In my dissertation I interpret Modern ethical theories from a perspective that has so far been overlooked by scholars in the field: as all beginning with a shared premise concerning the essential role of an impartial point of view in morality. Beginning here allows me to present an interpretation of three major figures of the period, Hume, Kant and Mill, that is both philosophically compelling and textually accurate. It also allows me to understand these figures as genuinely engaging in the same project. I argue that the most tenable interpretation of the arguments that these figures present is one according to which these arguments move from a premise about the universality of the moral point of view to a conclusion about what morality demands.

I interpret Hume as a cognitivist, and I argue that purported conflicts between his emphasis on the general point of view and his denial that reason plays a role in morality can be resolved by attending to a distinction between moral reactions and moral judgments. Moral reactions are the feelings we have when we have properly taken up the general point of view, and moral judgments are judgments about moral reactions. While reason has a proper place in moral judgment, it does not play a role in determining virtue and vice, which are instead determined by the reactions we have from the moral point of view.

Critics of Kant object to his argument that the universal law formulation is a formulation of the Categorical Imperative by claiming that this general point of view does not accurately pick out worthy maxims. I argue that Kant does not expect the general point of view, as expressed in the universal law formulation, alone to pick out worthy maxims. His argument depends also on the existence of a universal end—humanity—and this insight is expressed in the humanity formulation.

Critics of Mill have objected to his proof by focusing on to two central premises: that what is desired is desirable, and that if each person’s happiness is desirable, the aggregate happiness is desirable. I argue that the former premise is meant to be accepted only from the first-person point of view: the fact that I desire something is the best evidence to me that it is desirable for me. The latter premise, on the other hand, only becomes tenable when considered from the moral (general) point of view: from this perspective we recognize that there is nothing special about my happiness, and therefore the aggregate happiness is desirable.