Butler on Social Progress

Reasonable men therefore will look upon the general plan of our constitution, transmitted down to us by our ancestors, as sacred ; and content themselves with calmly doing what their station requires, towards rectifying the particular things which they think amiss, and supplying the particular things which they think deficient in it, so far as is practicable without endangering the whole.

From Six Sermons Preached on Public Occasions, Sermon III. The argument he gives for this conclusion is rather interesting because it is historical. This sermon was preached before the House of Lords on the day commemorating the martyrdom of Charles I. Charles, of course, lost his head to the Puritans. The sermon is primarily on the subject of hypocrisy, which seems to have interested Butler considerably, given that he returns to it in a number of sermons. The particular worry in this sermon is hypocritical appeal to liberty. Hypocrisy, of course, arises due to the fact that it is difficult to do something wrong as wrong, in its true colors; it's far easier to do it when "some cloak is thrown over it" to give it the appearance of virtue. Butler notes that there is a special danger of liberty being used as this cloak. This is what he suggests actually happened in the overthrow of Charles; people went so far as to destroy the very constitution of Church and State in the name of liberty, replacing it with "the confusions, the persecuting spirit, and incredible fanaticism" that led to the Restoration. This violent overthrow began innocently enough; but as more and more fuel was added to the fire, it quickly grew out of hand, growing more and more outrageous, until, in the name of liberty, it introduced an arbitrary despotism. This particular arbitrary government wasn't sustainable, being contrary to custom, but it led to a further danger when the Restoration occurred, because the monarchy was sustainable, and human beings in opposing one extreme are likely to go to the other. One extreme, the complete dissolution of the monarchy, was rejected; but going through that complete dissolution, and the reaction it induced, introduced the severe danger of going too far in the return of the monarchy, by eliminating the limitations originally restricting the king's power. Butler, then, has a very stern view of the dissolution of the monarchy; he thinks it was obviously wrong, so obviously wrong that no one could have done it innocently. But, of course, human beings are capable of great self-deceit. Even though it's plausible to say that a better government can be imagined, to go so far as to dissolve at one stroke one government that works in practice in favor of another government known only in theory is courting mischief. Thus we arrive at the conclusion above, and this provides one safeguard against the hypocritical abuse of liberty.

It isn't, by the way, the only abuse of liberty against which we need safeguards; Butler goes on to have an interesting discussion of some others, insisting throughout that liberty by its very nature requires self-command, and the responsibilities that go with that.

Butler on Religious Institutions

A visible church has also a further tendency to promote natural religion, as being an instituted method of education, originally intended to be of more peculiar advantage to those who would conform to it. For one end of the institution was, that by admonition and reproof, as well as instruction ; by a general regular discipline, and public exercises of religion ; the body of Christ, as the scripture speaks, should be edified ; i. e. trained up in piety and virtue for a higher and better state. This settlement then appearing thus beneficial ; tending in the nature of the thing to answer, and in some degree actually answering, those ends ; it is to be remembered, that the very notion of it implies positive institutions ; for the visibility of the church consists in them. Take away every thing of this kind, and you lose the very notion itself. So that if the things now mentioned are advantages, the reason and importance of positive institutions in general is most obvious ; since without them these advantages could not be secured to the world.

From The Analogy of Religion, II.i

Butler on the State of Probation

Now whoever will consider the thing, may clearly see, that the present world is peculiarly fit to be a state of discipline for this purpose, to such as will set themselves to mend and improve. For, the various temptations with which we are surrounded ; our experience of the deceits of wickedness ; having been in many instances led wrong ourselves ; the great viciousness of 'the world ; the infinite disorders consequent upon it ; our being made acquainted with pain and sorrow, either from our own feeling of it, or from the sight of it in others ; these things, though some of them may indeed produce wrong effects upon our minds, yet when duly reflected upon, have, all of them, a direct tendency to bring us to a settled moderation and reasonableness of temper : the contrary both to thoughtless levity, and also to that unrestrained self-will, and violent bent to follow present inclination, which may be observed in undisciplined minds. Such experience, as the present state affords, of the frailty of our nature ; of the boundless extravagance of ungoverned passion ; of the power which an infinite Being has over us, by the various capacities of misery which he has given us ; in short, that kind and degree of experience, which the present state affords us, that the constitution of nature is such as to admit the possibility, the danger, and the actual event, of creatures losing their innocence and happiness, and becoming vicious and wretched ; hath a tendency to give us a practical sense of things, very different from a mere speculative knowledge that we are liable to vice, and capable of misery.

