On the traditional view, Butler maintains that forgiveness involves a kind of “conversion experience” in which we must forswear or let go of our resentment against wrongdoers. Against this reading, I argue that Butler never demands that we forswear resentment but only that we be resentful in the right kind of way. That is, he insists that we should be virtuously resentful, avoiding both too much resentment exhibited by the vices of malice and revenge and too little resentment (...) where we merely condone the wrongdoer and leave ourselves open to future injury. I argue that this Butlerian approach offers us a more attractive account of forgiveness as a “virtue” than many recent discussions. In the final section, I address Butler’s challenging thesis that forgiveness is an unconditional moral duty. I argue against those who claim that forgiveness is supererogatory (Kolnai/Calhoun) or else merely morally conditional and even morally blameworthy in some cases (Murphy/Hampton/Novitz/Richards). By contrast, I defend a context-sensitive account of forgiveness which recognizes that it takes place on many different levels. I conclude by taking up the difficult issue of whether anybody can be ultimately “unforgivable”, offering some Butlerian and Strawsonian reflections that might help mitigate our judgments about such matters. (shrink)

In this article I propose to examine Bishop Butler's view of the nature of moral judgment, the epistemological problem which so greatly exercised some of the British moralists of his age. I have discussed the views of four of them in The Moral Sense. The problem seems to have been peculiarly lacking in interest for Butler. This may seem at first sight an odd statement: the moral faculty, or conscience, it would be said, is the chief subject (...) of Butler's moral writings. This is true enough. But although Butler's description of the working of conscience is unsurpassed, he gives no clear definition of the faculty. That is, he does not clearly consider the question whether the moral faculty can be said to be identical with some faculty usually called by another name, or whether it is sui generis. (shrink)

To the question ‘Why do you try to realize this?’ your answer may be ‘Because I desire that and I think that the realization of this would involve the realization of that.’ Or your answer may be ‘Because I desire this.’ If ‘Why?’ is interpreted as ‘Desiring what?’ the question ‘Why do you desire this?’ is improper. The word ‘desire’ is, however, frequently used in such a way as to countenance the impropriety. It is so used not only when what (...) is pursued only as a means is said to be desired, but also when a desire for what possesses one character is said to be a desire for what possesses a a concomitant character. Strictly, perhaps, an object of desire is describable in terms only of the character immediately relevant to the desire. The expression ‘to desire what is X qua X’ is perhaps redundant; and the expression ‘to desire what is X qua Y’ is perhaps self-contradictory. But those who think, so must admit that such expressions are current among even careful speakers. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show that there are two distinct ethical theories in the writings of Bishop Butler. This is something that his critics do not seem to have realized. One or two of them have seen that the Dissertation on Virtue contains ideas which do not harmonize very well with those of the Rolls Sermons , but no one has made a detailed study of the differences. It has been usual to dismiss them with (...) the remark that Butler is an inconsistent writer and we should not worry too much over details. (shrink)

Most critics of Butler's ethics have ignored the text of the Analogy, and have confined their attention to the short Dissertation on Virtue which is printed as an appendix to that work. This is a mistake. The Dissertation can only be really understood when it is read in its proper context. Butler tells us that the Dissertation was originally intended to form part of the third chapter of the first part of the Analogy. It is indeed an integral (...) part of that chapter, as that chapter is an integral part of the book. The whole work must be considered if we would know Butler's mind at this time.In seeking to follow Butler's thoughts on ethics as set out in the Analogy we are met with fewer inconsistencies than are to be found in the Sermons, but a good deal more in the way of obscurity and difficult phrasing. Butler reasons very closely, and gives few concessions to the hasty reader. Also, his cautious mind leads him to qualify his statements lest he commit himself to more than he is prepared to say, with the result that his sentences often contain many dependent clauses which cloud his meaning. But, although there may be passages of a contrary tendency, the view which will be developed here seems to represent the general drift of the Analogy. (shrink)

