Moral Self-Love, Altruism and Moral Motivation in the Works of Joseph Butler

MORAL SELF-LOVE, ALTRUISM AND MORAL MOTIVATION IN THE WORKS OF JOSEPH BUTLER

Judith Chambers

Submitted in partial fulﬁlment of the requirements of the degree Master of Arts (by Research) with coursework component and Shorter Thesis

October 2012

Philosophy Department: School of Historical and Philosophical Studies The University of Melbourne

Produced on acrchival quality paper Abstract

Is genuinely moral altruism possible? This paper claims that Butler distinguishes the issue “Why be moral?”from the issue of sceptical doubt about the possibility of genuinely virtuous altruism. It proposes that Butler’s defence of altruism rests on his unique conception of self-love. It argues that Butler uses three different types of self-love throughout his works; one as a rational principle, another as a selfish drive, and a third as an affection or moral emotion. It proposes that moral self-love, which is experienced as an unintended by-product of performing a genuinely virtuous act, can help to cultivate altruistic habits in moral agents. Thus, re-visiting Butler’s works allows us to contribute to the contemporary, empirically-informed philosophical debate on altruism. In particular, the influence of empathy on altruism is discussed. The analysis reveals that empathy is neither necessary nor sufficient for genuinely moral altruism.

This paper suggests that much of our moral conduct is motivated by psychological egoism or psychological pluralism. It outlines the diﬃculties associated with demonstrating the existence of genuinely moral altruism when using models that include existing relationships between friends, family and colleagues. It suggests that the best empirical evidence for genuinely moral altruism is action which beneﬁts strangers, such as blood donation. It argues that Butler provides a plausible account of how genuinely moral altruism is possible for moral agents. By building on Butler’s work the paper argues that the satisfaction of moral self-love can help to promote genuinely moral altruism in moral agents by strengthening the agent’s belief that she ought to obey the commands of her conscience. The paper argues that moral self-love depends on genuinely moral motivation and as such, moral self-love is distinct from simple “warm glow” feelings produced by egoistic or pluralistic motivation.

i Declaration

This is the certify that,

i) The thesis is only my original work towards the Master of Arts degree, except where indicated in the preface.

ii) Due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other materials used. iii) The thesis is (20-22,000 words in length) exclusive of bibliographies and appendices.

Signature

ii Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr Karen Jones, Dr Colin Marshall, Dr Francois Schroeter and the audience at my completion seminar for helpful discussion of the themes of this paper. I am very grateful for the wonderful support my supervisors and family have given me while writing this paper.

iii Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 An Overview of Butler’s Moral Psychology 5

3 Other Readings of Butler 12

4 My Reading of Butler 19 4.1 Part One ...... 20 4.2 Part Two ...... 29

5 Butler’s Claim About the Harmony of Virtue and Self Love 31

6 Empirical Work and Altruism 34

7 Conclusion 45

iv 1 Introduction

When people act benevolently toward others how can we account for their motivation? Three positions provide possible answers. They are Psychological Egoism, Psychologi- cal Pluralism and Psychological Altruism. Psychological Egoism is the view that holds that the ultimate goal of the individual who helps others is some form of self-benefit, so that the helping action they perform is merely an instrumental means to this benefit. Psychological Pluralism is the view that holds that the ultimate goal of the helping individual is both helping others coupled with obtaining some form of self-benefit. Neither of these positions gives a controversial account of what can motivate moral conduct. However, the notion that psychological altruism, - “a willingness to act in consideration of the interests of other persons, without the need of ulterior motives” 1 - can account for moral conduct, is contentious. Some reasons to accept that notion come from empirical research. If egoistic ulterior motives can be successfully minimized through careful experimental design then the nature of two alternative sources of motivation, empathy and an agent’s commitment to moral principles, can be examined more closely. Em- pirical research conducted by Daniel C. Batson and colleagues over the past 20 years reveals that egoistic motives to act benevolently do not fit well with the experimental data. Thus, Batson has tentatively concluded that empathic emotions such as sympathy and compassion can evoke altruism (Batson, 1991, 2011). One problem with this finding is that it makes empathy-induced altruism look rather like a simple mechanical response to the needs of others. It exposes the fact that empathy-induced altruism may lack reflective endorsement by the agent and, as such, empathy-induced altruism may violate standard moral principles like impartiality. Consequently, the question I am concerned with in this paper is whether genuinely virtuous 2 altruism can be plausibly explained. I contend that Butler gives us a plausible account of the moral psychology of genuinely virtuous altruistic agents, one that highlights the requirement of the agent’s reflective endorsement. According to Butler, when we reflect on the morally right action we have performed from morally right motivation, we experience a “unique type of satisfaction” 3 as an unintended by-product. I propose that the unique satisfaction

1Nagel, 1970, 79. Altruism is a concept without a settled deﬁnition. Some commentators think that altruism involves some cost to the altruist. In this paper, I accept Nagel’s deﬁnition of altruism and argue that personal cost to the altruist is not necessary for altruism. 2In this paper I assume that a moral agent’s commitment to core moral principles such as the principle of justice and veracity can be motivating for her. In other words, her motivation for acting altruistically can be derived from her commitment to the moral principles which she has internalized as action guiding principles by which to live her life. 3a) Butler speaks of the “unique satisfaction”I refer to here in both volumes of his works. In the Analogy he goes so far as to call it a “secret satisfaction”evident as a certain tranquillity of mind. (Vol

1 Butler describes is a moral affection that we can have toward ourselves, namely moral self-love. According to my interpretation of Butler, he suggests that we can experience moral self-love toward ourselves when our conscience approves of our moral selves and our moral conduct. At this point I go beyond my interpretation of Butler’s third form of of self-love by building on Butler’s work regarding habits of virtue found in the Analogy (Vol 1. pp.88-113) 4. I propose that the affect of moral self-love (the satisfaction of morally approving of one’s self) helps to cultivate a habit of genuinely virtuous altruism in moral agents by strengthening the belief that they ought to act on the judgement of their conscience. The idea proposed here is that moral motivation involves a relationship between agency, affect, belief and habit formation which is not dependent on an instrumentalist story. By drawing on Butler’s analysis, I argue that empathy is not necessary for altruism. Following Butler, I also argue that when empathy alone evokes altruism without the approval of conscience, a moral agent’s moral psychology is not working as it should. I submit that the appropriateness of empathy-induced altruism requires the approval of conscience, since empathy-induced altruism without reflective endorsement may sometimes be immoral. According to Butler, motivating principles of benevolence and compassion ought to be subservient to conscience and reflection in a moral agent whose moral psychology is working properly (Vol 2. p.188). Butler argues that only conscience is capable of providing an ultimate judgement for a moral agent to act on and thereby consistently regulate her moral conduct. Thus, revisiting Butler’s works allows us to contribute to the contemporary, empirically-informed philosophical debate on altruism, since the debate focuses on empathy. My claim about Butler’s account of moral motivation rests on my interpretation of the variegated meaning he gives to the term “self-love”. I argue that a careful reading of Butler’s works reveals that he proposes his own unique conception of self-love, a conception which features three different types of self-love, only two of which have been recognized and discussed by previous commentators. The basis of my claim for a third form of self-love in Butler’s moral psychology is that he sometimes refers to self-love as an affection (Vol 2. p.159,163). This third type of “self-love”, I argue, is crucial to understanding what Butler means when he claims that “self-love, though confined

1. p.67 and Vol 2. pp.167-169). b) Throughout this paper all references to Butler’s Works will be made to “The Work’s of Joseph Butler, D.C.L Sometimes Lord Bishop of Durham”in Two Volumes, Volume 1 Analogy, Volume 2 Sermons, Edited by the RIGHT HON. W. E. Gladstone, Oxford, Clarendon Press 1897 by volume and page number. 4In this chapter Buter talks of the power of habits on moral motivation. He states, “Mankind, from the very constitution of their nature, before habits of virtue, are deﬁcient, and in danger of deviating from what is right: and therefore stand in need of virtuous habits, for security against this danger” (Vol 1. p.99)

2 to the interests of the present world, does in general perfectly coincide with virtue; and lead us to one and the same course of life” (Vol 2. p.64) and is also important in his defence of genuinely moral altruism. The idea that Butler’s conception of self- love includes moral self-love has gone unnoticed by those commentators of Butler who simply characterize self-love in terms of self-interest. In the analysis of Butler’s claim about the harmony between virtue and self-love some commentators take Butler to be saying something foolish and dismiss his argument as implausible (Wedgwood, 2008). By characterizing self-love as self-interest these commentators have failed to appreciate either the distinctions Butler makes within his own unique conception of self-love or the importance he places on the role of moral self-love in moral motivation for moral agents. In the past, the role played by self-love in Butler’s moral psychology has been disputed by some scholars who claim that it has co-ordinate authority with conscience. These commentators have characterized self-love as self-interest and focussed on the two orthodox types of self-love used by Butler. By overlooking Butler’s explicit reference to self-love which, he repeatedly states, consists in “an affection to ourselves” (Vol 2. p.163), these commentators have misconstrued the argument Butler makes about the importance of conscience in moral motivation and misunderstood Butler’s claim about the harmony between self-love and virtue. According to my interpretation, Butlerian “self-love” has three different meanings. In the first meaning, Butler uses the term “self-love” in the standard way to mean “selfishness” and “self-interestedness,” in the way that he thinks Hobbes uses the term. In the second meaning, Butler modifies the standard meaning of self-love by referring to it as “reasonable” self-love (Vol 2. p.64). The addition of the qualifier “reasonable” helps Butler to expand his conception of self-love in a positive way, in contrast to the standard meaning. By referring to self-love as “reasonable” self-love, Butler reforms the narrow meaning of self-love as “selfish” into a concept with a wider more positive meaning. Thus, Butler’s particular conception of self-love preserves the selfish meaning of self-love but, in addition, includes two extra meanings. They are: “reasonable self-love,” a rational reflective principle which regulates the appetites, passions and affections, and “moral self-love,” the affection we can experience as moral agents after we have performed a benevolent act and our conscience can approve that our action was genuinely virtuous. Moral self-love is evident within Butler’s moral psychology where he argues that we are the sort of creatures that reflect upon our own nature and approve or disapprove of our own actions (Vol 2. pp.36-37). Thus, understanding Butler’s conception of self-love, as comprising moral self-love, gives us a reading of Butler’s claim about the harmony between virtue and self-love, which is plausible. More importantly, I contend that properly understanding the role played by moral self-

3 love is essential to providing a comprehensive account of moral motivation – one which can provide a plausible explanation of genuinely virtuous altruism5. According to my interpretation of Butler, the affection he refers to as self-love is a cognitively loaded moral emotion6 which produces a deep “distinctive type of satisfaction”. The satisfaction of moral self-love occurs as the unintended by-product of reflecting on a completed virtuous action under conditions where conscience can approve of our motivation, our action and the way we perform the action, as morally right. I propose that one reason moral self-love is missing from the contemporary philosophical and empirical literature on moral motivation is that moral self-love is not antecedent to moral conduct. As a result, its influence has simply gone unnoticed. Nevertheless, if the existence of moral self-love can be established empirically then this would suggest that the psychological system underpinning moral motivation is complex and that the reductive account of psychological egoism is a mistake. 7 In this paper, by building on Butler’s analysis, I argue that for moral agents the affect of moral self-love can promote genuinely moral altruism, via a process of habit formation. To begin, I will provide an overview of Butler’s moral psychology. Then, I will detail some alternative readings of Butler. Together, these readings conclude that Butler’s moral philosophy is inconsistent and that his claim about the harmony between virtue and self-love is untenable. Next, I will give my interpretation of Butler’s three types of self-love with accompanying textual support. I will argue that Butler’s claim

5In some instances of altruism, helping others involves sacrificing one’s own interests. Those who are unwilling to sacrifice their interests to benefit others are sometimes called selfish. Selfishness is generally regarded to be a morally bad thing. On the other hand selflessness is generally thought to be a morally good thing, a characteristic feature of altruism. In some religions selflessness is what exemplifies virtuous human beings. However, our approval of selflessness should only be considered appropriate, according to Jean Hampton, when the sacrifice of our interests is made from “an authentic choice and not when we allow ourselves to be pressured by society, by our religion, or by some philosopher’s conception of our moral duties to become the servants of others” (1993, p.71) Thus, one’s moral motivation must necessarily spring from what Hampton calls “self-authorship:” “To make sense of self-authorship each of us has to understand when we are genuinely engaged in self-defining, as opposed to self-denying activities” (1993 p.56). Self-authorship involves making choices you actually want. In the context of moral motivation this means that when you act altruistically, it is what you want to do because you believe it is right. Butler, like Hampton, finds that doing right involves autonomous agency. 6What makes “moral self-love” a uniquely moral emotion is that it is linked to morally motivated conduct, (that is, doing what is morally right because it is morally right) and it is only available as a by-product of this type of genuine morally motivated conduct. 7The structure of the psychology of moral motivation and the neural pathways involved in the process are complex. The idea that moral motivation is directly caused by a mental state or some desire preceding an action is a naturally intuitive one. However, it seems more likely, I think, that moral motivation, just like non-moral motivation, involves a complex indirect causal process, one that involves habit formation. The nature of its causation however does not affect my argument. I only mention it here to highlight the complexity involved in understanding how psychological altruism is possible. On the issue of thinking about the complexity of moral motivation, see Russel, J, 1984 “Desires don’t Cause Action” .

4 about the harmony between virtue and self-love, when we properly understand what he means by self-love, is defensible. I then discuss the contribution Butler can make to the contemporary work on altruism. I note that the empirical work on altruism has overlooked the distinction Butler makes between non-reﬂective empathy-induced altruism and reﬂective genuinely moral altruism. I conclude that Butler provides a plausible account of how genuinely moral altruism is possible for moral agents.

