British moralists of the eighteenth century: Shaftesbury, Butler and PriceDavid McNaughtonIn this chapter I discuss the moral theories of three influential writers: Anthony AshleyCooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713); Joseph Butler (1692–1752) and RichardPrice (1723–91). All three wrote extensively on issues in religion (Butler was anAnglican Bishop and Price a Dissenting Minister) but I shall only touch on their religiousviews where they bear on their ethical doctrines.
LORD SHAFTESBURYI largely base my account of Shaftesbury’s views on his most systematic ethical work,
AnEnquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit, in the version which was included in his
Characteristics.Shaftesbury was deeply influenced by Greek and Roman thought. In a letter hedistinguishes two strands in Ancient philosophy:the one derived from Socrates…the other derived in reality from Democritus…The first…of these two philosophies recommended action, concernment in civilaffairs, religion. The second derided all, and advised inaction and retreat, andwith good reason. For the first maintained that society, right and wrong wasfounded in Nature, and that Nature had a meaning, and was herself, that is tosay in her wits, well governed and administered by one simple and perfectintelligence. The second again derided this, and made Providence and DameNature not so sensible as a doting old woman.1The former strand is the one to which Shaftesbury owes allegiance. It proceeds throughPlato, Aristotle and the Stoics, to the Cambridge Platonists of the previous century,especially Cudworth, whose influence on Shaftesbury was considerable.2 For Shaftesburythe universe is a well-ordered, intelligible system, in which humans have their properplace. By the use of unaided natural reason we can discover what role we are designed toplay in that system and thus live virtuous and happy lives. That role is not arbitrary, butdictated by the very nature of things—by the way the world is organized.This theme is developed in the first half of the
Inquiry, which explores what it is to bea good or virtuous person, and how virtue is related to religion.The goodness of anycreature, whether animal or human, must be judged, Shaftesbury holds, by itscontribution to the good of the system of which it is a part. Just as each organ, if it issound, is well-fitted to play its role in the functioning of the body, so each animal, if it isa good one of its kind, plays its part in a wider system. Each system is, in turn, part of alarger system, until we eventually reach the universe, which is the complete systemcomprehending all others. Thus each animal is a member of a species, and has a role toplay in the preservation of the species as a whole. Each species, in its turn, makes acontribution to the welfare of other species, and so is a part of a system of animals. Thatsystem is itself a sub-system within the broader ecological system of the planet, and soon.Each creature is ultimately to be judged good or bad by the contribution it makes to thegood order of the universe. While a predator may appear bad from the point of view ofthe hunted, it is not really bad if, as Shaftesbury believes, it plays its proper part in theeconomy of the whole. It is, however, perfectly proper to judge an individual or a speciesbad, from the point of view of some sub-system of which it is a part, if it is injurious tothe whole of the rest of that sub-system. Thus it is sufficient to show that a human beingis bad if he is, by his nature, harmful to his fellow-humans.In judging someone to be good or bad we are concerned only with his character. Welook to see if what Shaftesbury calls his affections—his desires, motives andenjoyments—are good. Thus we do not think ill of someone because he has an infectiousdisease, though this may cause harm to others. Nor do we think well of someone who hasonly refrained from crime because she is imprisoned, or because of fear of punishment.This is as true of animals as it is of humans; a dog does not cease to be vicious because itis muzzled or cowed by its keeper. Neither do we think someone good if they act from amotive which, though it usually does harm, on this occasion happens to do good. ‘A goodcreature is such a one as by the natural temper or bent of his affections is carriedprimarily and immediately, and not secondarily and accidentally, to good, and againstill.’3 Shaftesbury is not as clear as he might be about what it is for an affection to carry anagent immediately (or, as he sometimes says, directly) to the good. The most charitableinterpretation is that an affection is good if it has a natural tendency to promote the publicgood, even though particular circumstances may conspire to prevent the normal effects. Itis certainly not necessary that what is desired is some good of the system to which onebelongs. There are some instincts or desires, such as that for self-preservation, which,though their object is one’s own good, normally and naturally contribute to the good ofthe species, since a species whose members lacked that instinct would be less likely tosurvive.Both humans and other animals can be good, but only humans can be virtuous. Whatdifferentiates them from animals is that they are self-conscious. They have the capacity toreflect on their own actions and affections so that these in their turn can become theobject of approval or disapproval. Our attitude will, of course, be determined by thecontribution the action or affection in question makes to the public good. We cannot helpforming these reflective affections. Shaftesbury, in typical eighteenth-century vein, goesso far as to maintain that, provided he has no personal interest in the case, even a morallycorrupt person will approve of what is ‘natural and honest’ and disapprove of what is‘dishonest and corrupt’.4 While we have no choice in forming these reflective affectionstheir presence does enable humans to make choices about their actions in a way that isimpossible for unreflective animals. Animals, because they lack a capacity for rationalreflection, always act on the strongest unreflective desire. But a human being whoseunreflective affections are not in the sort of harmony which would lead her naturally todo good can, nevertheless, resist the pull of any desire which reflection tells her is one onwhich she should not act. Thus rational reflection is capable of overcoming desire, andwe can build a capacity for virtue which will withstand the assault of even the mostalluring temptation.Shaftesbury then turns to the relation between morality and religion. Like theCambridge Platonists before him, he is opposed to theological voluntarism: the view thatwhat is right or wrong depends on the will or decision of God. Voluntarism locates ourobligation to obey God, not in any legitimacy which authorizes him to command andrequires others to obey, but in His unchallengeable power, which compels our obediencethrough fear of the consequences of rebellion. It conflicts with both the central tenets ofShaftesbury’s world-view because it denies that right and wrong are determined by thenature of the universe, independently of anyone’s choice, and it denies that we candiscover how we should live by rational reflection on our own nature and that of theworld. If what is right or wrong depends on God’s will, then we require divine revelationto find out what our obligations are.The rejection of voluntarism leaves open the question of whether religious belief, orthe lack of it, has a good or a bad influence on one’s virtue. Shaftesbury argues that falsereligion or superstition can certainly corrupt one’s moral sense by giving one a distortedsense of values. Atheism, by contrast, does better on this account since it does not itselfprescribe the adoption of any particular values. Nor is it necessary to believe in God inorder to distinguish right from wrong; our capacity to reflect on our own actions issufficient for that. Belief in God might, nevertheless, strengthen our commitment tovirtue. This is not, as the voluntarist supposes, because fear of divine wrath keeps us incheck, since Shaftesbury has already argued that one who acts rightly through fear ofpunishment is not thereby virtuous. The recognition of God’s moral perfection can,however, inspire us to develop our character so that it becomes more virtuous. It is easier,Shaftesbury concludes, to love the order or harmony of character in which virtue consistsif one is convinced that the world is an orderly and harmonious system in which virtuehas its proper place. Hence true theism has advantages, so far as the practice of virtue isconcerned, over atheism.Having defined virtue ‘