In his writings on moral philosophy, Bishop Joseph Butler adopts an identifiably “constitutivist” strategy because he seeks to ground normativity in features of agency. Butler's constitutivist strategy deserves our attention both because he is an influential precursor to much modern moral philosophy and because it sheds light on current debates about constitutivism. For example, Butler's approach can easily satisfy the “error constraint” that is often thought to derail modern constitutivist approaches. It does this by defining actions (...) relative to the kind of being who performs them, instead of relative to the circumstances of their performance. This gives Butler a conceptually stable account of something that is both fully an action yet morally bad, for which an agent might be held morally responsible. Should modern constitutivists wish to model their views on Butler's in order to satisfy the error constraint, they need not adopt all his theological and other commitments, but they will have to avoid the currently popular constitutivist strategy of deriving normative force from the inescapability of a given principle. (shrink)

This book compares Butler's and Wang's moral vision and conception of conscience. It seeks to advance our ongoing inquiry into the complex encounter between Christianity and Confucianism. The study shows that in both thinkers' treatises are profound consonances that could serve as framework for a constructive interaction between these two civilizations.

As a species of egoism, Hedonism holds that our only ultimate pleasure is the self-directed desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Bishop Butler is widely regarded as having refuted hedonism. I argue that Butler's argument failed to undermine Hedonism, because his premises concern what people want, while Hedonism concerns why people have the wants they do. Even if the desires for external things were a prerequisite for obtaining pleasure, nothing would follow about why people desire (...) external things. (shrink)

Joseph Butler was an Anglican priest and later a bishop who wrote about ethics, religion, and other philosophical themes. He is not well known today. During his lifetime and into the early part of the twentieth century he was better known especially for his major work the Analogy of Religion (1736). Today he is known mostly for his sermons which are interpreted as essays on ethics and for his essay on identity. Butler had a profound effect on (...) J. H. Newman, Matthew Arnold, and W. E. Gladstone and some effect on many other popular, academic, and professional readers. This book is as much about Butler’s sources and his reception as it is about the way he arranged and presented the evidence in the first half of the 18th century. He was a good man and is recognized by the Anglican church as a divine. We have no interest in taking a nostalgic look at a quaint figure in English church history. To those who claim Butler is unknown, that he was “blown out of the water” by John Wesley or Karl Barth, or Cornelius van Til, we can only say Butler is not as well known in the 20th and 21st centuries as in the 19th, but he is certainly not unknown to those who have taken any interest in philosophy, religion, or ethics. Today there has been a revival of interest in Bishop Butler. Our concern is to build and maintain a bridge that will help to keep this momentum. He offers an ethic that is universal and clearly Christian, yet it is based on the nature of man. Kant had a similar project, but in our opinion, Butler makes more compelling arguments. What is of interest to the Christian apologist is Butler’s work in this area. The purpose of this book is to present Butler’s ideas. We believe that his ethics have a universality that is applicable to people of all religious faiths and those that have none. It is common sense way of looking at ethics for everyday interaction. This book is a narrative argument presenting in detail how Butler’s creative arrangement of the evidence served as a bridge between the ancients as known in the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew originals, and the moderns, mostly Anglophone, who constituted Butler’s work environment and his reception in the latter day down to the present. We can hardly expect everyone to agree with Butler on all points, we certainly do not. The point at issue is rather whether he merits a seat at the present-day round table of deliberation on matters pertaining to philosophy, religion, and ethics. (shrink)

While Charles Griswold's interpretation of Bishop Butler's theory of forgiveness is an improvement over the standard reading, it leaves Butler unable to distinguish between forgiveness and justice. The emotions and actions that are offered as definitive of forgiveness instead merely show that the agent is not unjust. However, if we refocus our interpretation of Butler, we can see how he might disentangle forgiveness and justice.