2 An Overview of Butler’s Moral Psychology

This section provides an outline of the overall framework of Butler’s hierarchical moral psychology. It describes the authority of conscience8 as the arbiter of morally right and wrong actions. It explains that the commands of conscience can be overpowered by passions, affections and appetites (Vol 2. p.58). If an agent ignores and goes against the authority of conscience and acts from the lower principles of passion, affection and appetites, then, Butler claims, she corrupts her nature (Vol 2. p.43). Acting morally from the lower principles is acceptable only when sanctioned by the approval of conscience. Butler argues that the psychological make-up of the human mind is adapted to the social circumstances in which humans live. He argues that human beings are born under a law of virtue and constituted with a reflective conscience. What this means is that human beings have an obligation to practice virtue. The obligation arises due to the natural capacity to reflect on action and characters and approve the good and disapprove the bad (Vol 1 p.326). However, living virtuously is only possible in Butler’s view if human beings accept and obey the authority of their conscience. As Stephen Darwall puts it, for Butler, “conscience is not simply part of our constitution; it is the very root of self-regulated constitutional order. Without it, the agent can draw no contrast between acting on the strongest motives and acting on the weightiest reasons” (Darwall, 1995, p.249). Butler takes as the starting point of his philosophy the idea expressed by “the ancient moralists” “that man is born to virtue”(Vol 2. p.5) . He undertakes his enquiry into human moral psychology by first “explaining what is meant by the nature of man, when it is said that virtue consists in following, and vice in deviating from it; and by explaining to show that the assertion is true” (ibid). According to Butler, human nature is an internally regulated system organised in a particular hierarchical manner. To illustrate this point Butler draws an analogy between the internal system of human

8The idea of a conscience as described by Butler may appear antiquated to some readers but it is an idea which remains alive in contemporary research. For a contemporary understanding of conscience which draws on the work done in the neurosciences see Paul Thagard and Tracy Finn (2011)

5 nature and the internal system of a watch (Vol 2. p.8). Butler suggests that neither a watch nor human nature can be understood by merely explaining how the parts work. Additionally, the parts must be understood as forming a particular system: in the watch, the relationship is between various wheels, balances and springs; and in human nature the relationship is between different dispositions of the mind. At the same time, Butler holds that the nature of the watch and the nature of man are not perfectly analogous because the watch is passive and inanimate whereas man is an agent charged with managing his constitution and is accountable for any disorder or violation of it (Vol 2. pp.7-12). The principles of action for Butler are the appetites, the affections, the passions, self-love and the principle of conscience. For Butler, conscience, reason and moral sense are the same moral faculty of reflection which approves of right actions and characters and disapproves of wrong actions. Butler claims that there is a faculty of conscience in most human beings (except “brutes” and infants9) which approves or disapproves of our actions and ourselves. He argues that “we have this moral approving and disapproving faculty, it is certain, from our experiencing it in ourselves, and from recognising it in others by observing common language and common behaviour from all over the world” (Vol 1. pp.327-328). Butler explains that conscience judges according to two key moral virtues, veracity and justice; together they form what he calls “the rule of right” and he argues that these action guiding virtues are evident in people of all cultures (Vol 1. p.338). Thus, Butler argues that the standard of morally right action is that conscience approves the action in line with the virtues of justice, veracity and charity. This makes conscience a superior principle to all others as it has the authority to allow or forbid their gratification. By “authority” Butler means moral authority. Conscience, according to Butler, is the faculty which makes man a moral agent. He states that conscience

distinguishes between the internal principles of his heart as well as external actions: which passes judgement upon himself and them; pronounces determinately some actions to be in themselves just, right, good; others to be in themselves evil, wrong unjust: which without being consulted, without being advised with, mag- isterially exerts itself and approves or condemns him the doer of them accordingly (Vol 2. p.51)

So important is conscience in Butler’s ethical system that he argues that no human creature can be said to act conformably to the constitution of his nature, unless he

9For Butler infants and “brutes” lack the capacity for reflection and this means that they are only ever motivated by the lower principles. The elderly who suffer from dementia and all those whose mental faculty of reflection is impaired due to illness would naturally fall under this category for Butler.

6 accepts that this superior principle has absolute authority and gives it its due to adjust, manage and preside over all other dispositions to act. He states: “In reality, the very constitution of our nature requires that we bring our whole conduct before this superior faculty; wait its determination; enforce upon ourselves its authority and make it the business of our lives, as it is absolutely the whole business of a moral agent, to conform ourselves to it” (Vol 2.p.12)10. What Butler means is that although the passions, appetites and affections are natural and necessary for pleasure and enjoyment, they need to be regulated and kept in check by those superior principles of action, conscience and self-love. Even though Butler sees the role of conscience as presiding over the different principles to act, he notes that its authority is not matched with the power to restrain unruly passions, appetites or affections. Thus, Butler acknowledges that conscience may be overpowered by the strength of the appetites, passions or affections. When this happens and the dictates of conscience are ignored, Butler argues that the moral agent’s mental constitution is not functioning properly, in much the same way that a watch does not function properly if its parts are not working together as they should. For Butler, an agent’s conformity or disobedience with the dictates of their conscience renders their actions natural or unnatural accordingly. What this means is that if an agent listens to her conscience and acts according to its direction then Butler regards her action to be natural; if she ignores her conscience her action is unnatural. Thus, for Butler, virtue consists in following the natural authority of conscience. For example, suppose an agent foresees the danger of damage to his reputation from some possible action and that even though conscience disapproves of performing the action the agent acts rashly and performs the action to gratify a strong desire. In that case, Butler would regard the action as unnatural because it goes against the superintendent principle of conscience. In fact, Butler holds that it is “unnatural for men to act without regard to that particular kind of reflection which you call conscience” (Vol 2. p.47). Thus, Butler grounds the obligation to be moral in human nature, or, more precisely, in the human faculty of conscience. For Butler, the power of conscience as a moral guide is strengthened by the exercise of virtuous habits (Vol 2. pp.100-103) From the way that Butler sets up his moral psychology we can see that he regards conscience as necessary for regulating the various parts of man’s constitution and conduct. In addition, Butler’s moral psychology asserts the existence of benevolence

10As Jean Hampton points out, “Someone who cannot understand the authority of morality cannot be expected to conform her actions in accordance with it when the moral dictates oppose her desires. We might say that attributing to someone the knowledge of morality’s authority is the same as attributing to him a conscience” . Hampton notes that Susan Wolf makes the same point in “The Moral and Legal Responsibility of Organizations” (Hampton 2007, p.94)

7 as a fundamental inclination in the nature of man. On this issue, Butler aims to reply to thinkers such as Hobbes who denies the existence of “disinterested” acts which are motivated by a goal to benefit another for their own sake (Vol 2. p.19). Hobbes and the Epicureans claim, according to Butler, that all actions are ultimately undertaken for the interest of the agent performing them. That is, all human action is motivated by self-interest. Butler rejects this claim of Hobbes and the Epicureans. For Butler, the sources of human motivation are complex and varied. Butler claims that while some actions aim at the private good of an individual other actions aim at the good of others. For example, acts of benevolence or compassion aim at the good for particular others or the communities in which others live. Nevertheless, for the Epicureans, the motivation behind any action is always the pursuit of one’s own pleasure; for Hobbes, the motivation is always the love of power and the delight in exercising it (Vol 2. pp.31-35). Butler finds that the psychological egoism suggested by Hobbes and the Epicureans can only provide a limited account of man’s psychological make-up. He denies that all motivation to act can be reduced to one source of motivation which is ‘selfish’ and ‘interested’ because he thinks compassion, or what we now call empathy, constitutes an inherent part of man’s psychological nature (Vol 2. p.33). Explicit in Butler’s view is his rejection of a reductive account of moral motivation. He fair-mindedly admits that “no one can act but from a desire, or choice or preference of his own” but he argues that this does not mean that the choice is motivated by our (self) ‘interest’. To see this we only need to think of a case where the gratification of some unruly passion is motivated by a desire which contradicts our real interest and leads to our ruin (Vol 2. pp.18-20). In addition, Butler gives a full account of his objection to Hobbes’ psychological egoism and notes that:

Everybody makes a distinction between self-love and the several particular passions, appetites and affections; and yet they are confounded again. That they are totally different will be seen by anyone who will distinguish between the passions and appetites themselves, and endeavouring after the means of their gratification (Vol 2. p.33)

What Butler points out here is that our passions, appetites and affections are desires for particular external objects and our motivation for the gratification of these objects rest in obtaining the external objects and not in our self-interest. Thus, judging according to the principle of rational self-love that gratifying some particular passions, appetites or affections is prudent will produce a separate motivational influence to the influence of the strength of the passion, appetite or affection. We also know, from what Butler has previously said, that our particular passions, appetites and affections may

8 be gratified in opposition to the principle of rational self-love. What I interpret Butler to be saying is that rational self-love is equivalent to prudence (textual evidence for this view can be found in Butler’s dissertation “The Nature of Virtue” ) (Vol 1. p.332). Yet Butler does not think rational self-love can be the only motivational influence in man because there are the passions, appetites and affections whose motivational influence often runs counter to the influence of rational self-love. Butler rejects psychological egoism for two main reasons. The first is that we often act against our self-interest when we pursue the gratification of some passion which we know will lead us to experience pain or misery. The second reason is that Butler observes a tendency of good-will or benevolence in men toward each other. This tendency Butler claims is:

a mere question of fact or natural history, not provable immediately by reason. It is therefore to be judged of and determined in the same way other facts or matters of natural history are: by appealing to the external senses, or inward perceptions respectively, as the matter under consideration is cognizable by one or the other... Now that there is some degree of benevolence and good-will amongst men, may be as strongly and plainly proved in all these ways, as it could possibly be proved, supposing there was this aﬀection in our nature (Vol 2. p.32)

In this passage Butler appeals to his reader to consider their own experiences of good-will and benevolence towards others to establish his point that humans have a natural disposition to benevolence. He then claims that

If there be in mankind any disposition to friendship; if there be any such thing as compassion, for compassion is momentary love; if there be any affection such as the paternal or filial affections; if there be any affection in human nature, the object and end of which is the good of another; this is itself benevolence, or the love of another (Vol 2. p.33)

To this Butler adds that good-will and benevolence may exist in some people in a very low degree. All this means, he says, is that; “There is, it is owned, much left for us to do upon our own heart and temper; to cultivate, to improve, to call it forth, to exercise it in a steady and uniform manner” ( Vol 2. p.33). In order to develop our natural disposition to good-will and benevolence, Butler thinks, we need to reﬂect upon our own moral character and behaviour with respect to our rules of conduct and our degree of moral discipline so that we may improve our moral selves (Vol 2. pp.144-147). By regularly surveying our moral character Butler

9 thinks we can better come to “know thy self” and precisely where our weakness for self-partiality lies. Each person must do this independently, for that weakness will be diﬀerent for diﬀerent people. For Butler, self-partiality or overfondness of our self needs to be kept in check because when it becomes joined with a hardness of heart with respect to others, it will carry a man to any length of wickedness and self-deception without him having any real sense at all of it (ibid 148)11. Thus, Butler acknowledges that human beings have the capacity to do both good and evil to themselves and others. For Butler, self-deception, joined with hardness of heart, may lead men to commit acts of wickedness such as murder, and theft. Butler refers to these unlawful acts of wickedness, but he adds that self-deception may also lead to lawful but unsavoury acts of wickedness. For example, Butler mentions that:

There are many instances of the ambitious, the revengeful, the covetous and those whom with too great indulgence we only call the men of pleasure, who will not allow themselves to think how guilty they are, who explain and argue away their guilt to themselves... It is as easy to close the eyes of the mind as those of the body: and the former is more frequently done with wilfulness... (Vol 2. p.151)

Butler is a philosopher who is concerned with developing a theory of moral psychology but also with offering practical moral guidance. Accordingly, he recommends that in order to avoid being misled by a tendency toward self-partiality, which he thinks we are all influenced by in some degree; we first need to be aware of it and then adopt a particular rule for thinking and judging about moral right and wrong. Doing this requires a fairness of mind and honesty of heart (ibid p.155). The rule, he says, consists of two parts.

One is to substitute another for yourself when you take 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 behaviour, or toward 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 (Vol. 2. p.154)

11In Butler’s analysis of human psychology he argues that self-deception which can come about by over-fondness of our self or self-partiality is the greatest threat to the morality of both the self- deceived individual and others who make up the communities in which they live. Butler cautions that “If people will be wicked, they had better of the two be so from the common vicious passions without such reﬁnement, than from this deep and calm source of delusion; which undermines the whole principle of good; darkens that candle of the Lord within, which is to direct our steps; and corrupts conscience which is the guide to life” (Vol 2. p.155)

10 Butler’s emphasis on the recognition of a feeling or sensation which is experienced by the individual who perceives what it would be like to be in another person’s circum- stance, in order to be able to determine what course of action to take, is an important point and it re-surfaces again in his writing on compassion. When Butler writes about compassion he argues that every man is to be considered in two capacities: the private and the public. This is because, of all the principles or affections of action in our nature, some belong to promoting our private good while others belong to promoting the social or public good in the communities in which we live. The affection called compassion, Butler thinks, is a feeling or sensation which we can experience and which can urge us to promote the good of others. That is, when we perceive or sense someone in distress, compassion, when joined with reason, prompts us to assist them. In Sermon Five we find Butler arguing strongly for the importance of the role played by the affections, and in particular compassion in the case of moral motivation. He argues that we are social creatures who depend on each other and that natural affections such as compassion alert us to the needs of others. He does not think that passions and affections perpetually mislead us (Vol 2.p.83). In fact, he explicitly rejects the idea that we should try to rid ourselves of affections and assist the needy from a sense of “reason and duty alone”. Butler thinks that reason and duty alone may be sufficient motives in a perfect being such as God, but he thinks that human beings are limited in what they can focus their attention on at any one time and therefore they sometimes need to be alerted by their emotions about the needs of others. On this point Butler states that:

With respect to creatures such as us it would be as bad to eradicate all natural affections, as it would be to be entirely governed by them. This would almost sink us to the level of brutes; and that would leave us without sufficient principles of action. Reason alone, whatever anyone may wish, is not in reality a sufficient motive of virtue in such a creature as man; but this reason joined with those affections which God has impressed upon the heart: and when these are allowed scope to exercise themselves, but under strict government and direction of reason; then we act suitably to our nature and to the circumstances God has placed us in (Vol 2. p.83)

From this overview of Butler’s moral psychology we can see that genuinely virtuous conduct involves the inﬂuence of conscience, reason, aﬀect and habit. So far I have provided a description of the overall schematic framework and hierarchical order of Butler’s moral psychology. I have also outlined Butler’s views about the importance of the authority of conscience in regulating the conduct of autonomous

11 moral agents. I will now discuss some other interpretations of Butler’s work with regards to the role played by self-love and conscience.