t remains to inquire, what obligation there is to virtue; orwhat reason to embrace it’.5 Shaftesbury assumes, without argument, that he can onlyshow that there is reason to be virtuous if he can show that it is in our interest to be so. Inother words, Shaftesbury is a rational egoist; the justification of any way of life consistsin showing how it would benefit the agent. He is not, as we have seen, a psychologicalegoist for he holds that we can be motivated by a concern, not for our own good, but forthe good of the system of which we are a part. Nor is he an ethical egoist, for moralityrequires us to be motivated by a concern for others.To be virtuous, as we have seen, an agent’s affections must be so ordered as to disposehim to promote the common good. There are, Shaftesbury holds, three kinds ofaffections: natural affections which lead, to public good; self-affections, which lead onlyto private good, and unnatural affections, which promote neither public nor private good,and may even have the opposite effect. Affections of the third type are intrinsicallyvicious; whether an affection of either of the first two kinds is good or bad depends on itsstrength; a desire can be bad in being either too strong or too weak for the constitution ofthat creature.The distinction between the first two kinds of affection is unclear. His remarks seemmost naturally to be taken as implying that a desire is a self-affection if, in the ordinarycourse of nature, indulging that affection tends to promote only the good of the agent andnot the good of the species. But Shaftesbury includes among the self-affections selfpreservationwhich, as we have seen, promotes the public good. Sometimes it seems thatthis distinction rests not on the causal tendency of the affection, but on whether the objectof the affection is a good of the agent or of others.His discussion of the correct classification of the delight some people take inmathematical and scientific discovery is an illustration of the latter point. He thinks itsufficient to show that this delight is not a self-affection to point out that it is quitedisinterested. That is, its object is not some advantage to ourselves. In particular, itsobject is not the pleasure we gain from the contemplation. It is, he claims, a naturalaffection, because it is a delight in an admirable feature of the universe, namely itsharmony and proportion.Virtue consists in having no affections of the third kind, and in those of the first twosorts being neither too strong nor too weak. It is possible, though unusual, to have one’sself-affections too weak, or one’s natural affections too strong. To have an insufficientconcern for one’s own good or safety is a ‘vice and imperfection’.6 An over-strongnatural affection can frustrate its own ends and is also a defect. Thus an excess of pity cansimply paralyse, rendering one incapable of giving aid. Vice more usually consists,however, in any or all of the following: an insufficient concern for others, an excessiveconcern with oneself, or the presence of unnatural desires. To prove that virtue is in one’sinterest Shaftesbury must therefore show that to be in any of these three states is to be inan unenviable and miserable condition.He begins with the natural affections. His strategy is to show that mental pleasures arevastly superior to bodily ones; he then argues that the mental pleasures are either identicalwith the natural affections or are their effects. There are difficulties with this strategy.First, the distinction between mental and bodily pleasures is not a clear one, yetShaftesbury offers no help in drawing it. As examples of the sensual appetites, fromwhose satisfaction bodily pleasure arises, he apparently offers us the tired triumvirate ofdesires for food, drink and sex. Even here there is some unclarity, for he classifies sexualdesire as a natural affection, because it has as its end the good of the propagation of thespecies. Unlike the other natural affections, however, its satisfaction gives rise to asensual as well as a mental pleasure.Second, Shaftesbury holds that it is only the natural affections which are, or can giverise to, the higher mental pleasures and thus make their possessor truly happy. But it is byno means clear that every desire or delight of an intellectual kind is to be classed as anatural affection, even if we think that he has successfully made out his case with respectto the joys of mathematics. There remains a suspicion that Shaftesbury cheats bysuggesting that the only possible competition to the delights of virtuous living comesfrom the grubby sensual pleasures.The pleasures of the virtuous life, Shaftesbury plausibly claims, are considerable. Weare conscious of how delightful it is to be moved by such affections as ‘love, gratitude,bounty, generosity, pity, succour, or whatever else is of a social or friendly sort’.7 Notonly are these feelings delightful in themselves but they are usually accompanied byequally delightful effects. The virtuous person derives a sympathetic pleasure from thegood of others and is pleasantly conscious of the love and merited esteem of others.Finally, the virtuous person will be able to reflect on her own life with pleasure. Thevicious person will still, as we have seen, disapprove of his own deeds and character, andwill thus feel discomfort whenever he reviews, as he sometimes must, the conduct of hisown life. In making this last claim Shaftesbury greatly underestimates the humancapacity for self-deception. It is true that self-esteem is an important element inhappiness, but those who lack any real worth are often not short of it.Such are the rewards of virtue. How can we show them to be superior to the pleasuresof sensual indulgence? Shaftesbury appeals, in a manner later to be made (in)famous byJohn Stuart Mill, to the verdict of qualified judges; that is, those who have had a full andproper experience of both kinds of pleasure. It turns out, however, that the verdict is aforegone conclusion, for whereas the temperance of the virtuous person makes him all themore able to savour keenly the delights of the flesh, ‘the immoral and profligate man canby no means be allowed a good judge of social pleasure, to which he is so mere a strangerby his nature’.8 This is too quick. It may be that a just appreciation of the socialpleasures, like a taste for olives or opera, takes time and application to achieve. So wecan reasonably demand that would-be judges give both kinds of pleasure a fair trial. Butwe cannot, without begging the question, assume that the sensualist only prefers his wayof life because he has so little acquaintance with the alternatives.Fortunately, Shaftesbury has a better point to make. The mere gratification of bodilyappetite does not, in itself, offer any great satisfaction and soon palls. The real pleasuresin the life of a bon viveur are social, the conviviality which comes from eating anddrinking together. Nor should we assume that it is only the physical pleasures whichmake sexual relations enjoyable; much greater pleasure comes from the mutual passionand requited love of which sexual intimacy can be an expression. The sensualistmisidentifies the source of much of the satisfaction that he obtains. We might add that thesocial pleasures that enter his life are, partly because of that misidentification, oftensecond-rate; the conviviality forced and shallow and the