Social Rights and Duties

These two volumes, published in 1896, contain Sir Leslie Stephen's lectures to ethical societies on questions in moral philosophy.

This two-volume work, first published in 1896, brings together lectures given by Sir Leslie Stephen to various ethical societies, mostly in London. A broad range of ethical issues, including the role of such societies, politics, social equality, heredity, and crime and punishment, is discussed.Sir Leslie Stephen (1832–1904), the founding editor of the Dictionary of National Biography, and a writer on philosophy, ethics, and literature, was educated at Eton, King's College London and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained as a fellow and a tutor for a number of years. Though a sickly child, he later became a keen and successful mountaineer, taking part in first ascents of nine peaks in the Alps. In 1871 he became editor of the Cornhill Magazine. During his eleven-year tenure, he wrote two successful books on ethics, including The Science of Ethics in 1892, which was widely adopted as a standard textbook. This two-volume work, which was first published in 1896, brings together the lectures he gave to various ethical societies, mostly in London. In Volume 2, he discusses the ethical issues surrounding a range of topics, including luxury, heredity, crime and punishment, and duty.