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tion I have not considered and shan’t do so here. I suspect, however, that most of his account can be preserved intact, at least if we grant his taking moral experience as sui generis.

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The Economy of the Passions

§1. Introduction

Today I wish to discuss what I shall call the economy of the passions as illustrated by what Butler says about compassion in Sermons V–VII, and about resentment and the forgiveness of injuries in Sermons VIII–IX. But first, two brief comments.

(1) I want to emphasize once more the stress that Butler gives to the social character of human nature. Indeed, this is the main theme of Sermon I. Recall that the text of this sermon is Romans 12:4–5: “For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.” Butler wishes to fill in the analogy which St. Paul suggests here between the parts of our body and how they constitute one body on the one hand, and how we, as many separate persons, constitute a society as opposed to a mere aggregate of individuals. The account of the moral (vs. physical) constitution of human nature is designed to display how it is that “we were made for society and to do good to our fellowcreatures” as well as that “we were intended to take care of our own life and health and private good” (Sermon I: 3, p. 35). (Recall here that in the eighteenth century the term “moral” had a wider use than today, and often meant “psychological,” which is Butler’s intended sense in inquiring into the “moral constitution of human nature.”) Once this constitution is described, Butler sums up the theme of the social nature of human beings with the repetition of the statement just cited (I: 9, p. 44) and in the long and quite wonderful paragraph I: 10 (pp. 44f ). The second sentence of this paragraph is: “Mankind are by nature so closely united, there is such a correspondence between the inward sensations of one man and

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those of another, that disgrace is as much to be avoided as bodily pain, and to be the object of esteem and love as much desired as any external goods.” You need to read the whole paragraph here.2 Here, of course, Butler is stressing a long-standing Christian theme, not only against Hobbes’s doctrine of man as unfit for society, but against various forms of individualism more generally. I mention these obvious points only so we shan’t lose sight of them.

(2) In the quote above from I: 10, we see that Butler finds signs of our social nature in the passions, for example, in the fear of disgrace and the desire for esteem. Today we will discuss compassion and resentment as passions that are especially important, so Butler thinks, for our moral constitution as a whole. Compassion strengthens and supports our capacity to follow and act from the dictates of conscience and the claims of benevolence. Although, as it turns out, there is a sense in which compassion is a non-moral passion, whereas resentment on some occasions is needed to

2. [Sermon I, paragraph 10, says in its entirety the following. —Ed.]

“And from this whole review must be given a different draught of human nature from what we are often presented with. Mankind are by nature so closely united, there is such a correspondence between the inward sensations of one man and those of another, that disgrace is as much to be avoided as bodily pain, and to be the object of esteem and love as much desired as any external goods: and, in many particular cases, persons are carried on to do good to others, as the end their affections tend to, and rest in; and manifest that they find real satisfaction and enjoyment in this course of behaviour. There is such a natural principle of attraction in man towards man, that having trod the same track of land, having breathed in the same climate, barely having been born in the same artificial district, or division, becomes the occasion of contracting acquaintances and familiarities many years after: for any thing may serve the purpose. Thus, relations, merely nominal, are sought and invented, not by governors, but by the lowest of the people; which are found sufficient to hold mankind together in little fraternities and copartnerships: weak ties indeed, and what may afford fund enough for ridicule, if they are absurdly considered as the real principles of that union; but they are, in truth, merely the occasions, as any thing may be of any thing, upon which our nature carries us on according to its own previous bent and bias; which occasions, therefore, would be nothing at all, were there not this prior disposition and bias of nature. Men are so much one body, that in a peculiar manner they feel for each other, shame, sudden danger, resentment, honor, prosperity, distress: one or another, or all of these, from the social nature in general, from benevolence, upon the occasion of natural relation, acquaintance, protection, dependence; each of these being distinct cements of society. And, therefore, to have no restraint from, no regard to others in our behaviour, is the speculative absurdity of considering ourselves as single and independent, as having nothing in our nature which has respect to our fellow-creatures, reduced to action and practice. And this is the same absurdity, as to suppose a hand, or any part, to have no natural respect to any other, or to the whole body.”

