading part in the temperance movement, and becoming in 1876 a member of Oxford City Council.

Tim S. Gray