3 Other Readings of Butler

In this section I discuss how Butler’s moral philosophy is interpreted differently by various philosophers. Some commentators argue that Butler grounds the obligation to be moral in the Aristotelian idea of individual flourishing. For example, Henry Sidgwick and H.A Prichard interpret Butler as an ethical eudaemonist. Ralph Wedgwood argues against this interpretation. Alternatively, Butler is interpreted as a “consistent ethical egoistic” by Nicholas Sturgeon (1976) who argues against the superiority of conscience in Butler’s works. Stephen Darwall argues that the deliberative authority of conscience is fundamental to Butler’s moral psychology and that Butler’s argument about conscience’s deliberative authority is a version of autonomist internalism (2000)12. With reference to Butler’s claim about the harmony between self-love and virtue, C.D Broad simply regards this claim as an inconsistency in Butler’s remarks and interprets Butler generally as an ethical intuitionist. One aim of Butler’s project is to defend the inherent virtuous nature of man and thereby provide an answer to the question “Why be moral?” Another aim of Butler’s project is a defence of genuine virtuous action against sceptical doubts about altruistic moral motivation. Butler’s defence comprises a reply to the challenges made about the possibility of pure moral motivation by thinkers such as La Rochefoucauld,13 Hobbes14 and Mandeville.15 Mandeville for instance, maintains that true virtue depends on pure moral motivation and that because we can usually discover some level of self-interest in the antecedents of seemingly virtuous action, it is reasonable to doubt the possibility of pure moral motivation. Butler agrees that selfishness and pleasure prompt much of human conduct, including some benevolent action. He also agrees that genuine virtuous action requires pure moral motivation and he argues that pure moral motivation is possible for the moral agent who cultivates virtuous action through moral discipline

12Darwall states that: “Autonomist internalism is the idea that the normative must be located within the will. A free rational agent can only be bound by constraints eminating from her will. Norms and justification cannot stand independent of the will. Their normativity derives from self-imposition in the activity of autonomous living. Autonomist internalists take it that there is a form of practical thinking which makes autonomy possible, and that unqualified justification derives from motivation arising when this form of thinking is properly engaged” Darwall 1990. For example, if one holds that it it is morally right to donate blood then one is internally motivated to do so. 13La Rochefoucauld, 1993, pp.42-45 14Hobbes, 1651, Leviathan X1 (2) 15Mandeville 1969, p.271

12 and improvement (Vol 1. pp.88-114). Butler argues that genuine virtuous action is possible for those individuals who want to live virtuously and contribute to the public good. He thinks the natural human tendency toward altruism can be strengthened by moral discipline. The key to understanding Butler’s moral philosophy is his claim that virtuous conduct is a natural feature of the human psyche. Butler’s basis for this claim is that the psychological make-up of man answers to the external conditions of society where he lives. Butler argues that we are social creatures who have the capacity to live together in peace and that we are endowed with the faculty of conscience, rationality and emotions which allows us to do so. Thus, Butler’s reply to the question “why be moral?” is straightforward. It is because human beings are psychologically constituted to practice virtue. Butler thinks peace and order are necessary to good and proper political government and he thinks peace and order are needed for the proper functioning of the human mind. He argues that a certain peace of mind is generally attached to morally right conduct whereas a state of mental unease often accompanies morally wrong conduct. In particular, he argues that when conscience approves of one’s moral conduct and character, a unique type of satisfaction is experienced which brings with it a tranquillity of mind. Butler’s target in arguing for this claim is probably Hobbes who states that, “there is no such thing as perpetual tranquillity of mind while we live, because life itself is but motion, and can never be without desire nor fear, no more than without sense” (Hobbes, 1651, VI[58]). Hobbes also states that, “the felicity of this life consisteth not in repose of a mind satisfied. For there is no such Finis Ultimus (utmost aim) nor Summum Bonum (greatest good) as is spoken of in the books of the old moral philosophers” (Hobbes, 1651, XI[1]). As I understand it, the issue of an ultimate good is central to Butler’s moral philosophy. In arguing for a tranquillity of mind as man’s greatest good, I think that Butler is challenging eudaemonism as the highest justification for moral conduct and the moral way of life. Eudaemonism is the view, rooted in the philosophy of some of the ancient moralists, who held that “happiness is the ultimate justification for morality” 16 . For eudaemonist philosophers there is but one single principle of practical reason. In contrast with the ancient moralists, Butler rejects the idea that happiness is the ultimate justification for morality and he asserts that there are actually two principles of practical reason. For Butler, conscience and rational self-love are two distinct principles governing the practical reason of human actions. As Sidgwick points out:

16This deﬁnition of eudaemonism comes from “The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy” Second edition, 1999

13 Butler’s statement of the duality of the regulative principles in human nature constitutes an important step in ethical speculation.....But in Platonism and Sto- icism, and Greek philosophy generally, one regulative and governing faculty is recognized under the name of reason, however, the regulation of reason may be understood in the modern ethical view when it has worked itself clear and there are found to be two, universal reason or egoistic reason or conscience and self- love....Here for the ﬁrst time we ﬁnd “moral good” and “natural good” or “happiness” treated separately as two essentially distinct objects of rational pursuit and investigation.17

In this quote Sidgwick correctly identiﬁes Butler’s duality of practical reason as involving both conscience and self-love, in line with Butler’s explicit statement that: “Conduciveness to happiness and misery apparently (are) not appointed as our sole standard of judgement” (Vol 2. pp.190-191). However, Sidgwick mistakes this duality of practical reason as a dualism, by interpreting Butler to mean that conscience and rational self-love are both equally ultimate principles of moral action. Of course, the importance of self-love cannot be separated from the importance of conscience in Butler’s moral psychology. Yet, the exact nature of the relationship between conscience and self-love is controversial in the literature on Butler. Various commentators hold diametrically opposed views about how Butler conceives their relationship. For example, the supreme authority of conscience in Butler’s moral psychology is denied by J. H. Muirhead, Sidgwick and Prichard who regard self-love as “co-ordinate in authority.” 18 In addition, Thomas McPherson (1948) argues that conscience and self-love are for practical purposes the same thing. Alternatively, J. Kleinig (1969) and Alan White (1952) both argue against McPherson’s view. One particular passage in Butler, referred to as “the cool hour” passage, is the main source of dispute between these thinkers. To understand why, let us turn to the ‘cool hour’ passage. Here Butler states:

Let it be allowed, though virtue and moral rectitude does indeed consist in aﬀec- tion to and pursuit of what is right and good, as such; yet when we sit down in a cool hour, we can neither justify to ourselves this or any other pursuit, till we are convinced it will be for our happiness, or at least not contrary to it (Vol 2. p.173)

McPherson interprets this passage to mean that Butler is suggesting:

17Sidgwick, 1892, 197f. 18For elaboration on the views of these thinkers see Kleinig (1969, pp.339-400).

14 That it is the happiness-producing character of acts that makes them right. That is, the ground or criterion of the rightness of an act is its feliciﬁc quality for the agent. Butler does not identify “right” with the production of happiness, but he does maintain that all right acts are also acts productive of happiness for the agent. The test of whether an act is right or not, is whether or not it is productive of happiness for the agent. (McPherson, 1948, p.327)

I do not think that McPherson’s view is correct because of what Butler says in the footnote attached to this passage. Butler states:

Doubtless this is true, (that we can only “justify” performing the act until we are sure that it is not contrary to our happiness) when once we have been challenged and put upon our defence. But it need not be held to imply that the pursuit of ‘right and good’, of the noble and the true, requires to be waited upon, and as it were certiﬁed by the continual presence and active consciousness of the idea that it will conduce to our personal happiness: which would tend to bring down the pursuit itself from a higher to a lower plane (Vol 2. pp.173-174)

The crux of Butler’s point is that the criterion by which we judge virtuous action is separate from the justification we use to assess whether to perform the action. We judge both that an action is morally right to perform and we also judge whether performing the action will subtract from our happiness. The principles of justice may be the criterion for judging action. The effect of the action on our happiness is the measure by which we assess whether we can justify performing the action. Butler thinks we can only justify performing the action to ourselves if it is not contrary to our happiness. So the action need not be happiness-producing, it only needs to avoid generating unhappiness. John Kleinig also rejects McPherson’s interpretation and presents three grounds for disagreeing with it.19 The first is Butler’s emphasis at the start of the ‘cool hour’ passage, that virtue is concerned with judging what is right, which implies that what is right is independent of any influence other than conscience. However, acting upon a morally right judgement is a different matter entirely. Butler claims that we are only motivated to act upon our moral judgment if we also judge that the action will not be contrary to our happiness. Secondly, it is not only the pursuit of virtuous actions which requires judgement that the action not be detrimental to us but also non-moral actions as well. In this sense the judgment to act on a morally right judgement is really a check on the rationality of the prescribed action. Thirdly, what renders McPherson’s interpretation more improbable is Butler’s qualification at the end of the passage, which I have already noted.

19Kleinig, 1969, pp.406-407

15 According to Kleinig, Butler is not saying that an action is only right if it is con- ducive to our happiness. Rather, Kleinig thinks that Butler means that when we reflect on the actions we plan to carry out we can only endorse the action if we believe it will not be detrimental to our happiness. Thus, Kleinig suggests that Butler distinguishes the question of right and wrong from the question of whether or not to perform a given action. Thus, Butler stresses that it is one thing to decide what would be the right thing to do; it is another to decide to perform the action. The crux of the dispute over the arbiter of virtuous action turns on the question of whether conscience has supreme authority over our actions in Butler’s moral psychology. I believe it does. Several objections to the contrary can be noted. For instance, McPherson objects that “nowhere in the Sermons does Butler speak of conscience as a superior principle to self-love” and that “conscience and reasonable self-love are for all practical purposes, the same thing” .20 Sidgwick also does not accept that Butler argues for the supreme authority of conscience. He states that “Butler’s real view is not...that self-love is naturally subordinate to conscience, at least if we consider the the- oretical 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”. 21 However, Sidgwick’s interpretation seems flawed to me because it does not seem to take into account that Butler considered one type of self-love as selfish and another as a rational principle. Both selfish self-love and rational self-love may conflict with the moral dictates of conscience and thus be overruled by conscience according to Butler’s moral psychology. This makes it difficult to see how self-love and conscience could be co-ordinate in authority. So, perhaps Sidgwick simply misinterprets Butler’s view of how the structure of the internal constitution of the principles of action ought to be ordered when an agent acts according to her nature. Thus, Butler speaks of the relationship between the strength of the passions compared to the authority of the rational principle of self-love in regulating them, and he argues that the rational self-love has authority over the lower appetites, passions and affections but rational self-love does not have authority over conscience. In fact, Butler explicitly claims that:

If we act conformably to the economy of man’s nature, reasonable self-love must govern. Thus, without the particular consideration of conscience, [my italics] we may have a clear conception of the superior nature of one inward principle to another; and see that there really is this natural superiority, quite distinct from degrees of strength and prevalence (Vol 2. pp.53-54)

Notice that in this passage Butler sets conscience apart when he adds the caveat 20McPherson, 1948, 326-328 21Sidgwick 1931, 196

16 “without particular consideration of conscience” . He does this because he is yet to give a detailed account of the position conscience has within the framework of his moral psychology. However, what Butler says just two passages later makes it clear that conscience has authority over self-love. Butler states:

Conscience de jure claims universal rule, if we follow the law of our nature...... from its very nature conscience manifestly claims superiority over all others: in so much that you cannot form a notion of this faculty, conscience without taking in judgement, direction, and superintendency. This is a constituent part of the idea, that is, of the faculty itself: and to preside and govern, from the very economy and constitution of man belongs to it. Had it strength, as it has right; had it power as it has manifest authority; it would absolutely govern the world (Vol 2. p.55)

According to my reading, the passage just quoted establishes without doubt that Butler views conscience as a principle superior to self-love. Wedgwood also interprets Butler this way. As Wedgwood understands Butler, “self-love has greater authority than the particular passions, and conscience has greater authority than self-love, even if the particular passions or self-love have greater motivational strength” 22. Wedgwood also identifies and argues convincingly that Butler rejects eudamonism as the basis for why human beings have an obligation to practice virtue and follow a virtuous way of life23. I agree with Wedgwood on this point. Rather than eudamonism, Butler grounds the justification of our obligation to practice virtue in our human nature and the social conditions in which we live. What he means by this is that humans are social beings, who depend on one another in numerous ways. Butler thinks that the affections we feel toward each other such as love, compassion and empathy are evidence that our emotional natures when tempered by reason direct us to practice virtue. Butler thinks that if we completely ignore our emotions then we can act in ways that are unnatural. Thus, Butler argues that our natural psychological make-up shows that we have reflection and emotions and that these faculties indicate that we are adapted to a moral way of life. When we acknowledge the authority of our conscience and force ourselves to obey it, we can successfully regulate our conduct and live according to our nature. By placing the justification to obey the authority of conscience in the functionally correct internal order of human nature, Butler highlights the importance of morality in human life. At the very beginning of the preface Butler asks, “What is the rule of life?” In other words, what principle of action should I use to govern my conduct? He goes

22Wedgwood, 2008 23See Ibid, 189-192

17 on to argue that only conscience judges right and wrong and that human beings are designed to be governed by its directives and we only function properly, according to our nature, when we follow its rule. Butler provides a convincing argument in support of the claim that moral reasons have authority over other reasons. This does not mean that we will always act on moral reasons. Even when one is committed to the belief that moral reasons have priority over other reasons, this commitment may not be sufficient to impel moral action24. Sometimes, we may simply fail to act morally even when we know we should, for example, in pressure situations or emergencies. On Butler’s view this is because the strength of the passions, appetites and affections can sometimes force a moral agent to act, from instinct, without reflection. Butler acknowledges the difficulty this creates for regulating moral conduct and he emphasizes the need for moral agents to practice virtue so that their moral perceptions and actions can become a well honed habit. In addition, he argues that we must “enforce upon ourselves its (conscience) authority, and make it the business of our lives, as it is the whole business of a moral agent to conform ourselves to it” (Vol 2. p.12). But why, one might ask, should we do this? Butler argues that we have an “obligation to the practice of virtue; an obligation implied in the very idea of virtue, in the very idea of reflex approbation” (Vol 2. p.14). “The internal constitution of man, compared with his external condition....leads to what our duty is respecting that condition, and furnishes us with the most powerful arguments to the practice of it” (Vol 1. p.20). Thus, Butler argues that our moral obligation to practice virtue is derived from our natural psychological make-up which he thinks is adapted to the circumstances in which we live together with one another. Psychological balance or equilibrium is only possible on Butler’s view when an agent obeys her conscience. Thus, violating one’s obligation to practice virtue, Butler thinks, is unnatural because it disrupts the proper constitutional order of the mind. In fact, Butler says that just like when disease of the body decreases our appetite and want of food; if an agent lacks the natural benevolent affection toward others then there is something “amiss in their moral character, in that which is the health of the mind” (Vol 2. p.88). Thus, the health of the human mind is central to why Butler thinks we have an obligation to practice virtue. Nevertheless, Wedgwood states that it is not clear to him that Butler is “trying to give an explanation of why we have an obligation to the practice of virtue.” 25 But I

24An agent’s commitment to moral principles according to Paul Taylor “can be called extrarational, beyond reason, neither rational nor irrational” ....but instead a matter of choice. “But reason alone cannot tell us what choice to make. It is up to us to answer, each in his own way, that haunting question, Who am I? This is the way we deﬁne our nature” (Taylor, P.W., 1993, 66-81). Butler, I believe agrees with Taylor in that we must each choose whether to be a moral agent (Vol 2. pp.182-183) 25Wedgwood, 2008, p.182

18 think it is clear from the text that Butler does want to provide a reason why we have an obligation to practice virtue. In fact, he explicitly addresses this question to “a sceptic not convinced of the happy tendency of virtue, (a tendency espoused by Lord Shaftesbury)” (Vol 2. p.13). Butler takes up the question ‘why be moral’ because he intends to argue against deriving the obligation to be moral from Eudemonism. Butler’s own view and the one that he argues for, is that our obligation to be moral is embedded in our human nature. The obligation can be derived from the constitution and structure of human nature as reﬂective, emotional, and rational.

