Butler in a Cool Hour

Butler in a Cool Hour JOHN KLEINIG 1T MIGHT BE thought that even a superficial observation of the number of occasions on which Butler refers to the supremacy of conscience over all the other principles in the nature of man, should leave us in no doubt about this aspect of his ethical theory: One of those principles of action, conscience or reflection, compared with the rest as they all stand together in the nature of man, plainly bears upon it marks of authority over all the rest, and claims the absolute direction of them all. to allow or forbid their gratificationY He makes it quite clear that to refer to conscience as just another principle of action in our nature is to misunderstand its claimmthat of absolute authority over aU other principles.2 The principle of reflection or conscience is naturally authoritative---the very nature of our constitution requires that we bring our whole conduct before this superior faculty, await its determination, enforce its authority upon ourselves, and make it our business as moral agents to ac-d:eccording to its dictates3 This authority of conscience, however, must be distinguished from its strength. For we can act contrary to conscience and hence contrary to the constitution of our nature, even though we have no right to: Had it strength as it has fight; had it power as it has manifest authority; it would absolutely govern the world.4 Yet, despite Butler's insistence upon the absolute supremacy of conscience, there has been and still is considerable disagreement on his consistency in this, and on the nature of this supremacy. J. H. Muirhead, for example, while pointing out that Buffer often refers to the supremacy of conscience, charges him with inconsistency, stating that he "admits that the suggestions of reasonable self-love, which takes into account the rewards decreed by the Deity in a future life for those who keep His revealed commanda Sermons, Preface, II, 13; see also Preface, II, 14, 16; No. II, 52, 59, 62-63, etc. Page references for the Sermons are to Gladstone's edition of Butler's Works (2 vols.; Clarendon Press, 1896), II. 2 Sermons, Preface, II, 13; No. 11, IT, 59. * Sermons, Preface, II, 14. 9 Sermons, No. II, II, 64. 400 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY ments, may be accepted as a working substitute for the voice of conscience." 5 Thomas McPherson does not think of Butler in terms of inconsistency so much as development, the inconsistency pointed out by philosophers such as Muirhead being a failure to recognize Buffer's philosophical development from the Sermons to the Analogy. McPherson's view is that "nowhere in the Sermons does Buffer speak of conscience as a superior principle to cool self-love." 6 There, "for all practical purposes, conscience is self-love." 7 "It is the happiness-producing character of acts that makes them fight; i.e., the ground or criterion of the rightness of an act is its felicific quality for the agent." 8 In the Analogy, however, an increasing awareness of the extent of human ignorance forces Butler, according to McPherson, to abandon the practical identification of conscience and cool self. love. Instead he suggests that we apprehend moral truths intuitively, conscience here being the voice of God within us. Sidgwick, too, will not accept the view that Butler makes an unqualified assertion of the supremacy of conscience. In Outlines of the History of Ethics he states that "Butler's real view is not . . . that self-love is naturally subordinate to conscience--at least if we consider the theoretical rather than the practical relation between the two." They are "so far co-ordinate in authority that it is not 'according to nature' that either should be overruled." Nevertheless, Butler does go "so far as to 'let it be allowed' that 'if there ever should be, as it is impossible there ever should be, any inconsistency between them', conscience would have to give way." 9 Sidgwick advances a similar view in The Methods of Ethics, asserting that "Buffer maintains the practical supremacy of Conscience over Selflove , in spite of his admission of theoretical priority in the claims of the latter .... A man knows certainly...