19 July 2004 Lecture Summary

Philosophers Examined: Butler, Paley.

Line of Thought: Last lecture we looked briefly at Butler's arguments for the future life and 'natural providence'. This lecture we looked at his arguments for moral providence. There are three of particular note. (1) Analogy with natural providence. (2) Our actual experience (sense of shame, sense of honor, tranquillity in virtue, fear and apprehension in vice, remorse, etc.). (3) Butler claims it is intrinsic to the notion of virtue that it tends to be rewarded, and it is intrinsic to the notion of vice that it tends to be punished. He doesn't claim to have strictly proved that God operates according to moral providence; but he does claim that he has provided strong confirmation of it, since his arguments show that nature is not indifferent to virtue and vice. Also, on the supposition of a future life, current rewards and punishments ground an expectation of the possible completion of the apparent moral system after death; and, on the same supposition, the inherent tendencies of virtue and vice give ground for hope of its actual completion.

We then looked at Butler's views on how human nature itself plays a role in moral providence, and, in particular, at the nature of conscience. Butler argues 1) that it is as natural to human nature to act out of love for others or benevolence as to act out of self-love; 2) the two, benevolence and self-love, if ordered properly coincide; 3) because human nature is an ordered system, there is a principle of reflection that organizes self-love and benevolence by distinguishing and judging our actions. This is conscience. We do, however, violate conscience often; so Butler makes a distinction between power and authority. Conscience has authority as a motivation; but other elements of our system often have more power as motivations. Since our system is in our power, vice consists in violation of the whole system of nature through violation of conscience's authority in favor of some more immediately powerful motivation.

He considers two possible major objections to his account of moral providence: determinism (doctrine of necessity) and the problem of evil (the imperfection of the moral system). After some discussion, he rejects both as irrelevant. We briefly looked at these, then at some of the objections that might be made against his entire approach (he has answers to most of them).

We then switched to look, very briefly, at Paley. First we looked at his argument from design for the existence of God, of which my rough, tentative interpretation can be found here. We finished by looking briefly at his theological utilitarianism, and discussed how it differs from Butler's ethical theory.