This paper discusses psychological hedonism with a special reference to the writings of Bishop Butler, and Elliot Sober and David Sloan Wilson. Contrary to philosophical orthodoxy, Sober and Wilson have claimed that Butler failed to refute psychological hedonism. In this paper it is argued: (1) that there is a difference between reductive and ultimate psychological hedonism; (2) that Butler failed to refute ultimate psychological hedonism, but that he succeeded in refuting reductive psychological hedonism; and, finally and (...) more importantly, (3) that Butler’s criticism of reductive hedonism can be used as a stepping-stone in another argument showing the implausibility of ultimate psychological hedonism as well. (shrink)

This essay gives a new interpretation of some of the central ethical doctrines of Bishop Butler's Sermons -- in particular, of his claim that a review of the empirical facts of human nature shows that we have "an obligation to the practice of virtue", and of the precise claims that he makes about the relations between morality and self-interest.

This essay gives a new interpretation of some of the central ethical doctrines of Bishop Butler's Sermons -- in particular, of his claim that a review of the empirical facts of human nature shows that we have "an obligation to the practice of virtue", and of the precise claims that he makes about the relations between morality and self-interest.

In Joseph Butler, we have an account of human beings as moral beings that is, as this essay demonstrates, being supported by the recently emerging findings of the neurosciences. This applies particularly to Butler's portrayal of our empathic emotions. Butler discovered their moral significance for motivating and guiding moral decisions and actions before the neurosciences did. Butler has, in essence, added a sixth sense to our five senses: this is the moral sense by means of which (...) we perceive what we ought or ought not do. The moral sense yields relatively reliable moral perceptions when we love our neighbors as ourselves, and when our love for ourselves is genuine. Accurate moral perceptions will be thwarted by self-deceit—that is, by a self-partiality devoid of neighbor love, a condition that thwarts genuine self-love. This essay explores the parallels between Butler's understanding of self-deceit and Robert J. Lifton's understanding of "doubling.". (shrink)

For over a century now, Hume’s work on religion has been better known than Butler’s. To understand the full significance of Butler and Hume in relation to each other, it is necessary to be clear about what the historical record shows. Once we have established what the record shows, we are faced with the question of what we are to make of the record. Butler, obviously, was speaking as a widely admired priest of the Church of England. (...) Hume was speaking primarily for himself as an aspiring man of letters. If Butler and Hume are read as adversaries, then history has already delivered its verdict. Hume’s opinion became better known, even though Butler enjoyed a long run of dominance in the nineteenth century. Finally, we must consider what we are to say to a public who remain as confused and distracted as ever on the great questions of God, freedom, and immortality. Hume and Butler advised that the public be presented with the evidence and then draw their own conclusions. There are many gaps in the record, but it is now possible to understand Butler and Hume as active in a dialectical process continued by Paley, Darwin, and their successors. (shrink)

The debate over whether human motivations are fundamentally selfinterested or benevolent consumed Shaftesbury, Mandeville, and Hutcheson, but Hume – though explicitly indebted to all three – almost entirely ignores this issue. I argue that his relative silence reveals an overlooked intellectual debt to Bishop Butler that informs two distinguishing features of Hume’s view: first, it allows him to appropriate compelling empirical observations that Mandeville makes about virtue and moral approval; second, it provides a way of articulating a fundamental (...) criticism of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson on the issue of virtuous motivation. From this position, Hume is able to reframe the question of virtue according to the approbation of the spectator, rather than the internal aims of the agent. (shrink)