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still compassion and to strengthen our capacity to carry out the dictates of justice, more accurately penal justice. But resentment is not to be confused with revenge, the gratification of which is always wrong; and resentment itself must be hedged and balanced by the precept to forgive those who injure us. It is this balancing and working together of the various passions and how they assist our capacity to act from the dictates of conscience, and a public spirit of good-will to others generally, that I mean to refer to by the phrase “the economy of the passions.” The passions are, as it were, a subsystem within the moral constitution of human nature; they have an essential role, in Butler’s view, in adapting that moral constitution to virtue, that is, to those forms of thought and conduct which enable us to take part in and to contribute to the life of society.

When we come to Hume and Kant we shall compare their accounts of the passions, and their role, with Butler’s account.3 Thus these intuitive common-sense psychological inquiries are an essential part of the material we want to cover.

§2. Butler’s Method

Now for a few remarks about Butler’s method of approaching the passions:

(1) First, keep in mind the theological background, or what I have called Butler’s “Deistic Assumptions”: namely, that God exists with the familiar theistic properties; that God created the world; that in addition to being omniscient and omnipotent, etc., God is also benevolent and just, and therefore intends the good of living things and of human beings in particular. This assumption Butler never argues for; he simply takes it for granted. While the Sermons are not limited to this assumption in the same way as the Analogy (the Sermons after all are sermons and take Scripture as their texts, etc.), it is useful for our purposes to note (what I believe is the case) that the Deistic Assumption by itself accounts for most, if not all, of what Butler thinks he needs.

Thus, it explains how Butler can say that our moral constitution (and

3. [See John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, ed. Barbara Herman (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000) for the lectures on Hume and Kant referred to here. —Ed.]

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how it prompts us to think and act) is “the voice of God within us” (Sermon VI: 8, p. 114); and how he can say on another occasion that our human nature (that is, I take it, our moral constitution) is to be held sacred, for “in the image of God, made He man” (Sermon VIII: 19, p. 149). Further, there are a number of places where Butler assumes that our moral constitution correctly described provides a reason for believing how God intends our constitution to be. Thus in Sermon II: 1 (in which Butler gives his main argument for the authority of conscience) he says: “If the real nature of any creature leads him and is adapted to such and such purposes only, or more than to any other; this is a reason to believe the Author of that nature intended it for those purposes” (p. 51). Note that Butler is not arguing to the existence of God with such and such properties and intentions, etc. He assumes that God exists and has certain intentions, consistent with God’s benevolence and justice in creating the world. Therefore, the moral constitution of our nature may reasonably be taken to disclose something about God’s intentions concerning us; which intentions, given our relation to God, are law for us. Since the examination of our constitutions shows that we are bound to regard the deliverances of our conscience as authoritative and decisive (and not merely as having some influence, more or less, on this or that occasion), Butler speaks of our moral constitution as sacred and as the voice of God.

In paragraph (II: 3), he goes on later to say:

Since then our inward feelings, and the perceptions we receive from our external senses, are equally real; to argue from the former to life and conduct is as little liable to exception, as to argue from the latter to absolute speculative truth . . . And allowing the inward feeling, shame; a man can as little doubt whether it was given to him to prevent his doing shameful actions, as he can doubt whether his eyes were given him to guide his steps. (p. 53)

Butler continues:

. . . as to these inward feelings themselves; that they are real, that man has in his nature passions and affections, can no more be questioned, than that he has external senses. Neither can the former (the passions)

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be wholly mistaken; though to a certain degree liable to greater mistakes than the latter (the senses). (p. 53)

Among the important points in the paragraph is Butler’s belief that what he calls the passions (vs. appetites and affections and attachments) are an important part of our moral constitution, and help to disclose to us how we are intended by God to conduct ourselves.

