It is well known that Hume had Joseph Butler in mind in preparing his Thesis for publication. It is rather a shame (I would say in philosophical terms tragic) that he didn’t get a critique from Butler, prior to publication; it could have saved him considerable heartache (bearing in mind that he did ultimately repudiated his own thesis; unlike the fashion I am inclined to be consistent in respecting Hume’s integrity).
As Gilbert Ryle pointed out, Hume tried to ape the natural philosophers in formulating his ethical science. Not only did he try to this methodologically as Ryle points out, but he also misread the basic structural symmetries of the situation, thinking that just as the dispassionate third-person observer was the right place to d natural philosophy so it was the right vantage point for his new ethical science.
Butler knew otherwise as he makes clear in his Dissertation on Virtue (1736). The language is dense but handsomely rewards the persistent reader. In it Butler distinguishes between speculative philosophy, speculations about natural processes in the world–natural philosophy–and practical philosophy, the business of living, or practical philosophy.
For as much as it has been disputed wherein virtue consists, or whatever ground for doubt there may be about particulars; yet, in general, there is in reality an universally acknowledged standard of it. It is that which all ages and all countries have made profession of in public; it is that which every man you meet puts on the show of; it is that which the primary and fundamental laws of all civil constitutions over the face of the earth make it their business and endeavour to enforce the practice of upon mankind; namely, justice, veracity, and regard to common good. It being manifest then, in general, that we have such a faculty or discernment as this, it may be of use to remark some things more distinctly concerning it.
First, It ought to be observed, that the object of this faculty is actions comprehending under that name active or practical principles; those principles from which men would act, if occasions and circumstances gave them power; and which, when fixed and habitual in any person, we call his character. It does not appear that brutes have the least reflex sense of actions, as distinguished from events; or that will and design, which constitute the very nature of actions as such, are at all [247] an object to their perception. But to ours they are; and they are the object, and the only one, of the approving and disapproving faculty. Acting, conduct, behaviour, abstracted from all regard to what is, in fact and event, the consequence of it, is itself the natural object of the moral discernment, as speculative truth and falsehood is of speculative reason. Intention of such and such consequences, indeed, is always included; for it is part of the action itself: but though the intended good or bad consequences do not follow, we have exactly the same sense of the action as if they did. In like manner, we think well or ill of characters, abstracted from nil consideration of the good or the evil, which persons of such characters have it actually in their power to do. We never, in the moral way, applaud or blame either ourselves or others, for what we enjoy or what we suffer, or for having impressions made upon us which we consider as altogether out of our power; but only for what we do, or would have done, had it been in our power; or for what we leave undone, which we might have done, or would have left undone, though we could have done it.
Joseph Butler, Dissertation II—Of the Nature of Virtue, pp. 246-7 (§ 244-5)
This is not the place to offer a commentary, but note that Butler gets the basic symmetry between natural philosophy and ethics right: just as natural philosophy is all about studying causal processes abstracted of any interference by intentional agents, so ethics is concerned with the intention of rational agents abstracted of all concern for actual worldly outcomes.
This is puts us into the right place for doing and thinking about ethics, one that is consistent with the practical, living ethical systems that have helped people in all ages to live and die meaningfully.
We could learn a great deal by studying this great man, as Hume himself realised, but when I tried to obtain anything approaching his collected works I couldn’t find anything in print. When I enquired about why the Oxford World’s Classics didn’t publish any of his work they made it clear that they had to pay attention to academic demand and there was precious little. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy doesn’t list him in their contents, though he does make is way into their projected contents.
Back to Butler
It is well known that Hume had Joseph Butler in mind in preparing his Thesis for publication. It is rather a shame (I would say in philosophical terms tragic) that he didn’t get a critique from Butler, prior to publication; it could have saved him considerable heartache (bearing in mind that he did ultimately repudiated his own thesis; unlike the fashion I am inclined to be consistent in respecting Hume’s integrity).
As Gilbert Ryle pointed out, Hume tried to ape the natural philosophers in formulating his ethical science. Not only did he try to this methodologically as Ryle points out, but he also misread the basic structural symmetries of the situation, thinking that just as the dispassionate third-person observer was the right place to d natural philosophy so it was the right vantage point for his new ethical science.
Butler knew otherwise as he makes clear in his Dissertation on Virtue (1736). The language is dense but handsomely rewards the persistent reader. In it Butler distinguishes between speculative philosophy, speculations about natural processes in the world–natural philosophy–and practical philosophy, the business of living, or practical philosophy.
This is not the place to offer a commentary, but note that Butler gets the basic symmetry between natural philosophy and ethics right: just as natural philosophy is all about studying causal processes abstracted of any interference by intentional agents, so ethics is concerned with the intention of rational agents abstracted of all concern for actual worldly outcomes.
This is puts us into the right place for doing and thinking about ethics, one that is consistent with the practical, living ethical systems that have helped people in all ages to live and die meaningfully.
We could learn a great deal by studying this great man, as Hume himself realised, but when I tried to obtain anything approaching his collected works I couldn’t find anything in print. When I enquired about why the Oxford World’s Classics didn’t publish any of his work they made it clear that they had to pay attention to academic demand and there was precious little. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy doesn’t list him in their contents, though he does make is way into their projected contents.