4 My Reading of Butler

According to my reading of Butler, “moral” self-love plays an important role in his account of moral motivation. I contend that for Butler, the moral emotion of self-love produces a special type of satisfaction when we morally approve of ourselves and our moral conduct. This satisfaction Butler talks of when he states that “the greatest satisfaction to ourselves depends on having benevolence in a due degree and that self- love is one chief security of our right behaviour towards society”(Vol 2. p.33). Thus, the emotion of moral self-love is not produced by the morally good consequences one’s conduct brings about. Pride, self-esteem and a “warm glow” are examples of non- moral emotions which can be produced by performing actions which produce morally good consequences. But one can have these emotions by reﬂecting on actions that are motivated by psychological egoism or psychological pluralism and, as such, do not constitute genuine virtuous action on Butler’s view. Since it requires genuinely virtuous action, moral self-love is not available when an agent’s motivation is egoistically tainted. Rather, moral self-love is only available from reﬂecting on our completed moral conduct, where conscience approves our motivation, our action and the way we performed the action. It is accompanied by a moral agent’s critical endorsement of her own conduct. I submit that when Butler states that “religion does not disown self-love, but appeals to it” it is ‘moral’ self-love that he has in mind (Vol 2. p.173). Philosophers who have not noticed the broad meaning Butler gives to the term “self-love” or who have read him selectively have missed the very important contribution he makes to the debate about altruism and moral motivation. On my reading of Butler, self-love means more than self-interest. Reasons for thinking that Butler means something more than self-interest when he refers to self-love are derived directly from the text. For example, Butler does not claim that there is a general harmony between self-interest and virtue. Rather he claims that there is a general harmony between self-love and virtue (Vol 2. p.64). As it is easy to see how self-interest and virtue

19 can conﬂict, we can assume that Butler does not intend to make such an obviously erroneous claim. Therefore, as my reading suggests, Butler does not mean self-interest when he uses the term “self-love” here. Rather, he means “moral” self-love, when he claims that there is a general harmony between self-love and virtue. I will discuss the matter of this controversial claim more fully in the next section of this paper. According to my interpretation of Butler, when we verify that our motivation to act was moral motivation we can experience the deep satisfaction of moral self-love. I contend that the tranquillity of mind connected with moral self-love indirectly helps to cultivate genuinely virtuous altruism via a process of habit formation in moral agents. In what follows, I argue that Butler sometimes means “moral” self-love when he uses the term “self-love” in his works. In part one I explain why I think Butler uses three types of “self-love.” In part two I discuss the inﬂuence of moral self-love on virtuous habit formation in the moral agent.

4.1 Part One

Within Butler’s moral psychology he seeks to reform the concept of self-love by building into it two additional features which result in giving it a much broader meaning than mere selfishness. Butler’s particular conception of self-love leads him to invoke the term self-love throughout his works in different ways. The different ways Butler uses self- love has “thrown interpreters into hopeless confusion, and led them to diverge widely in points of criticism” (Norton, 1940, p.63). I propose that passages in the preface to the Sermons provide evidence for thinking that Butler is not an inconsistent writer but rather that he uses the term “self-love” in different ways throughout his works. In the preface he highlights that his arguments will be difficult to follow if his reader is not adequately “acquainted with what has been said on the subject of morals by both the ancient and modern writers and what is the present state of opinion in the world concerning the subject” (Vol 2. p.4). It is the modern writers Butler probably has most in mind here. Thus, Butler makes this point early in his works to indicate to his reader that he wants to make changes to the standard meaning of “self-love” as “selfish” and “interested” by doing away with these words (Vol 2. p.19). But he cannot do away with them completely because he needs them in order to make an intelligible reply to Hobbes and Mandaville. So he does use the term “self-love” in one way to mean “selfish” and “interested.” Now the state of opinion of morals in 1725 to which Butler refers to is very likely the negative view of morals which had recently been espoused by Bernard Mandeville and which had caused public outrage. Consequently, Butler’s argument for the existence of a naturally occurring benevolent tendency in human beings amounts

20 to a defence of man’s virtuous nature in reply to Hobbes and Mandeville who argued against existence of a virtuous nature. Mandeville’s publication of the “Fable of the Bees” in 1723 caused widespread offense by challenging virtue and morality with claims that human nature is completely selfish and that vice is the only stimulant to public benefit. Butler addresses his objections to these claims and in doing so he uses the term “self-love” to mean “selfishness” and “interested.” Butler states that:

There is a strange affection in many people of explaining away all particular affections and representing the whole of life as nothing but one continued exercise of self-love. Hence arises that surprising confusion and perplexity in the Epicureans of old, Hobbes, the author of Reflections, Sentences, et Maximes Morales, and this whole set of writers; the confusion of calling actions interested which are done in contradiction to the most manifest know interest, merely for the gratification of a present passion (Vol 2. pp.18-19)

Butler rejects the claim of egoists who hold that all motivation is resolvable to a selfish, self-interested type of self-love and he argues that the claim is mistaken. He argues that there is a difference between actions motivated by “cool selfishness” and those actions motivated by the “sensual selfishness” of a passion, appetite or affection and Butler thinks only the first is really “selfish” and the actions proceeding from it “interested” (ibid p.18). As discussed above, Butler argues that the source of all motivation cannot possibly be self-love construed as selfish and self-interested because he thinks that our instincts sometimes motivate us and that when they do they are not always concerned with our self-interest. In cases where the motivation to act comes from powerful appetites, passions and affections which lead to our ruin or downfall, Butler rejects the idea that self-love construed as selfish self-interest can be the motivation. In this argument Butler uses the term ‘self-love’ in the same way he thinks Mandeville and Hobbes use it so that he can provide an intelligible reply to them. This argument supports Butler’s view that human nature is not completely selfish and opens up the possibility that human beings have the capacity to be motivated to act sincerely for the good of others. In Butler’s moral psychology self-love is not solely represented as a selfish, egoistic part of the constitution of man. Throughout the Sermons, Butler makes a distinction between self-love and ‘reasonable’ self-love to impress upon his reader that he means something quite different by the word self-love than Hobbes or Mandeville. In fact, in the preface to the Fifteen Sermons Preached at Rolls Chapel 1725, Butler cautions his readers to pay special attention to his writing so that they may fully appreciate the correct meaning he puts on his words. He writes:

21 Now morals, considered as a science ..... plainly require a very particular attention. For here ideas never are in themselves determinate, but become so by the train of reasoning and the place they stand in; since it is impossible that words can always stand for the same ideas, even in the same author, much less in diﬀer- ent ones. Hence an argument may not readily be apprehended, which is diﬀerent from its being mistaken; and even caution to avoid being mistaken may in some cases render it less readily apprehended (Vol 2. p.3)

In this passage Butler is alerting his reader to the fact that he is going to use some words in his discourses in a different sense to the way in which other authors do. Interestingly, Butler recognises how difficult his arguments will be to follow if his caution is not heeded; and he points out in the passage quoted that his arguments may fail to be apprehended if the correct meaning of his words is not applied to his arguments. With these cautionary words in place he then proceeds to develop his own conception of self-love as a rational principle and as a particular affection we can have toward ourselves. When Butler speaks of self-love as a rational principle he generally does so with the qualifier “reasonable” put before it. He states that:

Reasonable self-love and conscience are the chief and superior principles in the nature of man: because an action may be suitable to this nature, though all other principles be violated; but become unsuitable if either of those are. Conscience and self-love, if we understand our true happiness, always lead us the same way (Vol 2. pp.64-65)

In this quote we see how “reasonable” self-love is broadened and elevated from a brute-like selﬁsh, egoistic drive to a rational principle. Butler observes that the principle of reasonable self-love on the whole is not exercised suﬃciently amongst men. He states:

The thing to be lamented is not that men have so great a regard to their own good in the present world, for they have not enough; but they have so little regard to the good of others. And this seems plainly owing to their being so much engaged in the gratiﬁcation of particular passions unfriendly to benevolence, and which happen to be the most prevalent in them, much more than self-love (Vol 2. p.22)

Clearly, Butler is not advocating selﬁsh self-love or self-interest in this passage, but instead self-love understood as a rational guiding principle of action. Butler again mentions that self-love is a rational principle when he states:

Upon the whole, if the generality of mankind were to cultivate within themselves the principle of self-love; if they were to accustom themselves often to set down

22 and consider what was the greatest happiness they were capable of attaining for themselves in this life, and if self-love were so strong and prevalent, as that they would uniformly pursue this, their supposed chief temporal good, without being diverted from it by any particular passion; it would manifestly prevent numberless follies and vices. This was in a great measure the Epicurean system of philosophy. It is indeed by no means the religious or even moral institution of life. Yet, with all the mistakes men would fall into about interest, it would be less mischievous than the extravagances of mere appetite, will, and pleasure: for certainly self-love, though conﬁned to the interest of this life, is of the two, a much better guide than passion, which has absolutely no bound nor measure, but what is set to it by this self-love, or moral considerations (Vol 2. p.23)

In this passage Butler uses what I am referring to as the second type of self-love as a rational guiding principle. He points out that self-love can operate as a practical rational guide. It can maintain wellbeing by regulating the appetites, passions and aﬀections. It is therefore a prudent guide to our own self-interest in terms of yielding a course of life which aims at steady self-preservation for the individual. However, Butler emphasises that self-love conceived as a rational guiding principle for life, is not a rightful guide to a moral or religious course of life. Butler’s point is that ‘interested’ or ‘disinterested’ are not the criteria of good or evil because good and evil are terms which belong to the content of morals. Morals are concerned with a moral course of life as distinct from a life where self-preservation is the guiding principle. He states that: “we may judge and determine that an action is morally good or evil before we so much as consider whether it be interested or disinterested. This consideration no more comes in to determine whether an action be virtuous, than to determine whether it be resentful” (Vol 2. p.22). Here we can see how Butler pulls apart what is morally right or wrong to do from what an individual may consider to be in her/his self-interest. In fact, Butler reinforces this point when he says that the consideration of whether an action is ‘interested’ or ‘disinterested’ does not come into determining whether an action is virtuous. This is a particularly important point because Butler is saying that self-interest has no bearing on what constitutes virtuous action. Butler is just as damning about ‘disinterestedness’ as he is about ‘interested’ as a criterion for determining whether an action is virtuous. If we think of the concept of disinterestedness in terms of the motivation behind benevolence, altruism/other-regarding good, we see that Butler argues that disinterestedness does not determine whether an action is virtuous. He points out that sometimes disinterestedness is not even commendable, stating that: “Benevolence towards particular persons may be to a degree of weakness, and so be blameable: and

23 disinterestedness is so far from being in itself commendable that the utmost possible depravity which we can in imagination conceive, is that of disinterested cruelty” (Vol 2. p.22). What Butler highlights here, is that sometimes when we act sincerely for the good of others we may not be pursuing virtue as an end in itself but rather some benefit or good for another to whom we are partial. In circumstances like these, where virtue is not pursued as an end in it itself, our accompanying benevolence toward others is, he thinks, far from being commendable. Pursuing virtue as an end in itself involves doing what is right because it is right and not because it is a means to some particular end. For example, acting from justice, because it is morally right to treat people fairly, amounts to pursuing virtue as an end in itself. Alternatively, acting justly by treating people fairly as a means to an end such as maintaining social stability, does not count as pursuing virtue as an end in itself. The implication of this point is that acting sincerely for the good of others does not necessarily amount to pursuing virtuous action as an end in itself. The two may coincide but they may also be pulled apart. They may be pulled apart, for example, if one’s ultimate goal when pusuing justice is to benefit another person or group, not because one is pursuing justice as an end in itself but rather because one is partial to their particular plight. The upshot of Butler’s analysis is his view that: “virtue is to be pursued as an end, eligible in and for itself” (Vol 2. p.24). This, I think, has striking implications for contemporary theories of moral motivation. The morally correct motivation for helping others, according to Butler, is not, as many philosophers and psychologists might suppose, to simply promote the good of others unselfishly. For Butler, the right motivation is derived from the virtues of justice, veracity and charity which are observable in people in all countries and cultures. This leads us to the question of what, according to Butler’s moral psychology, might account for the motivation to do the morally right thing, such as helping a stranger in distress. To answer this question I will now turn to the third form of self-love Butler uses in Sermon twelve when he explains what self-love consists in. One instance of textual support for proposing this form of self-love can be found when Butler distinguishes self-love as “an affection we have toward ourselves” from “benevolence which is an affection to the good of our fellow creatures” (Vol 2. p.163). Butler makes the distinction between self-love and benevolence as affections which are aimed at different objects, our self or others respectively. In this section, Butler explicitly and repeatedly states that self-love “consists in an affection to ourselves, a regard to our own private good” a good which includes moral self-approval(ibid). The idea that human beings can experience affection for themselves is directly linked to Butler’s theory that man is naturally constituted in a way such that virtuous acts are rewarded