passion feigned.If a deficiency in the natural affections is not in one’s interest, neither is an excess ofself-love. An exaggerated concern for the pro-longation of one’s own life would lead oneto cling to life even when illness or pain made this undesirable. The life of one who isexcessively concerned about her own safety is full of the unpleasant emotions of fear andanxiety. Moreover, such a concern can be self-defeating, by robbing its victim of thecapacity, when in peril, for sensible and resolute action which might save her life.Among the unnatural passions are sadism, malice, envy, misanthropy and sexualperversion. To be prey to any of these is to be miserable. For the vicious person will notonly be the object of the hostility and disapproval of others, but will also be aware, sincehe cannot extinguish his moral sense, that their attitude to him is justified. Nevertheless,we might object, there is surely this to be said for unnatural affections, that theirsatisfaction is pleasurable. Shaftesbury, however, following Plato, denies that these aretrue or genuine pleasures. Some states are only pleasurable in comparison to theunpleasantness of what went before. Thus recovery from an illness, or cessation of aheadache, may be experienced as intensely pleasurable. In reality, we might think, thereis no positive or real pleasure here, but only the relief of returning to a neutral state. Noone would choose to have a migraine in order to experience the joy of its disappearance.Similar remarks can be made about cravings, addictions and even bodily appetites. Thereis nothing in itself particularly appealing about drinking a glass of water, but when one isparched with thirst it seems delicious, by contrast to the discomfort which preceded it.The trouble with cravings is that they are unpleasant in themselves and drive theirpossessor to satisfy them to gain that ‘pleasure’ which is, in effect, only the temporaryremoval of discomfort. Other pleasures are not preceded by discomfort; the delight ofsmelling an unexpected scent, or coming across a magnificent view, need not depend fortheir intensity on the quieting of some craving. Such, on this view, are the true pleasures.If Shaftesbury were right in claiming that all unnatural desires are cravings, whereasthe social affections give genuine pleasure, then he would have made a powerful case forhis contention that anyone who encourages her unnatural affections will lead a miserablelife. But we might doubt this claim. Contrast the natural affection of benevolence and theunnatural one of malice or ill-will. They seem mere mirror images of each other. Thebenevolent person is pleased when people flourish, pained when things go badly forthem. The malicious person’s reactions are the reverse. We need not think of themalicious, any more than the benevolent, as in the grip of some craving, from which hecan only obtain occasional and temporary relief.Despite these flaws in his arguments Shaftesbury has made out a strong case for sayingthat, in general, it is better to have the kind of sociable character that is sensitive to therights and welfare of others, and that it is no good thing to be excessively self-absorbed.But is this enough to show that it is on every occasion in our interest to be virtuous?Surely the demands of morality sometimes involve a sacrifice for which there is noadequate compensation. And how can that be compatible with our self-interest?Shaftesbury could acknowledge that morality may require individual acts which are notin our interest and yet defend his theory. He would have to claim that it is in our interestto develop a character in which the self-affections are not too strong and the naturalaffections not too weak. If we develop such a character we may sometimes be motivatedto do an act which, on balance, damages our interests. But it will still be in our interest todevelop such a character if there is no other character we could have developed thatwould serve those interests better.Shaftesbury’s influence on eighteenth-century thought was enormous. Of Britishphilosophical works of the period only Locke’s [i]Essay went through more editions thanthe
Characteristics. Among those who were most influenced was Hutcheson and, throughhim, Hume. This has no doubt occasioned the quite common view9 that Shaftesbury wasthe founder of the sentimentalist school in ethics and the originator of the view that moraldistinctions are known by a moral sense. I am inclined to think that this is mistaken.Shaftesbury’s occasional use of the term ‘moral sense’ is casual and carries noimplication that moral discernment is analogous to sensory awareness of secondaryqualities. Nor would he side with those who held that morality is based on humansentiment or feeling rather than on reason. Moral distinctions are eternal and immutable,and the reflective faculty which discovers them is reason itself. Shaftesbury does indeedhold that, once we are capable of rational reflection on our affections, we shallimmediately and inevitably develop reflective affections, but that may only be because,as a good Platonist, he holds that to recognise the good is to love it.
JOSEPH BUTLERButler’s ethical doctrines are to be found in his
Fifteen Sermons and in the later
Analogyof Religion, particularly in the ‘Dissertation on Virtue’ which forms an Appendix to thelatter. He is as much a practical as a theoretical thinker; his careful analysis is aimed atdispelling any intellectual confusions in his audience which may give them grounds, or atleast excuse, for being less devoted to the cause of virtue than they should be. His centralcontention is that virtue consists in following human nature and vice in deviating from it,and that this reflection is sufficient to show why we should follow the path of virtue.Like Shaftesbury, he conceives of the virtuous person as someone in whom the variousmotivational principles stand in the right relation to each other. For Butler, human natureis hierarchical; there are at least two principles which are by nature superior to the restand whose verdicts must be respected. These are self-love, which considers what is in ourinterest, and conscience, which judges what is right or wrong. Butler’s use of the termconscience is wider than ours—its verdicts embrace not only my own actions but those ofothers. Some commentators have contended, mistakenly in my view,10 that Butler alsothought of benevolence as a superior principle. At the bottom of the pecking order are theparticular appetites, passions and affections, which can be thought of as desires forparticular things—food, shelter, comfort, and so on.Butler’s account of superiority rests on a distinction between the strength and theauthority of a principle of action. If there were no superior principles in our nature thenwe should be acting according to our natures in following the strongest impulse. Asuperior principle, however, has an authority which is independent of its strength, so thatthe question of whether we should act on its edicts is settled by appeal to its authority.That authority is a rational one; the verdict of a superior principle provides better reasonto act than the promptings of an inferior one. To act deliberately in defiance of one’sinterest, or of what is right, is thus to violate one’s own nature, for it is to follow a lowerprinciple in preference to a higher, to prefer the worse reason to the better. Butler doesnot attempt to
argue that moral and prudential requirements provide better reasons foraction than those that stem from particular desires, rather he seeks simply to remind hisreaders of what he takes to be common knowledge. What chiefly seems to distinguishconscience and self-love from the other principles is that they are both reflective; theyboth survey our actual or proposed actions and pronounce upon their worthiness.Though similar in their reflective authority, self-love and conscience differ in variousways. Butler classifies self-love, but not conscience, as an affection. It is hard to knowwhat to make of this, but it seems to imply two things, both of which can be questioned.First, self-love, like any of the affections but unlike conscience, can be present in animmoderate degree, in which case it is liable to frustrate its own end. To this it might beobjected that conscientiousness, as well as prudence, may perhaps be carried to excess.Second, Butler thinks of self-love, like any affection or desire, as having a distinctivefeeling-tone of which we are aware when it is aroused in us. But in writing, as hesometimes does, of
