Reflection and exhortation in butler's sermons: practical deliberation, psychological health and the philosophical sermon

Abstract

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).

Notes

More important than the commentary is recent work in the spirit of Hobbes that pervades decision theory, game theory, economics, and mainstream literature on applied ethics, moral theory and political theory. The literature is too vast to cite here, but a good representative of work that owes its inspiration to Hobbesian moral theory is David Gauthier, Morals by Agreement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).

It is a sign of this neglect that the most recent complete edition that I could find is Matthews' 1914 edition (reprinted in 1949). See Joseph Butler, Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel and “A Dissertation upon the Nature of Virtue,” introduced and edited by W. R. Matthews (London: G. Bell & Sons, 1949), hereafter Fifteen Sermons. This is the edition that I consulted most frequently and from which all quotations are drawn. All references are to sermon number in upper case roman numerals, followed by Matthews' Arabic paragraph numbers. I also consulted The Whole Works of Joseph Butler, LL.D. edited and introduced by Samuel Halifax (London: William Tegg & Co., 1847), hereafter The Whole Works. A more recent but incomplete edition is Five Sermons Preached at Rolls Chapel and A Dissertation on Virtue, edited and introduced by Stuart J. Brown (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1950).

For the sake of clarity, it will be helpful to distinguish carefully some labels that are often used interchangeably. I shall use “universal selfishness” to refer to the isolated thesis that human motivation is essentially and exclusively selfish; this thesis may or may not be embedded within a developed theory. The labels “psychological egoism” and “egoism” refer to the theoretical account of human nature that includes universal selfishness as an axiom. “Self-love” describes the affection a person has for him or herself; unlike “universal selfishness,” “self-love” does not in itself preclude either benevolence or neighbour love.

Some contemporary critics of egoism are generous enough to direct readers towards Butler, some make passing reference to him, and some make no mention of him at all. Among the most generous recent authors is Joel Feinberg, “Psychological Egoism,” Reason and Responsibility, 4th edn, ed. Joel Feinberg (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co, 1999), 497. Butler figures prominently in a chapter by Austin Duncan-Jones in The Concept of Benevolence: Aspects of Eighteenth Century Moral Theory, ed. T. A. Roberts (London: MacMillan Press, 1973). Thomas Nagel cites Butler briefly in The Possibility of Altruism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 81, n.1. Surprisingly, Butler is mentioned only in the bibliography of Nicholas Rescher's Unselfishness (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1975).

The range of philosophical genres has shrunk incredibly in the last century, so much so that when a contemporary author uses a form other than the academic essay or extended treatise (e.g. dialogue, disputatio, meditation, etc.) it is usually regarded as an archaic affectation. Julián Marías diagnoses the cause of this trend to the professionalization of philosophy in the nineteenth century German university system. For an interesting discussion of this problem and other matters related to genres of philosophical writing see Julián Marías, Philosophy as Dramatic Theory, trans. J. Parsons (University Park: The Pennsylvania University Press, 1971), Ch. 1 especially.

Penhelum also emphasizes how the arguments of Fifteen Sermons are closely connected without being systematically integrated. See Terry Penelhum, Butler (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), 9. See the Appendix to this essay for my summary account of the collection's organizational plan.

Although he never says so, it is also extremely unlikely that the published collection simply reflects the chronological order in which the individual sermons were preached. Over the course of his eight years at Rolls Chapel, Butler must have delivered scores of sermons that had little thematic connection to those collected in Fifteen Sermons, and it would be too much of a coincidence for the chronological order to correspond so well with the groups I have identified in the Appendix. Also, just as there is no reason to believe that these 15 sermons were not composed with the eventual aim of publishing a unified collection, so there is no reason to think he would abide slavishly by chronology after the plan to publish was formed.

Presumably, but not necessarily, the scientific approach operates only under rational constraints.

It should be pointed out that Butler was not a Bishop when the sermons were published. He preached at Rolls Chapel from 1719 to 1726, then he became rector at Stanhope around the time Fifteen Sermons was published in 1726 (1729 for the second edition). He did not become Bishop until 1738, and he did not become Bishop of Durham until 1750, shortly before he died in 1752.

Amélie Oksenberg Rorty also notes this difference between Butler and Hobbes. Hobbes' systematic approach is directed towards those in power, she says, while Butler's sermons are directed to ordinary citizens. See Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, “Butler on Benevolence and Conscience,” Philosophy 53 (1978): 171–84 at 172.

This schematic approach to rhetoric in terms of pathos, ethos and logos originates in Aristotle's Rhetoric 1.2.

It might appear that Butler had trouble reaching this general audience, judging by one passage from the Preface which was added to the second edition. He says, evidently in response to complaints expressed about the first edition, “It must be acknowledged that some of the following Discourses are very abstruse and difficult” (Preface, 7). He begs the reader's indulgence to distinguish obscurity, which cannot be avoided when writing about difficult subjects, from confusion of thought, which is derived from an inexcusable lack of understanding on the writer's part. The complaints about Butler seem to originate in a contemporary debate over the comparative merits of the Attic and Alexandrian styles of writing. Attic style is marked by short, direct sentences that present individual points as discrete; Attic had become the standard style adopted by the Royal Society as being appropriate for reporting scientific research. Alexandrian style, by contrast, is marked by long, flowing sentences that emphasize the connections within the subject matter rather than the discrete points. Butler's style is closer to the Alexandrian, which from the Attic point of view is fussy and unnecessarily convoluted; however, in an eighteenth century, high Anglican service, a sermon delivered in Alexandrian style would be perfectly at home. Again, we see how Butler stands removed from the scientific orientation of the tradition from Hobbes to Kant. I owe thanks to Peter Erb for clarification on this point about style.