24 and vicious acts are punished by the mental states which are attached to good and evil conduct (Vol 1. p.58). Butler says that “So far therefore as a man is true to virtue, to veracity and justice, to equity and charity and the right of the case in whatever he is concerned...to such a man arises naturally a secret satisfaction and sense of security” (Vol 1. p.67). This secret satisfaction which Butler mentions, I take to be manifest in the affection of moral self-love we have toward ourselves when we reflect on acting virtuously. Butler suggests that in order to understand this unique type of satisfaction we must first distinguish between actions themselves and the quality ascribed to them which we call virtuous or vicious. He notes that the gratification of every natural passion is attended to with delight and enjoyment. An action can procure delight or advantage abstracted from all consideration of the morality of such an action. He says:

Consequently, the pleasure or advantage is gained by the action itself, not by the morality, the virtuousness or viciousness of it; though it be perhaps virtuous or vicious. Thus to say such an action or course of behaviour procured such pleasure or advantage, or brought on such inconvenience and pain, is quite a different thing from saying that such good or bad effect was owing to the virtue or vice of such an action or behaviour. In one case the action abstracted from all moral consideration produces the effect: in the other case, for it will appear that there are such cases, the morality of the action, the action under moral consideration, that is, the virtuousness or viciousness of it produced the effect. Now I say virtue as such, naturally produces considerable advantages to the virtuous....The immediate effects of virtue and vice on the mind and temper are mentioned as instances of it (Vol 1. pp.60-61)

For Butler, endeavouring to do what is morally right creates a mental state in the individual which he describes as a “unique type of satisfaction” which “is gratified by its own consciousness, that is, in a degree its own reward” (Vol 2. p.167). What does Butler mean by this? I take Butler to mean that when we look back and reflect and judge that our motivation and action was morally right, we know that we are warranted to think of ourselves as a virtuous person at least for a short while and we naturally experience “a unique type of satisfaction”. The affection of moral self-love we have toward ourselves comes from acknowledging that we have pursued virtue for its own sake. We have done what is morally right from the morally right motivation in a morally right manner, and thereby have acted virtuously. It is true that Butler does not explicitly refer to this “unique type of satisfaction” as moral self-love anywhere in his works and this is an obvious objection to my interpretation. However, I propose that in light of Butler’s moral psychology, which must be

25 ascertained from both the Analogy and Sermons, it is reasonable to think that Butler implies that the state in question is moral self-love when he discusses the satisfaction experienced by doing what is just and right. In particular, he claims that the satisfaction of morally approving of our self is a deeper type of satisfaction than any other (Vol 2. p.167). Furthermore, Butler thinks that the affection of the moral love we have toward our self for acting virtuously from virtuous motivation is such a special affection that some people “have supported themselves with it in sickness, poverty and disgrace and even in the pangs of death; whereas it is manifest all other enjoyments fail in these circumstances” (Vol 2. p.169).26 As was mentioned previously, the experience of the affection of moral self-love which we direct at our self, I suggest, is not to be confused with the experience of pride or self-esteem sometimes associated with helping others. This is because pride and self-esteem are not moral emotions. The content of feelings such as pride and self- esteem lack moral worth. Pride and self-esteem are emotions that can be generated by non-moral accomplishments. Even for actions which produce good consequences the object of pride and self-esteem may not be one’s moral character. For example, one could take pride in a benevolent job well done, such as constructing a new home for the underprivileged in other countries. But the object of pride, in such a case, would be the achievement of completing a well built house, whereas the object of the affection of moral self-love is the self. The relationship of the affection of moral self-love to virtuous action involves morally approving both of your judgement to build the house and of your judgement that you had the morally right motivation to travel to some far away country to build the house. Hence, in order for moral self-love to be produced we must check when we reflect on our completed moral action that we were morally motivated to act virtuously. In other words, in the absence of the morally right motivation the affection of moral self-love will not be produced. If for instance your motivation to act benevolently is really your own self-benefit then you are not warranted to judge your motivation as morally right and therefore no moral self-love can be experienced. On the other hand, the person who is genuinely motivated to help the needy because it is the right thing to do in that particular case will be warranted in judging their motivation and their action was morally right, and from approving the motivation and the action moral self-love can be experienced.

26Butler often discusses the satisfaction that seems to be naturally paired with virtuous action, but then goes on to discuss a bonus “secret satisfaction” (Vol 1.p.67) which comes when we see that this providential ordering of nature indicates God is on the side of virtue.

26 Still, one might ask, can you be self-deceived about being warranted in judging your motivation was morally right? Butler anticipates this objection in a passage that oﬀers a reply to this question. He remarks that:

Truth and real good sense and thorough integrity carry along with them a peculiar consciousness of their own genuineness: there is a feeling belonging to them which does not accompany their counterfeits, such as error, folly, half-honesty, partial and slight regards to virtue and right...(Vol 2. p.151)

This seems right to me, since it does appear that morally mature agents who desire the truth, and highly value honesty and integrity acquire a certain peace of mind and a sense of ease which is arguably lacking in those who are self-deceived about the virtuousness of their motivation to act benevolently. Annette Barnes tells us that, in general, self-deceivers are epistemic cowards, who escape their anxiety about the issues which they are facing by failing to give their full attention to all the facts or information at hand (Barnes, 1997, p.158). It is hard to see how Barnes’ description of a typically self-deceived person about their true motivation could map onto the psychology of the moral agent who sincerely seeks to evaluate her actions and motivation for moral correctness. It is, however, possible to imagine how someone could be confused about the nature of her motivation; perhaps because the nature of the motivation to act benevolently is not directly available to consciousness. But in matters of evaluating whether her motivation is morally right we can safely assume that the morally mature agent is consciously seeking the truth about the nature of her motivation, so I do not envisage that confusion about her true motivation would be a serious threat to the by-product of moral self-love. This is because we have no particular reason to think she goes wrong when scanning her motivation for selfish ulterior motives. Butler thinks that, as moral agents, we are responsible for our own moral improvement. If we accept this then we can easily see how the development of moral maturity involves the sincere assessment of our true motivation for moral action. Here I want to stress that the reflective appraisal which results in moral self-love being experienced by the agent who has acted virtuously is a cognitively loaded moral emotion and as such is distinct from simple warm fuzzy feelings or feelings of mood enhancement which may be experienced when we help others. That is, when a benevolent act is performed and it is not accompanied by the agent’s reflection and approval of the morally right motivation to help, then the resulting feeling or emotion produced is not a moral emotion. I think we must make an important distinction between simple uplifting feelings and more complex emotions. For example, when I asked my Aunt Beryl why she volunteered to deliver meals on wheels she said that “I do not know why, I cannot give you an answer.

27 I will have to think about it and let you know, but I do like doing it–it makes me feel good” . The feeling Beryl is talking about is referred to by James Andreoni27 as the “warm glow” or the increased positive feelings that sometimes accompany benevolent acts. The so called “warm glow” is a simple feeling which is available because the agent believes that her action has brought about good consequences. The nature of the motivation to act does not inhibit “warm glow” feelings because the positive consequences of the benevolent action are all that matter for those feelings. Thus, egoistic or pluralistic motivation can produce simple “warm glow” feelings. However, egoistic or pluralistic motivation for acting does not count as authentically virtuous action. I contend that when one’s motivation cannot be approved as morally right, then it is not possible to experience the unique satisfaction of moral self-love. My point is that moral self-love is a sophisticated reflective emotion. It is contingent on conscious reflection on the part of the agent who not only approves of her moral judgement to act but also approves both the motivation for her action as well as the appropriateness of the execution of her action, all under the purview of reflection and conscience. Fur- thermore, the satisfaction of moral self-love is not available to those who do not know what motivates them or those whose motivation is egoistically tainted. The individual who performs some pro-social action may feel a “warm glow” because of the good consequences her action produces. But when we reflect on our moral conduct, the good consequence of an action is not the only thing that should bear on the virtuousness of the act, according to Butler. Upon reflection, the action should be approved by conscience as morally right. Conscience also should approve the motivation to act as morally right. Also, the execution of the action also needs to be approved as appropriate. That is, the spirit in which the action is performed and the means used to achieve the outcome. Only when these three factors have been approved can the act be deemed morally right by the agent. The consequent by-product of moral self-love then comes from reflecting on the virtuousness of the completed action. In my discussion of Butler’s third type of self-love as a moral emotion I have presented my interpretation with an eye towards Butler’s argument about the harmony between self-love and virtue. I will return to this argument in the next section of this paper. Here, I have built upon Butler’s notion of the affection of self-love in order to suggest a possible pathway by which we can account for genuinely virtuous altruism.

27Andreoni, (1990) pp.464-477.

28 4.2 Part Two

Conceiving moral self-love as a moral emotion raises the question of what exactly makes an emotion a moral emotion. There are a number of cognitive and non-cognitive theories about moral emotions which I will not discuss here except to say that I regard Butler as holding a view according to which moral emotions such as compassion, which he discusses in detail in Sermon five and six, are linked with moral conduct in a way that can indirectly help to cultivate genuinely virtuous habits in moral agents28. Of course Butler accepts that not all human beings are moral agents and some have hardened their hearts and feel no moral love toward themselves or others. The idea that our love for others can motivate genuinely virtuous action is not a new idea. It is a common idea in Greek philosophy and many religions. However, the idea that moral self-love can help to cultivate a habit of altruism in moral agents is to my knowledge exclusive to the works of Joseph Butler. How does moral self-love help to cultivate altruism in moral agents? The first thing to note about the nature of moral self-love is that it can only be experienced if you do not aim at it. If you do aim at it then you are not warranted in thinking you have acted virtuously because your conscience cannot approve of any egoistically motivated action which includes aiming at moral self-love, as genuinely virtuous. Moral self-love can be experienced, when you look back and reflect on your completed beneficent conduct, if certain conditions have been met. In order to experience moral self-love when you reflect on your recent moral conduct, conscience must approve that your motivation was not egoistic in any way. That is, the motivation to act beneficently must be issued by conscience and followed because you believe it is the morally right thing to do. Thus, belief is required for moral motivation on Butler’s view but desire tends to be treated as egoistic. In fact, all egoistic goals or desires corrupt the virtuousness of an action, including aiming at moral self-love. For example, suppose that X wants moral self-love

28Which emotions actually count as truly moral emotions is challenged by Batson who argues that “many emotions routinely thought moral need re-examination (2011, p.233). The problems concerning moral emotions are also discussed in Prinz and Nichols 2010, pp.111-146. These authors state that “defining moral emotions will work only if we can find some way of defining morality, because the definition builds in the concept moral. In philosophy, morality is concerned with norms, where norms are construed as rules about how we should act or what kind of people we should be.” .....Until there is an uncontroversial definition of what makes a norm count as moral, it may be easiest to define moral emotions as those that are associated with paradigm cases of moral rules (eg. emotions that arise in the context of killing, stealing and giving to charity). Following other authors, we find it useful to distinguish several different families (see Ben-Ze’ev, 2000; Haidt, 2003) First, there are prosocial emotions....Second there are self-blame emotions...Third there are other-blame emotions” (p.122) Following on from this passage it is interesting that in the context of the breakdown of different families of emotion Prinz and Nichols note that there may be a variety of other emotions that have moral significance even though they have not yet been studied. I suggest that moral self-love falls into this category.

29 and aims at it. Here, the motivation to act beneficently is corrupted by an egoistic aim and conscience cannot approve the act as virtuous action. If we aim at moral self- love, our goal is immediately thwarted because our motivation cannot be approved as virtuous by our own conscience. Interestingly, the influence of moral self-love on moral motivation escapes the egoistic objection that the attention of the agent is directed at herself rather than others, because unless the agent’s motivation is exclusively directed at others, moral self-love cannot be produced. The affect of moral self-love is the by- product of genuinely virtuous motivation. It reinforces and strengthens an agent’s belief that she ought to obey her conscience and thereby helps to cultivate a habit to do so. When we reflect on our completed moral conduct and conscience approves our motivation, action and the way the action is carried out, then we can experience the satisfaction of moral self-love. This emotion brings about a state of easiness, peace and tranquillity, which in the Sermons, Butler regards as a deeper satisfaction than any other. He also notes in the Analogy that, on the whole, less uneasiness and dissatis- faction comes from living a virtuous way of life (Vol 1. p.56). Butler recognises that there may be a small number of exceptions. Nevertheless, he argues enthusiastically for this claim. He raises and answers the objection that, it is difficult to weigh and balance pleasures and satisfaction with any exactness. To illustrate this objection, he considers a person whose natural faculty of self-government is impaired by habits of indulgence. He asks, “Who can say how long it might be before such a person would find more satisfaction in reasonableness and present good consequences of virtue, than difficulties and self-denial in the restraints of it” (Vol. 1 p.57). Habits of indulgence which produce sensations of pleasure may be difficult to overcome but the habit of virtue is a deeper and more profound satisfaction than pleasure. Butler does not say why he thinks the satisfaction derived from acting virtuously is superior to pleasure. I think, however, that it is reasonable to think from what Butler does says, in both the Analogy and Sermons, that moral self-love is associated with a peaceful mental state, whereas typically pleasure is mostly associated with heightened feelings and sensations. Butler holds that it is ridiculous to assert that self-denial is essential to virtue and he stresses that it is closer to the truth to say that it is essential to discipline and self-improvement (Vol. 1. p.107). Thus, from what Butler says we can see how moral self-love may work to cultivate the habit of altruism in moral agents. It creates a peaceful frame of mind which serves to strengthen one’s belief that one ought to follow the dictates of her conscience and perform acts of altruism when her conscience commands. The claim being made here is that the belief that one ought to obey the authority of her conscience is a belief which is reinforced and strengthened by the affect of moral self-love when the moral agent acts virtuously. Granted, this claim needs more

30 defence but there is no room to defend it here. However, here is an example which helps to make the claim plausible. If I believe, as ﬁt healthy person, that I morally ought to donate blood, which I do, and in doing so I experience moral self-love, then moral self-love can work to strengthen the altruistic habit of donating blood.