cool self-love Butler seems implicitly to acknowledge that a concernfor our own good may be present and effective without manifesting itself as a feeling.Nor does it seem correct to deny that the promptings of conscience can have a feelingtone;the pangs of conscience can be as searing as those of unrequited love.More importantly, Butler contrasts the judgements of self-love, which require carefulcalculation of all the consequences of the actions open to us, with the deliverances ofconscience, which are immediate, not in the sense that they require no thought, but thatthey are concerned only with the nature of the action itself, including the intention, andnot with its consequences. Conscience ‘pronounces determinately some actions to be inthemselves just, right, good; others to be in themselves evil, wrong, unjust’.11Judgements of conscience, unlike those of self-love, are thus not hostage to fortune; wedo not have to wait to see how things turn out in order to determine whether our moraljudgement was correct.In what relation do self-love and conscience stand to each other in Butler’s hierarchicalaccount of motivational principles? Are they equal or does one carry more authority thanthe other? This is a question to which Butler appears to give a variety of answers, and hisapparent inconsistencies have much exercised commentators. Since he is generallyconcerned with theoretical matters only in so far as they bear on practice it might at firstappear that he could, and perhaps should, have avoided the question altogether. ForButler is as convinced as Shaftesbury that there can never be a genuine conflict betweenduty and self-interest, at least if we take into account a future life.Conscience and self-love, if we understand our true happiness, always lead usthe same way. Duty and interest are perfectly coincident; for the most part inthis world, but entirely and in every instance if we take in the future and thewhole; this being implied in the notion of a good and perfect administration ofthings.12The question does not however, as Butler points out, lack practical application. Thosewho doubt Butler’s claim can face a choice between what they believe to be twoconflicting sources of obligation, and those who accept it may still find, because of thelimitations of our knowledge, that self-love and conscience offer conflicting advice onsome occasion.Butler often writes as if conscience is pre-eminent, but there are places where he seemsto rank the two equally and, in one notorious passage, self-love is given the power ofveto.Let it be allowed, though virtue or moral rectitude does indeed consist inaffection to and pursuit of what is right and good, as such; yet, that when we sitdown in a cool hour, we can neither justify to ourselves this or any other pursuit,till we are convinced that it will be for our happiness, or at least not contrary toit.13This passage is generally considered not to represent Butler’s considered views but to bea concession by him to his sceptical and wordly congregation. Even if Butler does nothold that we are not justified in pursuing some course unless we are convinced that it isnot contrary to our interest, we should not however conclude that he holds that we wouldever be justified in acting in a way that we were convinced was against our self-interest.For he nowhere states that moral obligations are, by their very nature, superior toprudential ones. What he does offer is an argument for holding that, when in doubt, weare obliged to follow the guidance of conscience rather than self-love. That argument isbased, however, not on the superiority of moral to prudential reasons, but on thedifference between the calculative nature of prudential reasoning and the immediacy ofthe verdicts of conscience.For the natural authority of the principle of reflection [i.e. conscience] is anobligation the most near and intimate, the most certain and known: whereas thecontrary obligation can at the utmost appear no more than probable; since noman can be
certain in any circumstances that vice is his interest in the presentworld, much less can he be certain against another: and thus the certainobligation would entirely supersede and destroy the uncertain one.14Thus Butler holds, in conscious opposition to Shaftesbury, that our obligation to virtueremains even if we are completely sceptical about the coincidence of duty and interest.We do not have to appeal to something external to morality as our justification for doingwhat is right.On what grounds does conscience determine that some course of action is the morallyright one? Butler, in denying that benevolence is the whole of virtue, rejects the utilitarianposition (strongly urged, for example, by Hutcheson) that the right action is the onewhich produces the most happiness. Butler advocates instead a pluralist deontology; thatis, a theory in which there are several distinct duties, of which benevolence is merely one,each of which has its own claim on us. We disapprove, for example, of stealing and fraudin and of themselves, quite independently of their generally deleterious effects on thegeneral happiness. Butler thinks that our other duties can be encompassed within threegeneral headings: justice, veracity and, perhaps more con-troversially, prudence.Imprudence is, he holds, a vice because we not only regret our follies but disapprove ofthem as well.Although Butler is clear that we are not, and should not be, utilitarians, he does appearat least to entertain the hypothesis that God might be a utilitarian, concerned only withmaximizing the happiness of his creatures. If that were so, then He would have implanteda deontological conscience in us because ‘He foresaw this constitution of our naturewould produce more happiness, than forming us with a temper of more generalbenevolence’.15 It is doubtful, however, if Butler would endorse this suggestion, for thefollowing reason. He holds that to judge actions as morally good or evil carries with it thethought that they deserve reward or punishment respectively. God, as a morally righteousjudge, must be supposed to reward and punish us according to our deserts. But to say thatsomeone deserves ill is not to say ‘that we conceive it for the good of society, that thedoer of such actions should be made to suffer’.16 Questions of desert look back to thequality of the action, but utilitarianism is essentially forward-looking, concerned onlywith the future effects of reward and punishment. In treating us according to our desertsGod would be motivated not by benevolence but by justice.Many commentators have criticized Butler for failing to give a more detailed accountof the criteria which conscience might apply in determining what we ought to do on anyspecific occasion. In particular, he does not address a problem which faces anyone whoholds that there is more than one duty, namely how we should decide in cases whereduties conflict. His silence stems from his conviction that further guidance is notnecessary.The inquiries which have been made by men of leisure, after some general rule,the conformity to, or disagreement from which, would denominate our actionsgood or evil, are in many respects of great service. Yet let any plain honest man,before he engages in any course of action, ask himself, Is this I am going aboutright, or is it wrong? Is it good or is it evil? I do not in the least doubt, but thatthis question would be answered agreeably to truth and virtue, by almost anyfair man in almost any circumstance.17While I share