(2)Among the consequences of the Deistic Assumption are these. First, that none of the passions are in themselves evil; for such passions could not have been part of God’s intention. There are, to be sure, abuses of passions and letting them go beyond their proper use (Sermon VIII: 3–4, pp. 137– 138). Revenge is an abuse of resentment and is our responsibility and fault (Sermon VIII: 14–15, pp. 145–146). What is a wicked and bad character is the disorder of our moral constitution; and the abuse and lack of control of its several elements, once this disorder occurs.

A second consequence of the Deistic Assumption is that a passion, at least an important and fundamental one, must have some proper role and task in our moral constitution as a whole. Of course, it may appear to us to have no such role and task. But on the Deistic Assumption this can’t be so; and hence we are prompted to reflect on our makeup to see if we can work out what its role and task is. This is important for Butler in the case of resentment. The role and task of compassion he thinks are relatively straightforward; it assists the dictates of conscience and the concerns of good-will to others, particularly when others are in distress and need our help. But why should we have the passion of resentment, which Butler says is unique among the passions (as opposed to their abuse) in having as its aim the inflicting of pain and misery on another, even if only because of an injury (vs. harm) which this person has done? Thus Butler looks for the role and task that resentment must have; if we describe our moral constitution correctly, we may be able to work out what it is. Of course, we may not be able to, since the scheme of nature and our place in it is a moral scheme of God’s government, but one imperfectly comprehended. (See Analogy: Pt. I, Ch. 7, “Of the Government of God, considered as a Scheme or Constitution, imperfectly comprehended.”)

(3)A further observation is this, stated in the first paragraph of Sermon VIII, “Upon Resentment.” When Butler examines our moral constitution

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and its various parts, he always does so as the constitution of natural beings and within their natural circumstances. He assumes that our moral constitution is adjusted to these circumstances and natural conditions; our proper constitution is what it is because of our situation in nature. Thus he says that in this inquiry we are “to take human nature as it is, and the circumstances in which it is placed as they are; and then consider the correspondence between that nature and those circumstances, or what course of action and behavior, respecting those circumstances, any particular affection or passion leads us to” (p. 136). See also Sermon VI: 1, p. 108. He says he mentions this matter to distinguish his inquiry from those of another kind: namely, why aren’t we more perfect creatures than we are (e.g., why doesn’t conscience in us have power (influence) as it has authority); or why aren’t we placed in better circumstances? But such questions as these we have nothing to do with. To pursue them is to run the danger of doing something “worse than impertinent curiosity” (Sermon VIII: 1, p. 137). Thus Butler sees his task as not that of asking “Why were we not made of such a nature, and placed in such circumstances, as to have no need of so harsh and turbulent passion as resentment?” but, taking our nature and condition as being what they are, “Why or for what end such a passion was given us?”: and this chiefly in order to show what are the abuses of it (VIII: 2, p. 137). Thus, as his practical temper inclines him, Butler refuses to engage in philosophical speculation or subtle metaphysical inquiries. He really does, for the most part, stick to what he takes to be the plain facts concerning our moral constitution as manifest in our common moral experience; he thinks that these facts are open to view in the sense that we require no philosophical or other doctrine to uncover them, no special procedures or methods to make them available to us. Butler thinks, to be sure, that only someone who already has a systematic theory would describe our nature as Hobbes does (cf. Sermon I: 4, ftnt. b (pp. 35ff ); V: 1, ftnt. a, pp. 93ff ). But he thinks that it is clear to us that Hobbes is mistaken, once we carefully examine our common moral experience. What I have in mind is that we do not find in Butler the idea that the agreed facts of moral experience are peculiarly difficult to ascertain, even granting that partiality and pride, etc., can draw us into self-deception and self-deceit (Sermon X: “Upon Self-Deceit”). All of this gives Butler’s discussion of the passions a

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