5 Butler’s Claim About the Harmony of Virtue and Self Love

My reading of Butler suggests that he conceives self-love in a broader sense than self- interest. However, by substituting self-interest for self-love I believe commentators have misunderstood Butler’s claim about the harmony between virtue and self-love. Now that we can appreciate the broad meaning Butler gives to self-love throughout his works we can begin to see that Butler’s claim about the existence of a general harmony between virtue and self-love can be given a plausible reading when ‘self-love’ is read as ‘moral self-love’. To recap, recall that Butler asserts that: “Self-love, then though confined to the interests of the present world, does in general perfectly coincide with virtue; and leads us to one and the same course of life” (Vol 2. p.64) Butler also asserts that “the object of self-love is expressed in the term ‘self’ (Vol 2. p.165) and that “Self-love is an affection to ourselves” (Vol 2. p.159). Furthermore, Butler often writes of ‘interest’ and ‘self-love’ together thereby implying that he means something different by the two terms (Vol 2. p.14). So when Butler claims that in general there is harmony between virtue and self-love, he is not claiming that a harmony exists between self-interest and virtue. Rather, he argues that moral self-love, that tranquil state of mind is, in general, in harmony with a virtuous way of life. Butler stakes his claim on the idea that we cannot have certain knowledge about what will actually promote our good and what we believe will be good for us, in both the short and long term, is only ever probable. For example, we cannot be sure that, say, a life of political power or excessive wealth will be good for us since the hidden stresses involved in living in such a life may prove to be detrimental to our overall good. However, Butler thinks that we can be sure that the peace of mind which accompanies living virtuously is assured (Vol 2. p.14). Some commentators of Butler (Phillips, 2000; Wedgwood, 2008) make an inter- pretive error of equating self-interest or happiness with Butlerian self-love and in doing so confuse Butler’s claim about the harmony between self-love and virtue. For exam-

31 ple, Philips states: “Butler’s first, and crucial, move is to define self-interest in terms of “self-love” and to locate the latter within moral psychology.....It is clear here (as the reference to ‘the language of mankind’ shows) and elsewhere that Butler intends to capture an ordinary concept”. 29 I think Philips is correct that Butler wants to start by using the term ‘self-love’ in the conventional way to mean ‘self-interest’. This, as previously mentioned, is so that he can give an intelligible reply to Hobbes. How- ever, I disagree with Phillips that Butler continues to use the term ‘self-love’ in the conventional way elsewhere in his works, as I have argued in the earlier part of this paper. Wedgwood also interprets Butler to use the term ‘self-love’ in the conventional way to mean self-interest. Wedgwood takes Butler to be making a claim about virtue and self-interest when he evaluates Butler’s claim about the harmony between “virtue and self-love”. In substituting ‘self-interest’ for self-love, I believe these thinkers fail to appreciate what Butler really means by self-love. Butler might have used the word ‘self-interest’ in place of ‘self-love’ if self-interest was what he meant, but he did not. He explicitly states: “Self-love then, though confined to the interest of the present world does in general coincide with virtue” (Vol 2. p.64). Butler makes a similar claim to the one about the general harmony between virtue and self-love when he claims that “benevolence and self-love greatly coincide”. He states:

I must however remind you that though benevolence and self-love are diﬀerent; though the former tend most directly to the public good and the latter to the private: yet they are so perfectly coincident, that the greatest satisfactions to ourselves depend upon having benevolence in a due degree; and that self-love is one chief security of our right behaviour toward society. It may be added, that their mutual coinciding, so that we can scarce promote one without the other is equal proof that we were made for both (Vol 2. p.33)

Once again, it would be very uncharitable to read Butler here as claiming that benevolence and self-interest do not conflict, since clearly they can. However, accepting my reading of self-love as ‘moral self-love’ can give this passage a plausible reading. In the twelfth Sermon Butler discusses benevolence. Here, Butler first notes that it is through the private affection of self-love that we become aware of humanity, justice or injustice, when exercised toward ourselves by ourselves. But in order to have real love toward others, Butler says that: “A man’s heart must be formed to humanity and benevolence. He must love mercy otherwise he will not act mercifully in any settled course of behaviour” (Vol 2. p.180). Directing our heart and temper to a love of what

29Phillips, 2000, 422

32 is good, Butler thinks, is absolutely necessary to behaving rightly. From this we can see that Butler regards the love of goodness and the love of benevolence as dispositions which need to be developed and cultivated by the moral agent. However, he emphasises that benevolence is to be understood as involving reason. For instance, Butler stresses that virtuous benevolence is not ‘blind’ benevolence but rather rational benevolence. That is, benevolence should be directed and checked by reason, and according to the principles of moral justice (Vol 2. p.188). For example, on Butler’s view one would be acting from blind benevolence when acting from empathetic feelings alone in response to another’s distress without consulting the judgement of reason. Butler thinks we can be led astray by our feelings for people whom we love, but that we have reflection and reason to guard against the appropriateness of our feelings in such circumstances. Reason for Butler is a necessary part of benevolence because it checks and helps to regulate our emotions. The most highly valued emotion in Butler’s moral psychology is love. The emphasis Butler puts on love is clearly derived from his theological world view. We find in Butler the view that human beings should form their general temperament toward love, whether it is the love of goodness, the love of others or the love of our self. Thus, Butler states that the law of perfection for man is exemplified in the Bib- lical commandment “Thou shall Love thy neighbour as thyself” (Romans 13, pp.8-10). For Butler the principle of virtue is placed in the love of our neighbour, where ‘neighbour’ means “that part of mankind, that part of our country, which comes under our immediate notice, acquaintance and influence ...” (Vol 2. p.177). Butler insists that we should love our neighbour in the same degree that we love ourselves, so far as this is possible, given that moral obligations can extend no further than natural possibilities. Butler maintains that if we love our neighbour we will not be neglecting the care of ourselves and that the general temper of mind the love forms in us will tend to influence our benevolent behaviour (Vol 2. p.184). What Butler mentions here is the positive influence love and moral conduct can have on the state of mind of the virtuous agent. He argues that love and moral self-love brings with it a subtle calibration in the psychological equilibrium of the agent and an accompanying sense of ease which, he argues, can help to cultivate a habit of virtue within a moral agent by strengthening her belief that she ought be virtuous. Today the sort of psychological equilibrium Butler refers to could best be described as psychological homeostasis; a relatively stable state of mind with regard to the different interdependent motivational principles. On Butler’s view, this relatively stable mental state is virtue’s own reward. It is a state of ease and satisfaction that comes about only when an agent can verify that her conduct was authentically virtuous. In what I have argued so far, Butler outlines a process of how morally motivated

33 conduct by moral agents can be explained, thereby providing a defence of genuinely virtuous altruism.

6 Empirical Work and Altruism

In this section I detail some of the empirical work conducted by Batson and colleagues. Batson claims that empathy induces altruism. I point out that Butler can help us see that the empirical work uses an overly-simple picture of the motivational sources of altruism. Contemporary work in moral psychology and moral motivation has broadened over recent decades to include psychological experiments designed to test the motivational nature of human subjects. The results from these experiments look encouraging for philosophers like Butler and those psychologists who argue that some people, at least sometimes, are capable of genuinely virtuous altruism. By empirically investigat- ing various egoistic motivations for moral action, Daniel Batson30 and his colleagues claim they have found that many egoistic explanations for moral actions do not fit well with people’s actual motivations. Their findings suggest that it remains possible that some people are sometimes altruistically motivated. The methodology employed by Batson and Shaw to reveal the possibility of empathy-induced psychological altruism as a source of motivation involves systematically eliminating an extensive list of egoistic explanations for moral conduct. Batson and Shaw’s research shows that once we begin to appreciate the pervasive- ness of psychological egoism we can come to understand the force and plausibility of its claim. For example, when we ask people what motivation they had to perform some moral action we can usually find an extensive list of egoistic motivational explanations. Below are some examples:

• People help others in need because they desire to strengthen their relationship with other people such as their family, lovers, friends or colleagues, which they expect will beneﬁt them in the long run.

• Other people help in order to alleviate feelings of anticipated future guilt sometimes associated with not helping.

• Some people help others in distress in order to exercise power over them by creating a sense of indebtedness. Others help because of their personal need to feel they belong and are valued by the group that they are part of. 30Batson and Shaw, 1991, pp.107-122

34 • Others help to avoid confrontation for not helping.31

The goal to achieve any one of the outcomes listed above counts as being egoistically motivated to perform a moral action. These goals may be accompanied by various emotions but they need not be. Much of the empirical research conducted around altruism focuses on the emotions experienced when we perceive another person is in distress. It takes as its starting point that the goal to aid someone in need or distress is linked to emotions such as pity, sympathy, empathy32 or compassion. In circumstances when a person feels empathy for another person in distress, Batson and Shaw claim that the emotion of empathy evokes altruistic motivation to “increase the welfare of the cared-for other” (Batson 1991, 2011). Batson claims that empathy, sympathy, and compassion evoke strong altruistic motivation (ibid, 2011) Together these claims have led Batson to formulate the empathy-altruism Hypothesis. The empathy-altruism hypothesis does not predict that when a person experiences feelings of empathy that she will always help. However, what the hypothesis does propose is that sometimes empathy evokes altruistic motivation that the other person’s distress or suffering be reduced (Batson, 1991, p.114). The point behind surveying the empirical research on psychological altruism is to position Butler’s account within the context of the contemporary empirically-informed debate, in order to illustrate where Butler’s important contribution is currently missing from the debate. One of the challenges for Batson and Shaw in designing experiments to test the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis is that empathetic emotions may work to stimulate altruistic motivation in some people and egoistic motivation in others to perform moral actions. This problem makes it difficult for Batson to untangle the effects of empathy on the different sources of motivation for different subjects in experimental conditions. However, at this point we shall put that concern to one side and concentrate on how Batson and Shaw tackle each egoistic motivational influence in turn. One egoistic possibility put to the experimental test is the hypothesis that empathy creates an unpleasant

31I have adapted this list from a longer list noted by Underwood, 2002, p.72 32Empathy is a term which was coined by Titcher in 1909 to translate the German word ‘Einfuhlung’ which describes a process of intuiting. By the 1950s empathy had taken on a different meaning which was synonymous with perspective taking. About 1960 empathy took on a more emotional meaning. Empathy has been defined emotionally in many ways. One way is feeling any vicarious emotion or feeling the same emotion someone else is feeling or feeling something like but not identical to the emotion someone else is feeling. Since the late 1970s the term empathy has been defined in a specifically emotional way. It has been used to refer to other-person focused feelings equivalent to sympathy, compassion and tenderness, words that were used by Butler, Hume and Adam Smith. Batson and Shaw report -“Empathy allows research psychologists once again to talk about our sympathetic, compassionate, tender feelings for another, especially another in distress” (p.114). For more about empathy see Batson and Shaw, 1991, pp.113-114

35 experience which can only be stopped by helping the distressed person or by escaping the situation. In the literature33, this hypothesis is called the “aversive-arousal reduction hypothesis” . According to this hypothesis, empathy creates feelings of distress in the subject when they perceive the distress of others, which in turn creates a strong desire to reduce their personal distress by either leaving the scene or helping, depending on which the subject thinks will be easiest. Even in cases where the observer may easily physically escape, the egoist maintains that the thought of not being able to dis- pel the suffering of the other from their thoughts means that they cannot escape from being haunted by unpleasant emotions and that they will therefore engage in helping behaviour in order to negate anticipated mental and physical unpleasant feelings. The aversive-arousal reduction hypothesis is the most prominent egoistic view (ibid, 115). However, another suggestion is that people engage in helping behaviour when they feel empathy because they fear that, if they do not, they will suffer strong social disapproval by others. However, Batson and associates have found that the fear of social disapproval experienced by a subject is not what engenders helping behaviour. Their research shows that subjects who experienced high levels of empathy are more likely to help whether or not they expect their behaviour to be scrutinized by others. The researchers conclude that, in these circumstances, empathy appears to facilitate helping behaviour independent of the threat of social disapproval (ibid, 115). There is a variant of the aversive-arousal reduction hypothesis which is called the ‘self-administered empathy-specific punishment hypothesis’. According to the self- administered empathy-specific punishment hypothesis, people are motivated to help because they believe that if they do not help then they will experience a negative emotion such as guilt or shame. To test whether self-punishment underlies the empathy-helping relationship, Bat- son designs an experiment where people who experience high-empathy levels can an- ticipate being able to escape from negative self-evaluation. He does this by providing some individuals with information that justifies not helping in some particular situation. By doing this, Batson plans to alter his subjects’ learned beliefs. He expects that subjects that have been given a subtle justification for not helping will be less likely to believe they will feel guilty if they do not help. Batson uses three studies to test this hypothesis (Batson et al. 1988). In study two he asks two groups of students to listen to the broadcast of a campus radio show in which a fellow student is struggling to stay in school and hold her family together after her parents are killed in a car accident. After listening to her story both groups are asked to pledge to spend some time to help her. To manipulate the justification that subjects have for not helping, some subjects

33Batson and Shaw, 1991, pp.107-122

36 are given a sign-up sheet on which only two of the previous seven participants have agreed to help, while others are given a sign-up sheet where five of the seven previous participants have already signed up to help. Batson maintains that in high-empathy conditions the empathy-altruism hypothesis and the self-administered empathy-specific punishment hypothesis make different predictions. The empathy-altruism hypothesis predicts high helping by individuals in both high and low justification conditions. The self-administered empathy-specific punishment hypothesis on the other hand predicts that having or lacking a justification will affect the likelihood of helping. That is, there will be more helping in the low-justification condition than in the high by individuals who feel high levels of empathy. This is because, in the former case, the subjects will believe they will feel very guilty if they do not help, but in the latter case it is assumed that they do not believe they will feel guilty if they do not help. The results indicate that “only among individuals feeling low empathy were those in the high-justification condition less likely to help than those in the low-justification condition” (Batson, 1988, study 2). According to the self-administered empathy-specific punishment hypothesis the subject believes that if she feels empathy and does not help then she will feel guilty. Therefore, not wanting to feel guilty becomes her goal and helping is the means by which she can achieve her goal. What she is motivated to do on this egoistic account is to avoid feelings of guilt and in order to do this she will need to help. The prediction Batson makes about this experiment requires the assumption that most people will have specific beliefs about what they will feel if they fail to help when there is good justification for not helping. But as Stich, Doris and Roedder point out (2010, 193-195) this requires that people have accurate beliefs about what they will feel and are willing and able to report them. Their criticism is that Batson provides no evidence to support the claim about people’s internalized procedures for self-punishment. In fact, Stich, Doris and Reoder suggest that the self-administered empathy-specific punishment hypothesis is mistaken in suggesting that subjects do think about self-punishment before engaging in helping behaviour. Instead they argue that subjects are typically only thinking victim-relevant thoughts. Surprisingly, thinking only victim-relevant thoughts does not make this hypothesis any less egoistic. This is because, as Stich, Doris and Roedder explain, people may have egoistic long-standing instrumental desires which are formed years before, via a process of practical reasoning, and yet there is no need to revisit the process of practical reasoning each time they find themselves in similar circumstances in which their desires are activated. Therefore, acting on an instrumental desire to avoid feelings of guilt or shame does not involve producing conscious thoughts about self-punishment when experiencing empathy or compassion for another’s distress.