Butler’s doubts about the utility of the reflections of the ‘men of leisure’, itis no longer possible to share Butler’s confidence in the (almost complete) inerrancy ofthe pronouncements of conscience.While benevolence may not be the whole of virtue it is a large part of it, and acorrespondingly large part of Butler’s defence of virtue is devoted to defendingbenevolence against two kinds of attack from those who think that self-love is, or oughtto be, our only motive. He seeks to show, first, that benevolence is a genuine motive inhuman beings and, second, that there is no special antipathy between self-love andbenevolence.Benevolence is real only if people are sometimes directly motivated by a concern forthe welfare of others. Two theories deny that this is the case: psychological egoism,which holds that all our actions are, at bottom, motivated by a concern for our own good,and psychological hedonism, which holds that what primarily motivates us is always theprospect of our own pleasure.Butler’s central argument against the psychological egoism of thinkers such as Hobbesand Mandeville draws on his analysis of the differences between self-love and the other,particular, affections. The particular affections are directed towards some specific objector state of affairs which we find attractive, for example, drinking a glass of beer, readinga novel or playing a round of golf. The object of self-love is not, however, any particulardesirable state of affairs, but one’s own happiness as such. Happiness is defined by Butleras consisting ‘only in the enjoyment of those objects, which are by nature suited to ourseveral particular appetites, passions, and affections’.18 Self-love, the desire for our ownhappiness, is thus a reflective affection; it is a desire that our other desires attain theirobjects. But if that is so, then it cannot be the case that we are motivated solely by selflove.Self-love achieves its object through the satisfaction of our other affections; ‘takeaway these affections and you leave self-love absolutely nothing at all to employ itselfabout’.19 While we might question Butler’s claim that happiness is to be identified withthe satisfaction of our various affections, it cannot be doubted that getting what we wantis an important element in happiness, and that is all Butler needs for this argument to bedecisive.The psychological hedonist claims that Butler has misdescribed the object of theparticular affections; what motivates us to drink beer, play a round of golf, or relieve thedistressed is always the pleasure we shall receive from these activities. Did they notplease us we should not engage in them. So our primary object in helping others is nottheir welfare, but our pleasure. Making them happy is but a means to making ourselveshappy. Butler argues in reply that the hedonist’s account of the object of our affections isincoherent. We only derive pleasure from engaging in an activity or achieving a goal,Butler claims, if we want to engage in that activity or achieve that goal. I will only getpleasure from playing cricket if I want to play it; if I only wanted the pleasure and carednothing for cricket my efforts to achieve pleasure that way would be self-stultifying.When I help others I may well get pleasure from doing so, but that does not show that myaim was to experience the pleasures of altruism. On the contrary, I must havewanted tohelp them in order to be pleased; my primary object must have been their good. Ofcourse, given that I do experience pleasure from acting altruistically, self-love mayencourage me to continue in that path in order to get more pleasure. But the pleasure willcease unless I continue to be motivated by a concern for the others’ good.This is a famous rebuttal but not, I think, a decisive one. It crucially depends on theclaim that we cannot find pleasure in any activity unless we have a prior desire to engagein it. That claim is, however, false. Some pleasures come unbidden and unsought, aswhen we suddenly smell a delightful scent, or discover a fascinating programme whileidly twiddling the radio tuner. The psychological hedonist can make use of this fact toconstruct a theory in which all intentional action is motivated by a desire for theassociated pleasure. We are born, this theory runs, with some instincts which lead us toexplore our environment in the search for food, warmth and so on, and a capacity to takepleasure in certain activities, while finding others distasteful. Our initial behaviour is thusinstinctual but not intentional. We soon discover, however, that some activities arepleasant or bring pleasure in their wake. We then repeat the activity in order toexperience the pleasure again. It is always the prospect of further pleasure whichmotivates the intentional repetition of what was not, initially, an intentional action. Thecorrect response to this defence of hedonism is, I believe, to deny the distinction in termsof which the debate takes place; that is, to deny that we can here distinguish between ourwanting to do some act and our wanting the pleasure that comes from doing it. But thatwould take us beyond Butler’s argument.Are benevolence and self-love incompatible? Butler has shown that the exercise ofself-love requires us to be motivated by particular affections, and some of theseaffections, such as ambition and desire for esteem, have some good of our own as theirprimary end. Between such affections and self-love there would seem to be no essentialconflict. Benevolence, however, appears directly opposed to self-love. The former aimsat the good of others, the latter at my own good; so the more I am motivated by the onethe less, it seems, I can be motivated by the other.Butler’s exposition of the mistake behind this line of thought is masterly. It falselypresupposes that if I am acting in your interests I cannot also be promoting my own.Butler’s analysis has shown that, with respect to any desire of mine, my happinessconsists in that desire being gratified. This is as true of a desire for the happiness ofothers as it is of any other desire. Insofar as I want you to be happy then my happinessdepends on your being happy; my happiness is bound up with yours. We must not thinkof happiness by analogy with property, so that to give happiness to others is necessarilyto diminish my own. The truth is that benevolence, while distinct from self-love, is nomore opposed to it than to any other particular passion. The gratification of any passionwhatever will be seconded by self-love when it promotes my interest and vetoed by itwhen it conflicts with it.Butler proceeds, in a Shaftesburian vein, to show both that to have a character in whichbenevolence is a strong motive is conducive to happiness, and that an excessive concernfor one’s own happiness is self-defeating. His discussion errs at only one point, and thatis easily corrected. Butler equates selfishness with immoderate self-love, i.e. with anexcessive calculating concern for one’s own interest or advantage. But there is anothertype of person who is also properly regarded as selfish. As we have seen, some of ourparticular affections, such as ambition or covetousness, have as their end some good toourselves; others, such as compassion or love of one’s children, aim at the good ofanother. Someone in whom the former desires are too strong and the latter too weak isrightly seen as selfish, even if the attempt to satisfy his selfish desires leads him to ignorehis real interest. Imprudence and selfishness are not incompatible.Where does Butler fit into the eighteenth-century debate between rationalism andsentimentalism? Given his interest in moral instruction, rather than in metaphysicaltheory, Butler constructed a moral psychology which was neutral between rationalismand sentimentalism. Throughout his writings, however, there are clear indications that hesides with the rationalists in general and, almost certainly, with the position of SamuelClarke in particular (with whom he corresponded on moral theory while he was a veryyoung man).
