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Tecnologa Y Gelassenheit SHAFTESBURY AS A PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHER SHAFTESBURY, FILÓSOFO APLICADO LYDIA B. AMIR College of Management Academic Studies, Israel [email protected] RECIBIDO: 7 DE NOVIEMBRE DE 2014 ACEPTADO: 22 DE DICIEMBRE DE 2014 Abstract: Anthony Ashley Cooper Shaftesbury (1671-1713), the British Enlightenment philosopher, put on the agenda the practice of philosophy. The most important Modern Socratic made philosophy important for this happiness-driven century in a way that his contemporaries could not. Not only did he use philosophy to educate a new class of citizens, but he made philosophy necessary for virtue and virtue indispensable for happiness. In contradistinction to his tutor, John Locke, and his followers who made pleasure the content of happiness, Shaftesbury’s combined neo-Stoicism and neo- Aristotelianism accounted for his equating virtue with happiness, thus making of philosophy as "the study of happiness" a necessity for all. Keywords: Enlightenment, Happiness, Philosophy, Pleasure, Virtue, Shaftesbury, Locke. Resumen: Anthony Ashley Cooper Shaftesbury (1671-1713), filósofo ilustrado ingles, agendó dentro de su obra la práctica de la filosofía. El socrático más relevante de la modernidad hizo de la filosofía algo relevante para estos siglos focalizados en la felicidad. No sólo usó la filosofía para educar a un nuevo tipo de ciudadanos sino que la convirtió en un instrumento necesario para alcanzar la virtud e hizode la virtud un elemento indispensable para la felicidad. En oposición a su tutor, John Locke, y a sus seguidores, quienes forjaron al placer como la base de la felicidad, la combinación de neo-estoicismo y neo-aristotelismo de Shaftesbury igualaron virtud y felicidad y así transformó a la filosofía, entendida como “estudio de la felicidad”, en una necesidad básica. Palabras clave: Ilustración, felicidad, filosofía, placer, virtud, Shaftesbury, Locke. Introduction Philosophical practitioners who search for antecedents of their work usually point to Greek and Hellenistic philosophies. The Enlightenment is the proximate source of the current practice of philosophy, however, granted that the Enlightenment’s revival of Hellenistic philosophy is a subject to fathom. This article introduces the practical vision of philosophy held by the most important Socratic of the Modern era, the British Enlightenment philosopher Anthony Ashley Cooper Shaftesbury HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 6, 2015, pp. 81-101 82 LYDIA B. AMIR (1671-1713). In order to do justice to his innovative vision of philosophy, I introduce it against the background of the representative thought of his age. To that purpose, I briefly outline the Enlightenment's revolutionary view of reason and happiness, elaborate on its most important philosopher (also Shaftesbury's mentor), John Locke, and trace the latter's influence on other eighteenth-century philosophers. I present Shaftesbury's practical philosophy and his controversy with Locke and his followers. Finally, I assess the Shaftesburean legacy by comparing the thought British Enlightenment philosopher's thought with the contemporary practice of philosophy using four criteria: audience, politics, happiness, and virtue. The Enlightenment: John Locke and its followers The roots of many of the features of modern culture are found in the ideas of the Enlightenment. This Europeanwide, eighteenth-century movement is described by Immanuel Kant as "man's release from his self-incurred tutelage", from his inability to use innate understanding without guidance from another person. The Enlightenment stressed the autonomy of reason as the tool through which human thought and action may be explored. The individual who generated ideas thought in an enlightened way. The term Enlightenment has become most closely associated with France, where thinkers such as Voltaire argued for the primacy of reason. Their purpose was to "regenerate" humankind, to emphasize the superiority of what Jean Jacques Rousseau called "the greatest happiness of all" over individual concerns. In his Happiness: A History, Darrin M. McMahon explains this characteristic of the Enlightenment: “Whereas classical sages had aimed to cultivate a rarified ethical elite––attempting to bring happiness to a select circle of disciples, or at most to the active citizens of the polis––Enlightenment visionaries dreamed of bringing happiness to entire societies and even to humanity as a whole”1. Enlightened authors wrote more about happiness than any previous period in western history. In doing so, they hoped to break with all 1 MCMAHON, Darrin M.: Happiness: A History, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, NY (USA), 2006, p. 212. HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 6, 2015, pp. 81-101 SHAFTESBURY AS A PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHER 83 previous norms, dispelling the mystery and mystique that had surrounded the concept of happiness for centuries. Whereas earlier ages had cloaked it in religion or fate, Enlightenment authors would unveil it in its natural purity. And whereas previous ages had searched for happiness in faith, enlightened observers would aim to see it clearly in its own right.”2 From the combined