37 Stich, Doris and Roedder illustrate their point with an example about the instrumental long standing desire people have to pay their electricity bill. When habitually reaching for their cheque book to pay the bill, thoughts about the inconvenience which would result if they did not pay it do not enter most people’s minds. That is, thoughts about the consequences of not paying are not present in their thoughts but are clearly a motivating reason for paying the bill. Similarly, in this way, fear of self-punishment may motivate in the absence of any specific thoughts about guilt or shame. Another criticism I see of Batson and Shaw’s assumptions in this particular experiment concerns having a justification for not helping. Having a justification for not helping, they assume, will ensure that there will be no guilt felt by the subject for not helping. But having some valid justification for not helping does not guarantee a lack of guilt. For example, the justification of there not being enough time to travel to be with a dy- ing parent at the end of their life will not mitigate feelings of guilt about not being there. If you believe you should help or you should be there for your parent when they die then any justification for not doing so does not magically erase your belief and the consequential self-administered guilt. The upshot of these criticisms is that it looks like Batson and Shaw’s defence of the empathy-altruism hypothesis against the self-administered empathy-specific punishment hypothesis requires further work. Another egoistic contender for what motivates moral action is that of the expectation of social reward. For example, others may bestow honours on you such as community awards for your volunteer work. This view Batson calls the empathy- specific reward explanation. As Batson explains the view, it holds that when we feel empathy, we think of these rewards, and we help in order to get them. Batson has conducted experiments to test this explanation against the empathy-altruism hypothesis. In these experiments, because social rewards for helping are only given to the helper the “empathy-specific reward hypothesis predicts that empathically aroused individuals will feel bad if deprived of an anticipated opportunity to help” (Batson 1991, p.117). Alter- natively, the empathy-altruism hypothesis predicts that subjects who feel empathy for others in distress will feel as good when the target’s need is relieved by other means as when it is relieved by their own action. So if the empathy-altruism hypothesis is correct it should not matter whether the subject or a stranger alleviates the target’s distress. The subject should be pleased that the needy person’s distress has been reduced. In Batson’s experiment the “Results revealed the pattern of mood change for individuals reporting high empathy that was predicted by the empathy-altruism hypothesis, not the pattern predicted by the empathy-specific reward explanation” (Ibid 117). How- ever, there is another way of self-administering the empathy-specific reward hypothesis that Batson’s experiment does not address, according to Stich, Doris and Roedder.

38 This involves the self-administered reward that comes not in the form of a jolt of pride that the subject experiences when she successfully helps to relieve the target’s distress but as the vicarious pleasure she feels in the needy person’s joy at improvement. The empathetic-joy hypothesis maintains that empathetically aroused individuals “help to gain the good feeling of sharing vicariously in the needy person’s joy at improvement” (Batson 1991, p.118). In both of these accounts the goal of the subject is hedonistically egoistic and the motivation to help is merely instrumental. There have been a number of experiments aimed at testing the empathetic-joy hypothesis and all of them utilize manipulating the subjects’ expectations about the sort of feedback they expect to get about the target. The prediction is that subjects will be more highly motivated to help when they expect to get feedback about the effect of their help on the target. But the results of these experiments failed to show elevated levels of helping in the feedback situations. The researchers interpret this result as casting serious doubts about the soundness of the empathetic-joy hypothesis. I have chosen to survey the recent empirical research to acknowledge the wide range of possible egoistic motives which can be used to explain why people engage in helping behaviour when they experience feelings of empathy. Another reason for surveying the empirical research has been to identify some significant criticisms. For example, one of the most noteworthy is the one made by Stich, Doris and Roedder in their criticism of Batson’s experiment concerning the beliefs subjects held about their expectations for self-punishment. Remember, Stich, Doris and Roedder suggested that thoughts of this kind may not be present in the subject’s conscious thought and that they may be the result of longstanding egoistic desires. Butler, I believe, argues that instrumental desires formed long ago need not be the only way to account for the fact that only thoughts about relieving the victim’s distress are present in the mind of the subject. Butler’s focus on the importance of developing virtuous habits illustrates that people can act virtuously without bringing about conscious thoughts regarding their motivations. This can happen when they act from altruistic habits which were formed long ago. For example, many people have a long-standing desire to be a good person, an unconscious desire which has been inculcated by teachers, parents or carers. It seems possible that some habits are formed without the influence of practical reason, perhaps via a simple process of re-enforcement. For example, when children share food or toys with other children, caregivers positively re-enforce this behaviour by praising them as a “good girl” or “good boy” . Small children are also instructed about what to notice and how to perceive others in need, and be sensitive to those needs. They are often praised when they exercise sensitivity in perceiving others needs. Habits of action and habits of perception are two of the key influential factors in moral motivation according

39 to Butler. He thinks that without them we are unable to regulate our behaviour in a consistent manner (Vol 1. p.93). One need only imagine how demanding referring every decision to help others to a process of practical reason might be and how habits can easily circumvent the process. Butler argues that habits provide guides for action which in some cases get passed on from one generation to the next which are “learnt so insensibly as to be mistaken for instincts” and that “without habits nothing in us would mature” (Vol 1. p.96). Butler discusses the emotion of empathy/compassion and its relation to virtuous action in his fifth and sixth Sermons both titled “Upon Compassion” . The term ‘empathy’ had not entered the vernacular when Butler was writing and, in its place, Butler uses the word ‘compassion’ to describe the affection that prompts us to give our attention to the distress of others. Butler describes compassion as follows: “when we compassionate the distress of others we, as it were, substitute them for ourselves, their interests for our own and have the same kind of sorrow in their distress as we have from reflecting upon our own” (Vol 2. p.78). Leading on from this, Butler argues that the affection of compassion can teach us our duty by “special commands” (meaning by experiencing the feeling of compassion) and prompts us to act in a manner suitable to the circumstances (Vol 2. pp.92-93). So here we find evidence that Butler recognises the influence the affection of empathy/compassion can have on virtuous conduct and how empathy/compassion along with conscience and reflection, constitutes a part of a virtuous person’s psychological makeup. Butler discusses the emotion we sometimes experience when we are faced with another’s distress, and how it often works as an advocate for the needy to have us attend to their distress (Vol 2. p.96). Butler remarks that “Without the exercise of these affections men would certainly be much more wanting in the offices of charity they owe to each other, and likewise more cruel and injurious than they are at present” and that “compassion is often the only way by which the indigent can have access to us” (Vol 2. pp.87-88). For Butler, however, compassion/empathy is not a feeling that directly causes action. Rather, he says it “puts us in mind” that we owe it to ourselves as well as the distressed” to relieve their distress (Vol 2. p.96). By this Butler means that the perception of another’s distress sometimes leads us to experience feelings of compassion/empathy which alert us to direct our attention to the other’s need. Our perception of another’s distress can be derived through our senses. Sometimes we can ‘see’ someone is in distress, perhaps because of their body language or the tone of their voice. Some- times we can only hear the cries of others in distress. Alternatively, we can imagine the distress others are experiencing. The implication of this is that an individual’s moral

40 perception skills can impact their capacity for altruism34. For Butler, the emotion of compassion should not (by itself) be allowed to motivate altruism. Rather, the impulse to act on empathy should be brought before conscience. It is the task of conscience to either approve or disapprove the motivation to help, depending on the circumstances. Butler stresses that benevolence must be rational; conscience must approve benevolence as appropriate in the given circumstances. Butler remarks that neglecting one’s own health by constantly giving priority to the needs of others is not approved of by conscience because it violates the moral obligation we have to adequately care for ourselves. Butler places rational constraints on the appropriateness of compassion/empathy to en- gender altruism. Butler points out that certain types of people are in fact not motivated to help others in distress when they experience feelings of empathy/ compassion. These people do as much as they can to avoid distressed people. Butler thinks that they may also intentionally suppress their feelings of compassion/empathy. These people, Butler argues “have hardened their hearts to such feelings” (Vol 2. p.88) or “suppressed the feelings they regard as weakness” (Vol 2. p.84). This allows them to turn away from those in distress. What Butler emphasizes here is the different type of habits individuals can form in response to their feelings of empathy. While some may respond to their feelings and heightened awareness by helping, others may respond by turning away and suppressing their feelings. So, while Batson may be correct that there is some relationship between empathy and altruistic motivation, it seems this may only apply where an individual has a pre-existing association between feelings of empathy and altruistic motivation. The implication of this for the Empathy-Altruism hypothesis is that the link between empathy and altruistic motivation may only exist for agents who already have a pre- existing habit of empathy-induced altruism. As such, the empathy-altruism hypothesis may only be verified for a narrow cross-section of the human population. And this suggests that there is more to the practice of altruism than feelings of empathy or compassion. Batson and Shaw claim that their findings suggest that the stronger the empathetic feeling a person experiences, the stronger the altruistic motivation will be (1991 p.113). As I understand it, their claim amounts to asserting a direct causal connection between empathetic feelings and altruistic motivation. It remains unclear to me how empathetic feelings can be sufficient to directly cause altruistic motivation or even ego-

34Obviously moral perception takes place prior to moral action, but as Lawrence Blum (1991, p.701) points out, there are diﬀerences between those people who miss and those who perceive the features of moral situations confronting them. Blum thinks that moral perception can lead to moral action without the need for moral judgement. Butler, I believe would agree with Blum. On Butler’s view this can happen when moral perception and virtuous action have become habit.

41 istic motivation without an agent’s endorsement. The idea that emotions or feelings on their own are sufficient to directly bring about non-moral action is an idea which Butler thinks applies to the passions, appetites and affections. However, when it comes to moral action the influences on our motivation is an entirely different issue. In particular where moral action is concerned, for Butler, moral agency is involved and reason and conscience is required. For Butler, only ‘brutes’ are motivated by the strength of their feelings and this is because they lack conscience/reason and reflection. Creatures which lack conscience and reflection are not regarded as ‘moral’ agents as they do not have the capacity to consistently regulate their moral conduct. While empathetic or compassionate emotions draw our attention to the needs of others, it is up to each agent to decide what motivation is appropriate to the circumstances. Thus, for a moral agent, feelings and emotions are presented for rational and moral consideration. Butler notes that “from weakness of the mind the affection of compassion/empathy can rise too high and need to be corrected” (Vol. 2. p.86). By “weakness of the mind”, I take Butler to mean some sort of malfunction of the mind, such as mental illness, where the checks of reason may be impaired. Butler’s remarks show Batson and Shaw’s empathy-altruism hypothesis to be overly simple. On their view it appears that the strength of empathetic feeling for an individual is all that is needed to evoke altruistic motivation. The problem with solely linking empathetic feeling to altruistic motivation is that it makes it appear as if the mental processes involved in altruism operates by a simple mechanism. That is, a mechanism which is independent of an agent’s reflection, reason or conscience. I am unconvinced that empathy by itself evokes altruistic motivation. It seems that strong empathetic feelings may also increase the likelihood of egoistic motivation in a committed egoist. Common sense tells us that the pre-existing egoistic or altruistic tendencies of an agent can influence how each individual agent will respond to their own empathetic feelings. According to Butler’s moral psychology, feelings by themselves such as hunger can bring about non-moral action. However, for Butler, moral motivation requires moral agency and the input of conscience. To test Batson’s claim that empathetic feelings bring about altruistic motivation try to imagine a committed egoist being altruistically motivated by strong empathetic feelings. In such a case the egoist might simply ignore or suppress his feelings. Al- ternatively, he may take them as a prompt to achieve some egoistic outcome. This suggests that empathy-induced altruistic motivation is contingent on the subject having an altruistic disposition rather than an egoistic disposition. Thus, I propose that the degree to which empathetic feelings work on different types of motivation in different agents depends entirely on how egoistically or altruistically predisposed subjects are.

42 It will impact experimental results whether subjects are generally egoistic or generally altruistic in nature. Another thing to note is that even for altruistically disposed subjects, the particular circumstances they face in real life situations will impact the likelihood of altruistic motivation versus egoistic motivation more than whether they experience feelings of empathy. Important features of real life situations include: the urgency of the people in need, or whether one has become desensitized from feelings of compassion/empathy due to constant exposure to those in distress. For example, empathetic desensitization can occur among nurses exposed to the constant distress and suﬀering of the people they treat. Despite this, their motivation to care for the complex needs of their patient’s often remains. In fact, Butler discusses this issue when he says:

Perception of distress in others is a natural excitement, passively to pity, and actively to relieve it: but let a man set himself to attend and relieve distressed persons, and he cannot but grow less and less sensibly aﬀected with which he must become acquainted; yet at the same time, benevolence considered not as a passion, but as a practical principle of action will strengthen: and while he passively compassionates the distressed less, he will acquire greater aptitude actively to assist (Vol 1. p.93)

Butler’s point serves to show that the link between empathy and altruistic motivation which Batson claims his empirical research shows is a tenuous one. Butler seems to indicate that empathy may even be superfluous to morally-induced altruism, in the sense that it is not a necessary condition of it. Empathy may inform us about another’s plight by drawing our attention to the distressed person’s need, but the type of motivation to help, whether it is altruistic, egoistic or pluralistic will vary between subjects and different circumstances. For example, in some cases, altruistic motivation may be derived from a strong personal sense of moral responsibility or from a commitment to the principle of justice or a principle of care, such as the Hippocratic Oath. A key problem for altruism as a viable account for moral conduct is that benevolent actions which appear to be motivated by moral principles can be egoistically motivated. Two elements are of particular concern. They are the costs to the benefactor and the relationship of the benefactor to the other. According to Batson and Shaw some psychologists think that in order to be altruistic, the action must exhibit some level of self-sacrifice. As such, the cost of helping must be high enough to demonstrate that the helper’s goal could not be her self-benefit (Batson, 1991, p.108). The requirement of self-sacrifice for altruism is a demanding one and it does not feature in Butler’s account of the moral psychology of altruism.