RICHARD PRICERichard Price develops a rationalist theory which develops and improves on earliertheories, such as Clarke’s. While indebted in many ways to both Shaftesbury and Butler,Price is chiefly distinguished from them by his interest in moral epistemology. Thesentimentalists offer us an account of moral awareness which is modelled on what hadbeen, since Locke, the orthodox account of our awareness of secondary qualities, such ascolours, tastes, sounds and smells. The story runs like this. Through our sense-organs weare able to receive ideas of objects and events in our immediate environment. Some ofthese ideas, those of the primary qualities, such as shape, size and solidity, are bothcaused by and resemble those qualities in the objects of which they are ideas. There isnothing, however, in the objects themselves that resembles our ideas of colour, sound andso on. The story of what is going on in the physical world when someone sees red orsmells coffeewould not mention colours or smells at all. Rather, the object is soconstituted that, under certain circumstances, it emits either waves or particles whichstimulate the sense-organs in certain ways causing us to have the characteristic secondaryquality experience. It follows that creatures whose sense-organs were unlike ours wouldhave a quite different range of secondary quality experience.When it comes, however, to the question of what colours, smells etc. actually are, wefind two accounts current. First, there is the dispositional theory: colours etc. areproperties of the object, but now understand as nothing more than a disposition of theobject to cause characteristic ideas in normal human observers in standard perceptualconditions. Second, there is the subjective theory: colours, sounds etc. are not in theobjects themselves but are identified with the ideas in the perceiving subject caused bythose objects. Both accounts exist, in tension, in Locke, though it is now generally agreedthat the former represents Locke’s ‘official’ theory. But the latter account gainedconsiderable currency through the work of Berkeley and Hume, who took it to be the oneLocke was offering.20 It is the account which Price accepts, and which he takes thesentimentalists to have used as their model for moral qualities. Thus the sentimentalists,represented for Price by Hutcheson, aided and abetted by Hume, maintain that ‘
oral
right and wrong, signify nothing
in the objects themselves to which they are applied, anymore than agreeable and harsh; sweet and bitter; pleasant and painful; but only
certaineffects in us’.21 We have within us a moral sense which finds certain actions (andcharacters) pleasing and others displeasing. It approves of the former and disapproves ofthe latter, and hence we call the former right (or good) and the latter wrong (or bad). It isclearly possible that there should be creatures whose moral sense is differentlyconstituted from our own. Such beings would have different patterns of approval ordisapproval from ours, but it would be idle to claim that one set of reactions might becloser to the truth or fit the facts better than another. The moral sense theory denies thatthere are distinctively moral facts and, if it allows for moral truth at all, can do so onlyrelative to a particular type of moral sense.In opposition to this view, Price offers us a realist conception of moral properties. Anaction is either right or wrong quite independently of our responses or choices, or those ofany other being, including God. This position commits Price to rejecting not only themoral sense theory but also, like Shaftesbury and Butler before him, theologicalvoluntarism. He sees that the prevailing Lockean epistemology forces one towards amoral sense theory and so sets about demolishing it, drawing extensively on Plato and theCambridge Platonists, especially Cudworth.Price agrees with the prevailing orthodoxy that all our ideas are either simple orcomplex, and that the latter are built out of the former. On the empiricist account, simpleideas, from which all our knowledge is built, are derived either from sense experience orfrom reflection on what passes in our own mind. Since our ideas of right and wrong arenot sensory concepts, in the way in which squareness or redness might be thought to be,they must, on the empiricist story, be ideas of reflection. From what aspect of our innerlife might they be derived? The obvious answer is from the feelings of pleasure ordispleasure, approval and disapproval we experience when we contemplate action orcharacter. Empiricism thus spawns a theory which offers an account of morality, not interms of the nature of the object but in terms of our response to it.Price defends several anti-empiricist theses which he does not always clearlydistinguish. His main contention is that there is a third source of simple ideas, in additionto sense and reflection, namely the understanding, and that right and wrong are simpleideas derived from this third source. Sense and understanding have, on Price’s view, quitedifferent roles. Sense deals only with particulars—we are necessarily only aware, on anyoccasion, of one or more particular things and their properties—whereas understandingcan grasp universals or abstract ideas and the relations between them. Sense is passive,while understanding is an active, discerning faculty, which, reflects, compares, judgesand seeks to comprehend the nature of things. An idea which has its source in theunderstanding would be an a priori rather than an empirical concept; that is, a conceptwhich could not be constructed by the standard Lockean method of abstraction from thecontents of sense-experience.Price’s defence of the claim that right and wrong are simple a priori concepts is tosearch, as J.L.Mackie once put it, for companions in guilt. He produces many examplesof ideas whose source, he claims, can only be the understanding, and these fall intodifferent groups. They include: ideas applicable to objects of more than one sense, suchas equality, resemblance and difference; ideas of what is unobservable, such as substance;ideas that involve modal notions, such as impenetrability and causation. (Modal notionsinclude necessity and possibility. If something is impenetrable then it
cannot bepenetrated; if one thing causes another then, given the first, the second
must follow.Experience can only tell us what does happen, not what cannot or must happen.)We might concede, for the sake of argument, that all the items on this rather motley listare a priori concepts, but they are not all, on even the most generous interpretation,simple ideas, for many of them seem capable of further analysis. Price does not seem tobe aware of this objection, but his argument may easily be developed to show that theunderstanding is the source of
simple ideas. What Price is trying to show is that thecomplex concepts on his list cannot be built up in the standard empiricist manner, fromsimple ideas of sense or reflection. But then, given the traditional account of simple andcomplex within which Price is operating, that can only be because, of the simple ideasout of which they are built, at least one must itself be a priori. Thus, in the cases ofconcepts like impenetrability and causation, the argument would seem to be this. To holdthat something is, say, impenetrable, is to hold that it is impossible for another body tooccupy the space which it is occupying. The concept of impossibility is a plausiblecandidate, however, for being a simple a priori concept. Although there are other ways ofsaying that something is impossible—such as saying that it cannot happen—these do notprovide an analysis of the concept into simpler elements. To understand that somethingcannot happen presupposes that one understands what it is for something to beimpossible, and vice versa. So Price’s argument can be construed as supporting the claimthat there are simple a priori concepts.If there are simple a priori concepts, then rightness and wrongness may certainly beamong them. Since the consequence of believing they are not is the adoption of thecounter-intuitive moral sense theory, we are justified in believing they do have this status.It has to be said, however, that Price makes the case for realism look stronger than he isentitled to by confronting it with a weak and implausible version of the moral sensetheory. Because Price holds the subjective theory of secondary qualities he takes it that itis not only false but absurd to ascribe colours, sounds and so on to bodies.A
coloured body, if we speak accurately, is the same absurdity with a
squaresound. We need no experience to prove that heat, cold, colours, tastes, etc. arenot real qualities of bodies; because the ideas of matter and of these qualities areincompatible. But is there indeed any such incompatability between
actions and
