English Anglican bishop and philosopher, 1692?1752
Joseph Butler
(18 May 1692 ? 16 June 1752) was an English
Anglican bishop
,
theologian
,
apologist
, and
philosopher
, born in
Wantage
in the English county of
Berkshire
(now in
Oxfordshire
). He is known for critiques of
Deism
,
Thomas Hobbes
's
egoism
, and
John Locke
's theory of
personal identity
.
[4]
The many philosophers and religious thinkers Butler influenced included
David Hume
,
Thomas Reid
,
Adam Smith
,
[5]
Henry Sidgwick
,
[6]
John Henry Newman
,
[7]
and
C. D. Broad
,
[8]
and is widely seen as "one of the pre-eminent English moralists."
[9]
He played a major, if underestimated role in developing 18th-century economic discourse, influencing the Dean of Gloucester and political economist
Josiah Tucker
.
[10]
Biography
[
edit
]
Early life and education
[
edit
]
Butler was born on 18 May 1692.
[12]
The son of a
Presbyterian
linen draper, Butler was destined for the ministry of that church, and with the future archbishop
Thomas Secker
, entered
Samuel Jones
's
dissenting academy
at Gloucester (later Tewkesbury) for the purpose. There he began a secret correspondence with the Anglican theologian and philosopher
Samuel Clarke
. In 1714, he decided to join the
Church of England
and entered
Oriel College
,
Oxford
, receiving a
Bachelor of Arts
degree in 1718 and named a
Doctor of Civil Law
on 8 December 1733.
[1]
Church career
[
edit
]
Butler was ordained a deacon on 26 October 1718 by
William Talbot
,
Bishop of Salisbury
, in his Bishop's Palace, Salisbury, his palace chapel
[13]
and a priest on 21 December 1718 by Talbot at
St James's Church, Piccadilly
.
[1]
After holding various other high positions, he became
rector
of the rich living of
Stanhope, County Durham
.
In 1736 Butler became the
head chaplain
of
George II
's wife
Caroline
, on the advice of
Lancelot Blackburne
. He was nominated
Bishop of Bristol
on 19 October 1738 and consecrated a bishop on 3 December 1738 at
Lambeth Palace
chapel. Remaining Bishop of Bristol, Butler was installed
Dean of St Paul's
on 24 May 1740, keeping the office until his translation to Durham.
[1]
He is said apocryphally to have declined an offer to become
Archbishop of Canterbury
in 1747, but he served as
Clerk of the Closet
to the king in 1746?1752. He was translated to Durham by the
confirmation
of his
election
in October 1750; he was then enthroned by proxy on 9 November 1750.
[1]
He is buried in Bristol Cathedral.
Death and legacy
[
edit
]
Butler died in 1752 at Rosewell House,
Kingsmead Square
in
Bath
,
Somerset
.
[14]
His admirers have praised him as an excellent person and a diligent and conscientious churchman. Though indifferent to literature, he had some taste in the fine arts, especially architecture.
Joseph is
remembered
in the
Church of England
with a
commemoration
on
16 June
.
[15]
He had his own collection of manuscripts (e. g.
Lectionary 189
).
Philosophy
[
edit
]
Attack on deism
[
edit
]
During his lifetime and for many years after, Butler was best known for his
Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed
(1736), which according to historian
Will Durant
"remained for a century the chief buttress of Christian argument against unbelief."
[16]
English deists such as
John Toland
and
Matthew Tindal
had argued that nature provides clear evidence of an intelligent designer and artificer, but they rejected orthodox Christianity due to the incredibility of miracles and the cruelties and contradictions recorded in the Bible.
Butler's
Analogy
was one of many book-length replies to the deists, and long believed to be the most effective. Butler argued that nature itself was full of mysteries and cruelties and so shared the same alleged defects as the Bible. Arguing on empiricist grounds that all knowledge of nature and human conduct is merely probable, Butler appealed to a series of patterns ("analogies") observable in nature and human affairs, which in his view make the chief teachings of Christianity likely.
Butler argued that "because nature is a mess of riddles, we cannot expect revelation to be any clearer"
[17]
Today, Butler's
Analogy
is "now largely of historical interest,"
[18]
with the only part widely read being the section which deals with his criticism of John Locke's theory of personal identity.
[3]
Ethics and moral psychology
[
edit
]
A Butler scholar, Stephen Darwall, wrote: "Probably no figure had a greater impact on nineteenth-century British moral philosophy than Butler."
[19]
Butler's chief target in the
Sermons
was
Thomas Hobbes
and the egoistic view of human nature he had defended in
Leviathan
(1651). Hobbes was a materialist who believed that science reveals a world in which all events are causally determined and in which all human choices flow unavoidably from whatever desire is most powerful in a person at a given time. Hobbes saw human beings as being violent, self-seeking, and power-hungry. Such a view left no place for genuine altruism, benevolence or concept of morality as traditionally conceived.