In recent years there has been widespread agreement among Bishop Butler's commentators and critics concerning the nature of his “official” position as a moral philosopher. His moral epistemology is a form of moral sensism, its cognitive aspect best described, after Sidgwick, as perceptual intuitionism. His normative theory is strongly deontologistic in character, and as a moral psychologist he is still celebrated as a devastating critic of psychological egoism and hedonism. Understandably enough, there has been a tendency to discount (...) those remarkable passages in Sermons XI and XII in which Butler seems to be defending an almost diametrically opposed position, compounded of a rationalistic epistemology, a hedonistic-utilitarian normative theory, and a form of psychological egoism. Thus G. D. Broad finds flatly inconsistent those passages in which Butler seems to make self-love coordinate with conscience in its moral authority. When Butler asserts that on calm reflection one is unable to justify any course of action contrary to one's own happiness, Broad maintains that in context this statement must be understood not as a presentation of Butler's own view, but as “a hypothetical concession to an imaginary opponent.” Butler, Broad thinks, is merely once again trying to convince people that reasonable self-love and the dictates of conscience do not conflict. Similarly, A. Duncan-Jones argues that the apparent inconsistency in the passage in question is removed once we understand that Butler is only refuting the egoists' contention that self-love and virtuous benevolence are necessarily opposed. (shrink)

The essays in this book mark the tercentenary of the birth of Bishop Joseph Butler, the leading Anglican theologian of the eighteenth century and also an important moral philosopher. They cover the full range of Butler's theological and philosophical writings--from his Christian apologetic against the deists to his discussion of the role of their historical context and suggestion of their relevance to contemporary religious and philosophical issues. At a time of renewed interest in Butler's thought, as (...) well as in the theological positions he was opposing, it is timely and appropriate that these detailed studies of Butler's thought should now be made available. (shrink)

I begin by noting the disparate legacies of Thomas Hobbes (1588?1679) and Bishop Joseph Butler (1692?1752). I suggest that part of the reason Butler's arguments in Fifteen Sermons Preached at Rolls Chapel (2nd ed. 1729) have been comparatively neglected by contemporary philosophers is due to the genre in which they are presented, i.e. the sermon. Like other non-standard genres of philosophical writing (dialogue, disputatio, meditation, etc.) both the genre and the purpose towards which Butler puts it (...) have become unfashionable in contemporary philosophy, and, as a result, the subtlety of Butler's arguments are not fully appreciated. I attempt to rectify this situation by, first, explaining the general, complex purpose of Fifteen Sermons, and, second, by explaining the specific purpose of Sermon XI, ?Upon the Love of Our Neighbour? (the one sermon that has attracted sustained attention). In the first section of the paper I argue that the general purpose of Fifteen Sermons is as much rhetorical as it is philosophical, and that these are subsidiary to Butler's pastoral function first in relation to his congregation at Rolls Chapel and second to his readers. In particular, Butler portrays reflection as an essential condition for human virtue, and the sermons, which contain a theory of deliberation (or conscience) and virtue, are intended to encourage autonomous agency and guide it around certain traps of specious reflection. In the second section, I argue that the most serious trap is identified in Sermon X, ?Upon Self-Deceit,? the sermon prior to Sermon XI. In particular, the arguments in Sermon XI that are directed against universal selfishness are designed primarily to critique specious forms of practical deliberation, not theoretical accounts of psychological egoism. And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yea he gave good heed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs. The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth. The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd. And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgement, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil (Ecclesiastes 12, 9?14). (shrink)

This paper is a discussion of the ‘moralization’ of resentment in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. By moralization, I do not refer to the complex process by which resentment is transformed by the machinations of sympathy, but a prior change in how the ‘raw material’ of the emotion itself is presented. In just over fifty pages, not only Smith’s attitude toward the passion of resentment, but also his very conception of the term, appears to shift dramatically. What is an (...) unpleasant, unsocial and relatively amoral passion of anger in general metamorphoses into a morally and psychologically rich account of a cognitively sharpened, normatively laden attitude, an attitude that contains both the judgment that the injury done to me was unjust and wrongful, and the demand that the offender acknowledge its wrongfulness. Two very different readings of ‘Smithean resentment’ are thus available from the text. Indeed, the notion of two distinct forms of resentment – an instinctive, amoral version and a rich, rationally appraising attitude – would bring Smith into line with an earlier account of resentment, found in Bishop Joseph Butler’s Fifteen Sermons Preached at Rolls Chapel, first published in 1726. Ultimately, I argue, the differences in their theories are to Smith’s credit. It is precisely because the ‘thin’ or generic retaliatory passion described in Part I can be reconciled with the rich, normative attitude in Part II, that Smith is able to accomplish his meta-ethical goal of grounding moral judgments in naturally occurring emotions. (shrink)

