Background
the son of a clergyman of the church of England.
the son of a clergyman of the church of England.
Green's achievement in philosophy was to shift the center of interest in Britain from the empiricism of Hume and Mill and the naturalism of Herbert Spencer to an absolute idealism based on the ideas of Kant and Hegel. Hume had held that both mind and nature, insofar as they are knowable to humanity, consist of a series of isolated sensations and images. Spencer held that the mind was the by-product of an evolving body. Green turned the tables on both by arguing, in Kantian fashion, that nature as we know it involves a fixed order of relations in time, space, and logic, and that such relations can only be the work of mind. Mind, far from being a by-product of nature, is thus its source and architect, and human understanding of the world lies in following the lines of an answering intelligence or "spiritual principle in nature." Nature is a revelation, partial always, but enlarging in extent and coherence, of the mind of God.
This philosophy is the basis of Green's ethics and political theory. The good life consists in realizing one's potentialities, becoming one's true self, satisfying not the impulses of the moment but the desires for those goods that reason would approve for their worth and consistency in the long run. It is the concept of "general will" that, for Green, is the ground of political obligation. Our duty to the state is based on the fact that the state is a means to the common good. Our rights against another human being are based on the fact that only by granting these rights can the end sought by both alike be achieved.