precedents of Renaissance humanism and innovative Christian theology, influential voices drew conclusions on the possibility of pleasure and felicity on earth. Neither the reward of the next world nor the gift of good fortune or the gods, happiness was above all an earthly affair, to be achieved in the here and now through human agency alone. The work of forging this new conception, which contrasted both with the tragic and the Christian condition, was a collective enterprise, elaborated slowly over the course of centuries3. But for many Enlightenment thinkers, such as Jean Le Rond D'Alembert, Isaac Newton's physics and John Locke's metaphysics taken together presented a portrait of nature that convinced their more radical interpreters that, when allowed to run as it should, the world was leading us on a happy course4. Locke revealed the universal laws that governed the workings of thought which, bearing on his views on happiness, constitutes the backgroud against which his dissident pupil, Shaftesbury, developed another vision of happiness that will make philosophy a practical discipline. In the opening book of Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), the British philosopher supplied a critique of innate ideas and principles and set out an empirical basis for knowledge5. His rejection of innate ideas and the idea of tabula rasa wiped our slate free of sin. A 2 MCMAHON, Darrin M.: Happiness: A History, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, NY (USA), p. 212. 3 For the Christian vision of happiness, see MCMAHON, Darrin M.: Happiness: A History, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, NY (USA), 2006. For the vision embodied in Greek tragedies, see NUSSBAUM, Martha C.: The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (UK), 1986. 4 D’ALEMBERT, Jean Le Rond: Preliminary Discourses to the Encyclopédia of Diderot, SHWAB, Richard N. (translation and introduction), University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL (USA) and London (UK), 1995 [1751], pp. 81-83. 5 See CAREY, Daniel: Locke, Shaftesbury, and Hutcheson: Contesting Diversity in the Enlightenment and Beyond. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (UK), 2006, chapter 2. HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 6, 2015, pp. 81-101 84 LYDIA B. AMIR Calvinist by birth who never completely renounced his faith, Locke always retained a healthy understanding of the human potential for egotism and self-regard, yet rejected the idea of Calvinist sin. His theory of mind dealt a crushing blow to the view that individuals were inherently deficient, tending naturally towards corruption. And if not impeded by original sin, what as to prevent them from successfully pursuing happiness? In the chapter "Power" in Book 2 of the Essay, Locke employs the phrase "the pursuit of happiness" four times. The force that draws people near and moves them is "happiness and that alone". The "general Desire of Happiness operates constantly and invariably" upon all human beings, keeping them forever in motion6. Happiness is a sort of emotional gravity, a universal force which moves desire. Desire is "scarce distinguishable from" uneasiness––Locke's term for "all pain of the body" and "disquiet of the mind". As we are continually attracted to pleasure and continually repulsed by pain, "Happiness then in its full extent is the utmost Pleasure we are capable of, and Misery the utmost pain"7. Whereas Christian moralists had argued for centuries that pleasure was dangerous, and pain our natural lot, Locke reversed this proposition. God had designed human beings to seek pleasure and feel pain naturally, he claimed. And this was as it should be: "Pleasure in us, is what we call Good, and what is apt to produce Pain in us, we call Evil"8. Thus, "in Locke's divinely orchestrated universe, pleasure was providential. It helped lead to God"9. Locke mitigated his hedonism, however, by emphasizing that through reason, the "true candle of the Lord", human beings could be 6 LOCKE, John: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, NIDDITCH, Paul (ed.), Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1991 [1689], pp. 258, 283. 7 LOCKE, John: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, NIDDITCH, Paul (ed.), Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1991 [1689], p. 258. 8 LOCKE, John: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, NIDDITCH, Paul (ed.), Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1991 [1689], p. 259. 9 MCMAHON, Darrin M.: "Pursuing an Enlightened Gospel: From Deism to Materialism to Atheism", in FITZPATRICK, Martin, JONES, Peter, KNELLWOLF, Christa, and MCCALMAN, Ian (eds.), The Enlightenment World, Routledge, New York, NY (USA), 2004, pp. 164-176. 9 LOCKE, John: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, NIDDITCH, Paul (ed.), Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1991 [1689], p. 274. HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 6, 2015, pp. 81-101 SHAFTESBURY AS A PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHER 85 persuaded to take a long view of their happiness. Moreover, he continued to see the highest happiness as that of the world to come, unable, like many, to dispense with the Christian doctrine of ultimate rewards9.
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