IntroductionIt is clear that forgiveness is closely related to emotions. Bishop Butler’s “forswearing of resentment” is still the definition most philosophical works on the subject take as their point of departure. Some others disagree but usually only insofar as they focus on another reactive emotion – e.g., moral hatred, disappointment, anger – which we overcome when we forgive.More specifically, according to Roberts the emotion we overcome in forgiveness is anger, see Robert C. Roberts, “Forgivingness,” American Philosophical Quarterly 32 (...) (1995): 289–306. According to Richards, forgiveness involves overcoming a whole range of negative emotions including sadness, disappointment, frustration as well as resentment; see Norvin Richards, “Forgiveness,” Ethics 99 (1988): 77–97. According to Sher, forgiveness involves overcoming blame; see George Sher, In Praise of Blame (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).There is something striking about the negativity of this approach. Forgiveness i. (shrink)

Bishop Butler objected to Locke's theory of personal identity on the grounds that memory presupposes personal identity. Most of those sympathetic with Locke's account have accepted Butler's criticism, and have sought to devise a theory of personal identity in the spirit of Locke's that avoids Butler's circularity objection. John McDowell has argued that even the more recent accounts of personal identity are vulnerable to the kind of objection Butler raised against Locke's own account. I criticize (...) McDowell's stance, drawing on a distinction introduced by Annalisa Coliva between two types of immunity to error through misidentification. (shrink)

Bishop Butler, [Butler, 1736], said that probability was the very guide of life. But what interpretations of probability can serve this function? It isn’t hard to see that empirical (frequency) views won’t do, and many recent writers-for example John Earman, who has said that Bayesianism is “the only game in town”-have been persuaded by various dutch book arguments that only subjective probability will perform the function required. We will defend the thesis that probability construed in this way (...) offers very little guidance, dutch book arguments notwithstanding. We will sketch a way out of the impasse. (shrink)

out a visitation and a thorough assessment of his diocese. His predecessor (or rather his friend Benson, the bishop of Gloucester, who during Edward Chandler's decline had managed Durham's affairs) had kept the deanery records in good ...

Entire moral philosophies have been rejected for ruling out the possibility of failure. This “fallibility constraint” (also sometimes called the “error constraint”) cannot be justified by appealing either to Wittgensteinian considerations about rules or to the moral importance of alternate possibilities. I propose instead that support for such a constraint in ethics can be found in the Strawsonian reactive attitudes. I then use the constraint to reveal hidden weaknesses in contemporary contstitutivist strategies to ground moral normativity such as Christine Korsgaard’s, (...) and also to reveal hidden strengths in historical accounts of morality such as Bishop Butler’s. We will have reason to reject any moral theory that makes constitutivism’s mistake, but only because we have reason not to reject the fallibility constraint itself. The way this ethical fallibility can be justified suggests a general principle that could be used to justify fallibility constraints in other normative domains such as practical reason, epistemology, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

My purpose is to explore the possible lines of reply available to a defender of the neo‐Lockean position on personal identity in response to the recently popular ‘animalist’ objection. I compare the animalist objection with an objection made to Locke by Bishop Butler, Thomas Reid and, in our own day, Sydney Shoemaker. I argue that the only possible response available to a defender of Locke against the Butler–Reid–Shoemaker objection is to reject Locke's official definition of a person (...) as a thinking, intelligent thing and replace it with the concept of the self– the object of self‐reference – and that this response is equally obligatory for the neo‐Lockean in replying to the animalist. I explore other possibilities, including the position that there is no sense in talking about personal identity at all. (shrink)