From The Analogy of Religion I.V

Butler on the Golden Rule

It would very much prevent our being misled by this self-partiality, to reduce, that practical rule of our Saviour, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, even so do unto them," to our judgment and way of thinking. This rule, you see, consists of two parts. One is, to substitute another for yourself, when you take a survey of any part of your behaviour, or consider what is proper and fit and reasonable for you to do upon any occasion: the other part is, that you substitute yourself in the room of another; consider yourself as the person affected by such a behaviour, or towards whom such an action is done; and then you would not only see, but likewise feel, the reasonableness, or unreasonableness of such an action or behaviour. But, alas! the rule itself may be dishonestly applied: there are persons who have not impartiality enough with respect to themselves, nor regard enough for others, to be able to make a just application of it. This just application, if men would honestly make it, is, in effect, all that I have been recommending: it is the whole thing, the direct contrary to that inward dishonesty as respecting our intercourse with our fellow-creatures. And even the bearing this rule in their thoughts may be of some service: the attempt thus to apply it, is an attempt towards being fair and impartial, and may chance unawares to show them to themselves, to show them the truth of the case they are considering.

From Fifteen Sermons, Sermon X.

Butler on Talkers

Today the Anglicans remember the incomparable Joseph Butler, that unmatched summit of early modern moral philosophy. This is certainly a day for a student of early modern philosophy to celebrate. So I'll do so by putting up a string of quotations by Butler.

The wise man observes, that "there is time to speak and a time to keep silence." One meets with people in the world, who seem never to have made the last of these observations. And yet these great talkers do not at all speak from their having any thing to say, as every sentence shows, but only from their inclination to be talking. Their conversation is merely an exercise of the tongue; no other human faculty has any share in it. It is strange these persons can help reflecting, that unless they have in truth a superior capacity, and are in an extraordinary manner furnished for conversation; if they are entertaining, it is at their own expense. Is it possible that it should never come into people's thoughts to suspect whether or no it be to their advantage, to show so very much of themselves? "O that you hold your peace, and it should be you wisdom." Remember likewise, there are persons who love fewer words, an inoffensive sort of people, who deserve some regard, though of too still and composed tempers for you.

from Fifteen Sermons, Sermon IV. At some point, probably in the nineteenth century when students were forced to read Butler for examinations, he acquired the reputation of being very abstract, dry, and humorless; but he does have a wit and humor, admittedly sometimes subtle, that pervade his writings.

Abortion and Cases of Conscience

Ophelia Benson:

A thought experiment. Not the kidney one, a different (though similar) one. A woman is newly pregnant against her will; she doesn't approve of abortion and isn't going to have one. She discovers the fetus has a very rare disease which is quickly fatal unless the fetus can be removed and implanted in a compatible host; such hosts are very rare but can be found via a computer search of a medical database. A compatible host is found. Is it murder if she refuses to be an actual host? Not just that - would anyone even think she had a very strong duty to be a host? Would anyone even think she had a weak duty?

I say no. Hardly anyone would think that. (Perhaps I'm underestimating the obsession with the fetus.) So the difference must be that in the usual case, the fetus exists because its mother had sex with a man. Why is that a kind of difference that makes a difference?

This is, as Benson notes, essentially a variant Thomson-violinist case; and the problem with Thomson-violinist cases is that we do often regard it as a violation of duty to refuse to allow temporary impositions on one's freedom when someone else's welfare is at stake. (It is another question, of course, whether it is reasonable to make such violations of duty illegal.) That's what duties usually are, in fact. And I think it is pretty clear that there are quite a few people would say that she would, in fact, have at least a defeasible and prima facie duty; and on such a view there is no fundamental difference in the two cases, although they may differ at times as to potentially exculpating circumstances. So I think Benson definitely is "underestimating the obsession with the fetus"; since the fetus is going to be regarded as a person by most pro-lifers, then the fact that the commitments involved in bearing it to term are unwanted is not going to carry any more weight than in any other case in which the dependency of persons forces us into unwanted commitments (e.g., fathers forced to support their children financially when they don't want to do so). From that perspective, there is no ground at this point on which to treat the cases as different, and from that perspective the bare fact of its being unwanted is not even relevant to the question.