right? Or any such absurdity in affirming the one of the other? Are the ideas ofthem as different as the idea of a sensation and its cause? 22But a sensible moral sense theorist would opt for the dispositional account of secondaryqualities as his model and then argue, by analogy, that it is perfectly proper to speak ofactions as right or wrong, just as it is to speak of objects as coloured. He would hope togive an account which did not require Price’s kind of realism but which left our normalway of speaking and thinking unaltered.Another of Price’s favourite arguments against the moral sense theorist, which wemight dub the indifference argument, is also too quick. It takes a theological turn in Price,but its implications are more general. If no actions are in themselves right and wrong thenthey are, in themselves, morally indifferent. God, who is not deceived, would recognizethis and hence would be unable to approve or disapprove of any action, for He would seethat nothing in reality could ground His approval or disapproval. But that would be tosuppose that His concern for our happiness had no rational foundation and was the resultof ‘mere unintelligent inclination’23 which would greatly detract from His moralperfection. The more general consequence of this line of thought is that, if the moral sensetheory were true, it would be irrational to continue to make moral judgements once wehad discovered this truth. This conclusion serves, once again, to make the rival theorylook unpalatable. But the crucial premise, that the moral sense theory deprives us of anygood reasons for approving of one course of action rather than another, is not supported.The origin of our ideas of right and wrong is not the only issue between Price and theempiricists. For Price claims that we can have a priori knowledge of basic moralprinciples. The rightness or wrongness of an act springs from its nature. Thus an act maybe wrong in virtue of its being, for example, cruel, or dishonest, or a breach of promise.The connection between the moral character of an act and those features on which itsmoral character depends is, Price maintains, a necessary one. If cruel actions are wrongthen they are wrong in all possible circumstances. Empiricism claims, however, that allour knowledge of the world comes from experience and experience can, apparently,reveal only contingent connections between features. It can show only that they areconnected, not that they must be. Price asserts, in contradiction to this, that we know ofthese connections through an intuitive act of reason; not, that is, through a process ofreasoning, but by rational reflection on the propositions in question.Empiricists classically allow that there is one kind of connection which is necessaryand can be known a priori, and that is a connection between concepts—a doctrine whichfinds expression in Hume’s account of relations of ideas. We can know a priori, to use ahackneyed example, the necessary truth that all bachelors are unmarried because to be abachelor just is to be an unmarried man. If it could similarly be shown that the conceptsof rightness and wrongness can be analysed into other, less philosophically puzzling,concepts then two contentious features of Price’s account would be removed at a stroke.Suppose, to give a concrete example, it was claimed that to call an action right wassimply to claim that it was productive of happiness. First, we would have to show that theword ‘wrong’ signified, not a mysterious a priori concept graspable only byunderstanding, but the familiar empirical notion of making people happy. Second, wecould then accommodate, within an empiricist epistemology, the claim that it is anecessary truth, known a priori, that an action which produces happiness is right.It is here that Price’s claims that right and wrong are simple ideas comes to the fore.Rightness and wrongness are indefinable, and we can prove this by showing that anysuch analysis will produce untenable consequences. For if the proposed analysis werecorrect then it would be ‘palpably absurd’ to ask whether producing happiness is right,for that would be just to ask whether producing happiness produces happiness. But thequestion is not palpably absurd, and so the definition fails. This tactic was revived byG.E.Moore 150 years later and is now known as the Open Question Argument. Anyonefamiliar with the history of twentieth-century moral philosophy will be aware of theextent to which the epistemological issues which Price raises here have dominated thesubject.It is a corollary of his position, Price tells us, that morality is eternal and immutable. Iflying and ingratitude are wrong they are so in virtue of the kinds of action they are and noone, not even God, can alter this truth. But that seems to raise an obvious difficulty. Itseems reasonable to believe that an action that is in itself morally indifferent may becomeobligatory if commanded by God, or if I have promised to do it. Yet how can this be, ifits moral nature is unalterable by the will of any agent? How could, for example, anaction be indifferent before I promised to do it and obligatory after? Price’s answer is thatwe must not suppose that, in promising to do the act, we have left the non-moral nature ofthe original act unchanged but changed its moral character; that is impossible. What wehave done is to change the nature of the act; it is now, in addition to its earlier properties,an instance of promise-keeping and, as such, obligatory.In the broad outlines of the remainder of his moral theory Price repeats and elaboratespoints already made by Butler. So I shall merely draw attention to one or two discussionswhere Price goes beyond anything we find in Butler.We have seen that moral judgement is the work of reason. Our judgements of right andwrong are often accompanied, however, by feelings of delight or detestation respectively.These feelings are distinct from the judgement, but they are not merely arbitrarilyconnected with it in virtue of our particular human sensibilities. We feel revulsion
because we judge the action to be wrong, and any rational agent would feel the same.Price, like Shaftesbury, is a Platonist, and holds that to love virtue it is only necessary toknow it. Similarly, we should not suppose that all our desires are the product ofinstinctive drives which we just happen to have, but which other rational beings mightlack. Some desires, such as hunger and thirst, are instinctive, and are properly calledappetites. But rational creatures are so constituted that they will necessarily desirehappiness and truth, once they understand the nature of these goods. Desires which are inthis way the product of reason are best called affections. In imperfectly rational humansthis rational desire for the happiness of ourselves and of others is strengthened by aninstinctive concern for these ends; when so strengthened the resulting desire is properlycalled a passion.Like Butler, Price rejects utilitarianism. We have a number of distinct duties, which helists under six heads: (1) Duty to God; (2) Duty to self, or prudence; (3) Beneficence; (4)Gratitude; (5) Veracity; (6) Justice. Unlike Butler, Price does think that we need anaccount of what happens when duties conflict. In some cases, one duty is clearlyweightier than another, and no perplexity arises. But there are many cases where it is notclear, and conscientious people may differ as to which duty should give way in thesecases. There is always a determinate answer in such cases to the question What ought I todo? but we may lack penetration and wisdom to discern it. Doubt about what we shoulddo in a particular case should not, however, infect our confidence in the existence ofmoral truth, for the fundamental principles which we bring to bear on individual cases areself-evident.Does perfect virtue consist in performing all our duties or are there, as many havesupposed, meritorious acts of heroism and saintliness which, while not morally required,are singled out for particular praise? Price maintains that there are no supererogatory acts,acts which go beyond the call of duty. Many of our obligations, such as that of beingbenevolent, are framed only in general terms; how we fulfil that duty is up to us. Since itis unclear how much is required of us by way of benevolence, truly virtuous persons willerr on the side of generosity, but the praise we bestow on them will not be because theywent beyond duty but because they showed such a great regard for their duty.Finally, Price was apparently the first to draw the distinction, much discussed in thefirst half of the twentieth century, between what he called abstract and practical virtue, orwhat was later called objective and subjective duty. An agent’s objective duty isdetermined by the actual facts of the case; his subjective duty by what he believes to bethe facts of the case. It is for succeeding or failing to do one’s subjective duty that oneshould be praised or blamed, for an imperfect agent cannot be required to avoid all errorsof fact.24
NOTES1 Rand [8.7], 359.2 Although Shaftesbury was Locke’s pupil, he rejected his ethics and his empiricism. See hisscathing attack in a letter to Michael Ainsworth, 3 June 1709, in Rand [8.7], 403–5.3 Inquiry, Book I, Part 2, sect, ii, p. 250 in [8.5]. All subsequent quotations from the Inquirywill appear in this form: I. 2. ii [8.5], 250.4 Inquiry, I. 2. iii [8.5], 252.5 Inquiry, II. 1. i [8.5], 280.6 Inquiry, II. 1. iii [8.5], 288.7 Inquiry, II. 2. i [8.5], 294.8 Inquiry, II. 2. i [8.5], 295.9 One might almost say, orthodoxy. See for example Selby-Bigge [8.10], xxxii; Hudson [8.12],1.10 I give my reasons for thinking this contention mistaken in [8.27].11 References to Butler will be by Sermon number and paragraph number in Bernard [8.8](reproduced in many other editions). The Sermons will be denoted by an S, the Preface,added in the second edition, by a P, and the Dissertation on Virtue by D. Then will come thepage number in Bernard, [8.8]. Thus the present reference is S 2.8 [8.8], 45.12 S 3.9 [8.8], I: 57.
