ABSTRACT
Godwin, as usual, took the hardest line of all. ‘I should think…a man would be the more perfect, in proportion as he endeavoured to elevate philanthropy into a passion.’ To the question how much I should do for the common weal, Godwin’s uncompromising answer was ‘Everything in my power’—even if this means dying for it. There is no agent-centred prerogative. To know how to act, we should imagine ourselves in the role of ‘an impartial spectator, of an angelic nature’, who makes his evaluations without prejudice or self-interest (Godwin 1793:324, 374, 373).