What is still relevant on such a view, of course, is whether the circumstances involved in its being unwanted exculpate, excuse, or mitigate in any way. This is, I would suggest, why some pro-life advocates tend to be more sympathetic to Thomson-violinist cases than other pro-choice arguments: they can be read as scenarios in which circumstances introduce features, or are alleged to introduce features, that excuse in part or in whole, and thus in that sense make what would otherwise be 'erogatory' supererogatory. Whereas pro-choice advocates, I take it, tend to read them in the way Benson does here, as saying something about duties themselves rather than about how violations of such duties may be excusable under extraordinary circumstances.

To put it in more technical terms: these scenarios are casuistry, in the old respectable sense; pro-choicers tend to be laxist or probabilist about them, whereas pro-lifers tend not to be. There's considerable diversity among pro-lifers on the subject. Some, and fairly consistently the Catholic Church in particular, will deny that casuistry sheds any light on the subject, since a person's life is in question; others will accept the conscience-cases as genuine, but will tend be probabiliorist or rigorist in judging them. This is the fundamental problem with appeal to intuitions in a debate about this; moral intuitions are casuistical judgments, and while you can sometimes come to the same conclusions from different casuistical standpoints, it is your standpoint that governs how your intuitions will fall on this subject, and that is determined by prior commitments about (e.g.) the seriousness of the subject, what makes it serious, etc.

Aquinas & Immutability

At "The Fire and the Rose" D. W. Congden discusses Thomas Aquinas on immutability:

Perhaps the most telling failure in Thomas’ presentation of divine immutability is the inability of this immutable God to do anything new. Because God is actus purus, there is no conceivable sense in which God can do a new thing. In other words, what’s done is done. God is static and immovable, and no new event can ever occur. This of course is hard to square with the biblical narrative; one has to assume that the experience of newness in relation to God is simply a phenomenological illusion.

But in fact, Aquinas does hold that there is a conceivable sense in which God can do a new thing; because potency or potential can be understood to refer either to active power or potential power, and the latter is the only one that conflicts with immutability. Immutable is not static -- although it's easy enough to see why one might think so, given what the term has come to mean. Immutability is a characteristic distinguishing Creator from creature: things that are mutable are dependent on an extrinsic power. The point of saying that God is immutable is to say that God is not so dependent. This can be seen in a different way (cf. ST 1.9.2). Creatures have a potential for being changed by something else either with regard to their substance and everything depending on them (as in the case of things that naturally go in and out of existence), or with regard to place only (we know of no such things, but Aquinas like most medievals assumed that celestial bodies are such), or with regard to the different ends they can assume and objects their capabilities can take (as with angels); since all these things can be affected by God, who governs their existence and non-existence, all these creatures are mutable with respect to the divine power. But God is subject to no other power in any of these ways: He doesn't go in and out of existence; He doesn't move from place to place; and no one can determine His ends and objects for Him. And since that's exhaustive, God is immutable. But this is an affirmation not of any inability but of a power that has no weakness. Somewhere, I forget where at the moment, Aquinas says that immutability is the strength of God.^* And this pretty much sums up Aquinas's view: to say that God is immutable is to say that nothing else is stronger or more powerful than He is in any way; He can do as He wills, and nothing else has the force to turn Him or change Him or make Him undergo anything; neither His essence nor His action admit of any weakness.

---ADDED LATER
^* It seems to be Gilby's translation of ST 1-2.61.5. It's a bit loose, since what Thomas strictly says is that God's fortitude is His immutability. But it's not far off, either, since the point is that what we call fortitude is expressed with complete perfection in divine immutability. So if you want to understand what Thomas has in mind when he talks about immutability, a good way to do it is to start with the virtue of fortitude and to think of what's involved in a fortitude that can never fail. In Thomas's view (ST 1.50.5 ad 1) immutability goes with fullness of life and immortality, while mutability is a sort of subjection to death.