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Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times,London, 3 vols, 2nd edn, 1714.8.2 Butler, Joseph
Fifteen Sermons preached at the Rolls Chapel, London, 4th edn, 1749.8.3——
The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Courseof Nature with
Two Dissertations, On the Nature of Virtue and of Personal Identity,London, 1736.8.4 Price, Richard
A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals, London, 3rd edn,1787.
Modern Editions Cited in Notes8.5 Shaftesbury, Anthony, Lord
Characteristics, ed. J.Robertson, London, GrantRichards, 1900. Repr. Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, 1964, with a new introduction byS.Grean.8.6——
An Inquiry Concerning Virtue, or Merit, ed. D.Walford, Manchester, ManchesterUniversity Press, 1977.8.7
The Life, Unpublished Letters, and Philosophical Regimen of Anthony, Earl ofShaftesbury, ed. B.Rand, New York, Macmillan, 1900.8.8
The Works of Bishop Butler, ed. J.H.Bernard, London, Macmillan, 2 vols, 1900.8.9 Price, Richard
A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals, ed. D.D. Raphael,Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1974.
Predecessors and Successors8.10
British Moralists, ed. L.A.Selby-Bigge, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2 vols, 1897.Repr. Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, 1964.8.11
British Moralists 1650–1800, ed. D.D.Raphael, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2 vols,13 S 11.20 [8.8], I: 151.14 P 26 [8.8], I: 12.15 D 8 [8.8], II: 293.16 D 3 [8.8], II: 288–9.17 S 3.4 [8.8], I: 53.18 S 11.9 [8.8], I: 141.19 P 37 [8.8], I: 17.20 See Berkeley, Principles, sect, x ([8.31], 117), and Hume in Raphael [8.11], 2:18–19.21 Price [8.9], 15. (All future quotations from Price will just give a page number.).22 [8.9], 46.23 [8.9], 49.24 I am greatly indebted to Jonathan Dancy and Eve Garrard for comments on an earlier draft ofthis piece.1969.
Books, and Parts of Books, on These Authors(i) On all three authors8.12 Hudson, W.
Ethical Intuitionism, London, Macmillan, 1967.8.13 Sidgwick, H.
Outlines of the History of Ethics, London, Macmillan, 1949.8.14 Stephen, L.
History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, New York andLondon, G.P.Putnam’s Sons, 2 vols, 1902.(ii) Shaftesbury8.15 Brett, R.L.
The Third Earl of Shaftesbury. A Study in Eighteenth Century LiteraryTheory, London, Hutchinson’s University Library, 1951.8.16 Grean, S.
Shaftesbury’s Philosophy of Religion and Ethics, Ohio, Ohio UniversityPress, 1967.(iii) Butler8.17 Broad, C.D.
Five Types of Ethical Theory, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul,1930.8.18 Cunliffe, C.
Joseph Butler’s Moral and Religious Thought, Oxford, OxfordUniversity Press, 1992.8.19 Duncan-Jones, A.
Butler’s Moral Philosophy, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1952.8.20 Penelhum, T.
Butler, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985.(iv) Price8.21 Cua, A.S.
Reason and Virtue: A Study in the Ethics of Richard Price, Athens Ohio,Ohio University Press, 1966.8.22 Hudson, W.D.
Reason and Right: A Critical Examination of Richard Price’s MoralPhilosophy, London, Macmillan, 1970.8.23 Raphael, D.D.
The Moral Sense, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1947, ch. 4.8.24 Thomas, D.O.
The Honest Mind, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1977.
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Social Philosophy andPolicy 7 (1989): 133–50. Issue of Journal reprinted as book: E.Paul
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Foundations of Moral and Political Philosophy, Oxford, Blackwell, 1989.(ii) Butler8.26 Kleinig, J. ‘Butler in a Cool Hour’,
Journal of the History of Philosophy 7 (1969):399–411.8.27 McNaughton, D. ‘Butler on Benevolence’, in Cunliffe [9.18], 269–91.8.28 Raphael, D.D. ‘Bishop Butler’s View of Conscience’,
Philosophy 24 (1949): 219–38.8.29 Sturgeon, N. ‘Nature and Conscience in Butler’s Ethics’,
Philosophical Review 85(1976): 316–56.8.30 Szabados, B. ‘Butler on Corrupt Conscience’,
Journal of the History of Philosophy14 (1976): 462–9.8.31 White, A. ‘Conscience and Self-Love in Butler’s Sermons’,
Philosophy 27 (1952):329–44.(iii) Price8.32 Aiken, H.D. ‘The Ultimacy of Rightness in Richard Price’s Ethics: A Reply to Mr.Peach’,
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 14 (1954): 386–92.8.33 Broad, C.D. ‘Some Reflections on Moral Sense Theories in Ethics’,
Proceedings ofthe Aristotelian Society 45 (1944–5).8.34 Peach, B. ‘The Indefinability and Simplicity of Rightness in Richard Price’s Reviewof Morals’,
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A New Theory of Vision and Other Writings, ed. A.D.Lindsay London,Dent, 1963.