I count over three dozen instances of the second person in Fifteen Sermons. Of these, only six may be discounted as stock turns of phrase that do not address the reader in a personal way. The following are genuine: I, 6; II, 9; III, 5, 8, 9; IV, 1, 3, 10; VI, 7, 1; VII, 2, 5, 12, 16; IX, 7, 12, 27; X, 6, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15; XI, 2, 7, 13, 14; XIII, 1, 12, 13; XIV, 7, 9. Note, especially, the unusual high frequency in Sermon X, “Upon Self-Deceit.” I shall return to this in Section II.

In The Analogy of Religion Butler himself defends Christian theology on probable grounds against objections from Deists.

Only missionary sermons are supposed to encourage conversion, and this kind of sermon would be inappropriate in a weekly service before a preacher's regular congregation. The stock complaint that an orator or author is preaching to the converted mistakenly represents the function of missionary sermons as applying to ministerial sermons.

A host of theological principles are, naturally, close to the surface throughout Fifteen Sermons, and these rise above the surface in the Sermons XIII and XIV, both of which bear the title “Upon the Love of God.” Eschatological principles appear as frequent reminders that earthly human agency determines a person's condition in the hereafter (see especially the following: III, 8–9; V, 13; VII, 10; IX, 28; and XIII, 10, 13, 15).

The same cannot be said of Butler's Six Sermons Preached on Public Occasions, all dated at least a dozen years after he left Rolls Chapel. See Whole Works II, 180–269.

Although conscience is the term used more frequently throughout Fifteen Sermons, reflection and conscience are nearly synonymous. The formula “reflection or conscience” occurs almost a dozen times in the first two sermons, which suggests that the two terms are virtually interchangeable. At times, reflection is used in a wider sense, which is why conscience is described at one point as “a particular kind of reflection” (III, 3). The wider sense of reflection includes, for example, deliberation over matters of “riches, honours and sensual gratifications” (I, 14); however, whenever it is used in the context of moral deliberation it is synonymous with conscience. He seems to prefer “reflection” when the context calls for a cognitive connotation and “conscience” when it calls for an ethical connotation, but there does not appear to be a consistent pattern here. The difference is that, for Butler, “immoral conscience” is a contradiction in its conception, while there is a sense in which “immoral reflection” may not be conceptually problematic. Reflection has a wider usage, and in its wider scope seems to justify conduct that Butler would judge to be immoral. His task is to coax readers into the kind of genuine reflection that deserves to be called conscientious. For this reason, I focus on reflection rather than conscience in this paper.

I pass over the most elemental form of moral agency that Butler alludes to in Sermon II. At II, 8, with reference to Romans ii, 15, Butler explicates St. Paul's account of virtuous conduct among gentiles. Following Paul, Butler distinguishes between “works written in their hearts” and the “witness of conscience.” The former expression points to the natural social dispositions to kindness and compassion that generate social impulses and “by means of which he naturally acts a just and good part in it, unless other passions or interests lead him astray.” According to Butler, this natural disposition requires “very little reflection.” Insofar as pagans are ignorant of the Word, virtuous conduct among them cannot be attributed to reflection or conscience in the robust and specific sense that Butler has in mind, namely, informed by the teachings of Jesus.

Morality, for Butler, is not reducible to a codified set of rules that can be learned by rote and followed mechanically. It requires deliberation or reflection, for “a great part, perhaps the greatest part, of the intercourse amongst mankind, cannot be reduced to fixed determinate rules” (X, 10).

McPherson identifies reason and reflection in Butler, but nothing Butler says compels us to accept this identification. Since reflection—which is, after all, nearly synonymous with conscience—always suggests that a person is thinking about something of moral or religious significance, we should leave room within rationality for purely calculative thought. See T. H. McPherson, “The Development of Bishop Butler's Ethics I,” Philosophy 23 (1948): 317–31 at 325.

See, especially, D. D. Raphael, “Bishop Butler's View of Conscience,” Philosophy 24 (1949): 219–38 at 220; Penelhum, Butler, 39ff.; and Rorty, “Butler on Benevolence and Conscience,” 174–5. Duncan-Jones, on the other hand, begins by noting how Butler's treatment of selfishness addresses two distinct errors, one by egoists such as Hobbes, the other by “less sophisticated people.” See Austin Duncan-Jones, Butler's Moral Philosophy (Middlesex: Pelican Books, 1952), Ch. 4.

See also Sermon XV, 16.

McPherson is more sensitive to Butler's ministerial purposes than most commentators. Benevolence, he says, is “treated more fully than other [particular affections] because of his eagerness to impress upon his congregation the necessity for their encouraging it in their own dealings with their fellows” (McPherson, “The Development of Bishop Butler's Ethics I,” 322–3).

Butler anticipates Shelley's “Epipsychidion”: “True Love in this differs from gold and clay, /That to divide is not to take away.”

We should recall that Rolls Chapel was located in London's Inns of Court, and many in the congregation were well educated lawyers who plausibly would have been familiar with Hobbes and psychological egoism.

Butler's text contains the King James version: “And if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

In the absence of benevolence, too little self-love is also pathological, according to Butler. At the end of the first sermon he laments that those who commit acts of malicious self-sacrifice do not give enough weight to their own present interests and happiness (I, 14).

For general readers, the second of these revelations is more important, because the personal dimension of Butler's appeal can still resonate with contemporary readers, even if many of his theological commitments do not. This is not to say that Butler himself would have accepted a religiously or denominationally neutral interpretation of his arguments. But just as he borrows concepts and principles that originated in Plato and Aristotle without committing himself to their original pagan world view, so can secular or ecumenical readers learn from Fifteen Sermons without having to accept all of the particular theological claims Butler attaches to them.