43 Butler also does not take up the question of the relationship of the helper to the other. However, these are issues which need to be addressed in a thorough defence of altruism. Where a relationship does exist between the helper and the other, morally- induced altruism becomes much harder to establish. For example, Stewart-Williams35 surveyed the difference between benevolent helping behaviour directed at kin versus non-kin and found that as costs involved in helping increased, kin received a larger share of help than non-kin. For low-cost helping, people helped friends more than siblings. For medium-cost helping, people helped friends and siblings equally. From this survey we can see that overall kin and friend relationships increase helping behaviour. But the nature of the motivation for helping is questionable. One explanation which proves problematic for thinking that altruism is the source of motivation in these cases is the possibility that the helper helps because of the prospect of reciprocal help sometime in the future. When anticipated future reciprocity features in the calculation of whether or not to help another person then the motivation can be considered egoistic motivation. Thoughts of future reciprocity are difficult to detect in people who appear altruistically motivated to help others. Since it is so difficult to remove the egoistic motive of future possible reciprocity, it is not surprising to discover that many academics and non- academics alike assume that egoistic motivation is the only motivation for helping36. However, by focussing empirical research about the possibility of genuinely moral altruism on cases where the benefactor aids a stranger it is possible to minimize poten- tial egoistic factors as a source of egoistic motivation for moral action. If both parties are strangers it helps to reduce many possible egoistic explanations for helping, such as anticipated future reciprocity. For example, an archetypical case of genuine psychological altruism involving one stranger coming to the aid of another in distress is given in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10, 29-37). In the story, a Samaritan is the only man among many passersby to take care of a man on the side of the road who has been robbed and beaten. It is possible that the pain and sorrow shown on the face of the beaten man may have played some role in motivating the Samaritan to care for him. Nevertheless, in the best empirical case of genuinely moral altruism, the face of the other plays no role in motivating psychological altruism. The case I refer to is donating blood. Blood donation is widely held to be motivated by altruism and it is seen as a classic type of altruistic act because of the costs incurred to the donor37. The research

35Stewart-Williams, 2007, pp.193-198 36Self-interest is the underlying assumption used to explain human motivation in neo-classical eco- nomics and theories of human behaviour in the social sciences, according to Dale T. Miller, who argues that the self-fulﬁlling properties of the self-interest assumption has become a self-fulﬁlling norm of self-interest. (Miller, 1999, 1053) 37Lawrence, Farrell, Ferguson, 2008, pp.327-336. The hypothesis of this study tests the claim that

44 of Titmuss (1970) supports the claim that blood donation meets the criteria enabling it to be classified as an altruistic act. It benefits others; it is performed without the expectation of receiving any material benefit, it is intentional, it is voluntary, it involves the donor and recipient remaining strangers and it benefits the recipient at some cost to the donor. The costs involve the inconvenience to the donor who needs to travel to the blood bank, the time it takes to make the journey, the pain experienced from the venesection, the possibility of a vein collapse and the loss of blood, which is apt to make some people feel faint. People who donate blood are aware their blood is used to help people who are being treated for a wide range of diseases such as leukaemia, as well as for people involved in all sorts of accidents or those who are undergoing numerous types of surgery. Researchers show that understanding that their blood donation may save lives makes donating blood personally very satisfying for donors (Ferguson, Farrell and Lawrence 2008). Since donors appreciate the impact of their own moral conduct, as this research suggests, I think this shows that some blood donors are the sort of people who do reflect on the nature of their motivation to help others for their own sake. I want to suggest that the personal satisfaction experienced by those blood donors who reflect on their motivation for donating blood is a perfect example of the sort of moral self-love I have attributed to Butler. When we speak of ‘personal satisfaction’ multiple definitions present themselves. This is because satisfaction can be couched in terms of pleasure, achievement, happiness or well-being when it is associated with non-moral actions. But given that the action performed by blood donors can be judged as a moral action, it seems reasonable to think that there is something unique or special about the satisfaction connected with moral conduct of this sort. What I am suggesting in this paper is that the satisfaction associated with genuinely virtuous altruism is the emotion of moral self-love. This moral emotion is unique because it is directly linked with genuinely virtuous conduct which promotes the good of others.

7 Conclusion

From my analysis, I conclude that Butler agrees with Batson (1995) that empathy- induced altruism can conflict with moral principles such as justice. As a result, I have argued that empathy is neither necessary nor sufficient for genuinely moral altruism. It is not necessary since a strong commitment to moral or professional principles can be sufficient to motivate altruism. When empathy alone motivates altruism, moral principles such as the principle of impartiality may be violated and the resulting action people donate blood because it is personally rewarding and not because it helps those in need of blood. Consequently it challenges the findings of Titmuss 1971.

45 considered immoral. My analysis suggests that Butler and Batson agree that empathy can motivate altruism by itself. However, as Butler argues, empathy or compassion is not necessary or sufficient for genuinely moral altruism. In Butler’s moral psychology, reflection is necessary for autonomous moral agency and genuinely moral altruism. This paper reveals that much of our moral conduct is motivated by psychological egoism or psychological pluralism. I have outlined the difficulties associated with demonstrating the existence of genuinely moral altruism when using models that include existing relationships between friends, family and colleagues. As a result, I have established that the best empirical evidence for genuinely moral altruism is action performed to benefit strangers, such as blood donation. I have argued that Joseph Butler provides a plausible account of how genuinely moral altruism is possible for moral agents. I have argued that the satisfaction of moral self-love can help to promote genuinely moral altruism in moral agents by strengthening the agent’s belief that she ought to obey the commands of her conscience. I have argued that the experience of moral self-love depends on genuinely moral motivation. As such, feelings of moral self-love are distinct from simple ‘warm glow,’ feelings that can be produced by egoistic or pluralistic motivation. The argument I am attributing to Butler depends on my interpretation of the three meanings he gives to ‘self-love’ throughout his works. By interpreting the meaning of ‘self-love’ in Butler’s works to sometimes mean ‘moral self-love’, I have articulated what I take to be Butler’s defence of genuinely moral altruism.

46 References

[1] Andreoni, James, (1990), Impure Altruism and donation to public goods: A theory of warm glow giving, The Economic Journal, Vol. 100, pp. 464-477

[2] Batson, D. C.; Bolen, M. H., Cross, J. A., and Neuringer-Beneﬁeld, H, E. (1996), Where is altruism in the altruistic personality? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 212-220.

[3] Batson, D. C.; Duncan, B. D., Ackerman, P., Buckley, T., and Birch, K. (1981). Is empathetic emotion a source of altruistic motivation? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 40, pp. 290-302.

[4] Batson D. C.; Laura L. Shaw, (1991), Evidence for Altruism: Toward a Pluralism of Prosocial Motives, Psychological Inquiry, Vol. 2. No. 2, pp. 107-122

[5] Batson, D.C., (2008) Moral Masquerades: Experimental Exploration of the Nature of Moral Motivation, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 51-66

[6] Batson, D. C.; Klein, T. R., Highberger, L., and Shaw, L.L. (1995). Immorality from empathy-induced altruism: When compassion and justice conﬂict. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 68, No. 1, pp. 1042-1054.

[7] Batson, D. C., (2002) Addressing the Altruism Question Experimentally, (in Al- truism and Altruistic Love, Science, Philosophy and Religion in Dialouge), edited by Post, Underwood, Schloss, Hurlbut, Oxford University Press, pp. 89-105.

[8] Batson, D. C., (2011), What’s wrong with Morality?, Emotion Review, Vol 3. No. 3, pp. 230-236

[9] Barnes, Annette, (1997), Seeing Through Self-Deception, Cambridge University Press

[10] Bloomﬁeld, Paul, (2008), Morality and Self-Interest, Oxford University Press

[11] Blum, Lawrence, (1991), Moral Perception and Particularity, Ethics, Vol. 101, No. 4, pp. 701-725.

[12] Broad, C D., (1968), Five Types of Ethical Theory, Chapter 3, Alden Press, 10th edition.

[13] Cunliﬀe, C Editor, (1992), Joseph Butler’s Moral and Religious Thought, Tercente- nary Essays, Clarendon Press Oxford

47 [14] Darwall, Stephen, Joseph Butler, (1983) Five Sermons Preached at Rolls Chapel and A Dissertation Upon the Nature of Virtue, Hackett Publishing Company.

[15] Darwall, Stephen L, (1990) Symposia Papers: Autonomist Internalism and Justi- ﬁcation of Morals, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp.257-267

[16] Darwall, Stephen L, (1995) The British Moralists and the Internal “ought” 1640- 1740, Chapter 9, Cambridge University Press

[17] Dent, NJH, (1998) Rousseau on Amour Propre, Aristotelian Society : Supplemen- tary Volume, No. 72, pp. 57-73

[18] Ferguson, Farrell and Lawrence, (2008) Blood Donation is an Act of Benevolence Rather than Altruism, Health Psychology, Vol 27, No. 3, pp. 327-336.

[19] Gladstone, W.E. Editor, (1897) The Works of Joseph Butler, Volume I: The Anal- ogy of Religion, Clarendon Press

[20] Gladstone, W.E. Editor, (1897) The Works of Joseph Butler, Volume II: Sermons, Clarendon Press

[21] Hampton, Jean, (2007), The Intrinsic Worth of Persons, Contractarianism in Moral and Political Philosophy, Edited by Daniel Farnham, Cambridge University Press, pp. 39-107.

[22] Henson, Richard, (1988) Butler on Selﬁshness and Self-love, Philosophy and Phe- nomenological Research, Vol. 4, No. 9, pp. 31-57

[23] Hobbes, Thomas,(1994) Leviathan, edited by Edwin Curley, Hackett Publishing Company Inc.

[24] Irwin, T. H., (2008) Morality and Self-Interest, Edited By Paul Bloomﬁeld, Oxford University Press, pp. 159-179.

[25] Kleinig, John,(1969) Butler In a Cool Hour, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 7, pp. 399-411

[26] McPherson, Thomas, (1948), The Development of Bishop Butler’s Ethics, Part One, Philosophy Vol. 23, pp. 318-331

[27] McPherson, Thomas, (1948), The Development of Bishop Butler’s Ethics, Part Two, Philosophy Vol. 24, pp.3-24

[28] Mackie, J. L. (1993), Challenges to Morality, edited by Jonathan Harrison, Macmil- lan Publishing, pp. 257-267

48 [29] Mandeville, Bernard, (1993), Challenges to Morality, edited by Jonathan Harrison, Macmillan Publishing, pp. 188-195

[30] Miller, Dale T., (1999), The Norm of Self-Interest, American Psychologist, Vol.54, No.12, 1053-1060

[31] Nagel, T, (1970) The Possibility of Altruism, p. 79, Oxford University Press

[32] Norton, William J. Jr, (1940) Bishop Butler, Moralist and Divine, Rutgers Uni- versity Press

[33] O’Hagan, T. (1999), Rousseau on Amour-propre Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. 99, pp. 91-107

[34] Phillips, David, (2000), Butler and the Nature of Self-interest, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 60, No. 2, pp. 421-438.

[35] Phillipson, Nicholas, (2010) Adam Smith, an Enlightened Life, Allen Lane an im- print of Penguin Books

[36] Prinz, Jesse J. and Nichols, Shaun, (2010), The Moral Psychology Handbook, Ox- ford University Press, Chapter 4, pp.111-146.

[37] Raphael, D, D, (1949), Bishop Butler’s view of Conscience, Philosophy, Vol. 24, pp. 219-238.

[38] Russel, J, (1984), Desires Don’t cause Action, The Journal of Mind and Behaviour, Winter, Vol. 5, No. 1 p. 1-10

[39] Stewart, Robert M, (1982), John Clarke and Francis Hutcheson on Self-love and moral Motivation, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 2, pp. 261-278

[40] Stewart-Williams, Steve,(2007), Altruism among Kin versus Non-kin: Eﬀects of cost of helping and reciprocal exchange, Evolution and Human Behaviour, Vol 28, No. 3, pp. 193-198

[41] Sturgeon, N, (1976), Nature and Conscience in Butler’s Ethics, Philosophical review, Vol. 85, pp. 316-356

[42] Szabados, B., (1976), Butler on Corrupt Conscience, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 14, pp. 462-489

[43] Stich, Doris and Roedder, (2010), Altruism, Chapter 5, (in The Moral Psychology Handbook, Oxford University Press)

49 [44] Taylor, Paul. W., (1993), The Choice Between Duty and Interest Must be an Ir- rational One, in Challenges to Morality, edited by Jonathan Harrison, Macmillan Publishing, pp. 66-81.

[45] Titmuss, Richard, (1970), The Gift Relationship: from human blood to social Pol- icy, Allen and Unwin.

[46] Thagard, Paul, and Finn, Tracey, (2012), Morality and the Emotions, Edited By C. Bagnoli, pp. 150-159.

[47] Wedgwood, Ralph, (2008), Morality and Self-Interest, Edited By Paul Bloomﬁeld, Oxford University Press, pp. 177-204.

[48] White, A., (1952), Conscience and self-love in Butler’s Sermons, Philosophy, Vol. 27, pp. 329-344

Minerva Access is the Institutional Repository of The University of Melbourne

Author/s: Chambers, Judith

Title: Moral self-love, altruism and moral motivation in the works of Joseph Butler

Date: 2012

Citation: Chambers, J. (2012). Moral self-love, altruism and moral motivation in the works of Joseph Butler. Masters Advanced Seminar & Shorter thesis, Arts - School of Philosophy, Anthropology and Social Inquiry, The University of Melbourne.

Persistent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11343/37943

File Description: Moral self-love, altruism and moral motivation in the works of Joseph Butler

Terms and Conditions: Terms and Conditions: Copyright in works deposited in Minerva Access is retained by the copyright owner. The work may not be altered without permission from the copyright owner. Readers may only download, print and save electronic copies of whole works for their own personal non-commercial use. Any use that exceeds these limits requires permission from the copyright owner. Attribution is essential when quoting or paraphrasing from these works.