John Grote was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 moral philosopher and Anglican clergyman.

The son of a banker, Grote was younger brother to the historian, philosopher and reformer George Grote

George Grote

George Grote was an English classical historian, best known in the field for a major work, the voluminous History of Greece, still read.-Early life:He was born at Clay Hill near Beckenham in Kent...

. He went up to Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

 in 1831, graduated BA with a first-class degree in the Classics Tripos in 1835, and became a fellow of Trinity in 1837. From 1847 until his death he was vicar of Trumpington

Trumpington, Cambridgeshire

Trumpington is a village within the city of Cambridge, UK, of which it is a suburb. It is located on the south-west side of the city and borders Cherry Hinton to the east, Grantchester to the west and Great Shelford and Little Shelford to the south-east....

, where he was a neighbour of his close friend Robert Leslie Ellis

Robert Leslie Ellis

Robert Leslie Ellis was an English polymath, remembered principally as a mathematician and editor of the works of Francis Bacon....

, the paralysed mathematician and Bacon scholar. In 1855 Grote succeeded William Whewell

William Whewell

William Whewell was an English polymath, scientist, Anglican priest, philosopher, theologian, and historian of science. He was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.-Life and career:Whewell was born in Lancaster...

 as Knightbridge professor of moral philosophy

Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy

The Knightbridge Professorship of Philosophy is the senior professorship in philosophy at the University of Cambridge.One of the oldest professorships in Cambridge, the chair was founded in 1683 by John Knightbridge, fellow of Peterhouse....

 at Cambridge University.

Grote published relatively little during his life: volume I of Exploratio Philosophica: Rough Notes on Modern Intellectual Science appeared in 1865, but An Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy was only published posthumously (1870). Grote's literary executor and editor, Joseph Bickersteth Mayor, also put together a Treatise on Moral Ideals (1876) and volume II of Exploratio Philosophica (1900).

A philosophical idealist and opponent of utilitarianism (as befitted his Cambridge and Anglican clerical identity), Grote was nevertheless happy to admit the new experimental psychology of someone like John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...

's disciple Alexander Bain

Alexander Bain

Alexander Bain was a Scottish philosopher and educationalist in the British school of empiricism who was a prominent and innovative figure in the fields of psychology, linguistics, logic, moral philosophy and education reform...

 - as long as such 'phenomenal' and more properly 'philosophical' investigations were not conflated with each other. Grote had the (perhaps unenviable) distinction of coining the word 'relativism

Relativism

Relativism is the concept that points of view have no absolute truth or validity, having only relative, subjective value according to differences in perception and consideration....

', though he did not use it in quite the same sense as it is used today.