[20]
In the
Sermons
, Butler argues that human motivation is less selfish and more complex than Hobbes claimed. He maintains that the human mind is an organized hierarchy of a number of different impulses and principles, many of which are not fundamentally selfish. The ground floor, so to speak, holds a wide variety of specific emotions, appetites and affections, such as hunger, anger, fear and sympathy. They, in properly organized minds, are controlled by two superior principles: self-love (a desire to maximize one's own long-term happiness) and benevolence (a desire to promote general happiness). The more general impulses are in turn subject to the highest practical authority in the human mind: moral conscience. Conscience, Butler claims, is an inborn sense of right and wrong, an inner light and monitor, received from God.
[21]
Conscience tells one to promote the general happiness and personal happiness. Experience informs that the two aims largely coincide in the present life. For many reasons, Butler argues, unethical and self-centred people who care nothing for the public good are not usually very happy.
There are, however, rare cases where the wicked seem for a time to prosper. A perfect harmony of virtue and self-interest, Butler claimed, is guaranteed only by a just God, who in the afterlife rewards and punishes people as they deserve.
[22]
Criticism of Locke
[
edit
]
In Appendix 1 of the
Analogy
, Butler offers a famous criticism of
John Locke
's influential theory of "personal identity", an explanation of what makes someone the "same person" from one time to the next, despite all the physical and psychological changes experienced over that period. Locke claimed that personal identity is not from having the same body or the same soul but from having the same consciousness and memory. According to Locke, memory is the "glue" that ties the various stages of our life together and constitutes sameness of person. This section of the
Analogy
is the only widely read part of it today.
[3]
More precisely, Locke claims, Person A is the same person as Person B only in a case where A and B share at least some of the same memories. Butler said that the way "real" memories can be distinguished from false ones is that people who had the experiences that are truly remembered. Thus, Butler claimed, memory presupposes personal identity and so cannot constitute it.
[23]
Veneration
[
edit
]
Butler is honoured on the
liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA)
on 16 June.
[24]
Styles and titles
[
edit
]
- 1692?1718: Joseph Butler Esq.
- 1718?1733:
The Reverend
Joseph Butler
- 1733?1738:
The Reverend
Doctor Joseph Butler
- 1738?1752:
The Right Reverend
Doctor Joseph Butler
Publications
[
edit
]
- Several letters to the Reverend Dr. Clarke
, 1716, 1719, 1725 ? reprinted in Volume 1 of
Gladstone's
edition of Butler's works
- Fifteen sermons preached at the Rolls Chapel
, 1726, 1729, 1736, 1749, 1759, 1765, 1769, 1774, 1792
- The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature
, 1736,
[2]
1740, 1750, 1754, 1764, 1765, 1771, 1775, 1785, 1788, 1791, 1793, 1796, 1798
- A sermon preached before the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts
, 1739
- A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord-Mayor
, 1740
- A sermon preached before the House of Lords
, 1741, 1747
- A sermon preached in the parish-church of Christ-Church
, London, 1745
- A sermon, preached before His Grace Charles Duke of Richmond, Lenox, and Aubigny, president
, 1748, 1751
- Six sermons preached upon publick occasions
, 1749
- A catalogue of the libraries [...]
, 1753
- A charge delivered to the clergy at the primary visitation of the diocese of Durham
, 1751, 1786 ? reprinted in Volume 2 of Gladstone's edition of Butler's works
See also
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
"Butler, Joseph".
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
(online ed.). Oxford University Press.
doi
:
10.1093/ref:odnb/4198
.
(Subscription or
UK public library membership
required.)
- ^
Adamson, Robert
;
Grieve, Alexander James
(1911).
"Butler, Joseph"
.
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). pp. 882?885.
- ^
a
b
c
"Butler, Joseph | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy"
.
- ^
"Joseph Butler (1692?1752)"
.
- ^
White (2006), §8.
- ^
J. B. Schneewind,
Sidgwick's Ethics and Victorian Moral Philosophy
. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978, p. 47.
- ^
John Henry Cardinal Newman,
Apologia Pro Vita Sua
. New York: Modern Library, 1950, p. 41. Originally published 1946.
- ^
C. D. Broad,
Five Types of Ethical Theory
. Paterson, NJ: Littlefield, Adams, and Co., 1959, p. 83. Originally published 1930.
- ^
James C. Livingston,
Modern Christian Thought
. New York: Macmillan, 1971, p. 47.
- ^
Peter Xavier Price, 'LIBERTY, POVERTY AND CHARITY IN THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF JOSIAH TUCKER AND JOSEPH BUTLER',
Modern Intellectual History
(2017), 1?30. doi:10.1017/S1479244317000518.
[1]
- ^
As seen on his monument in Durham Cathedral (same arms as Butler, Earl of Lanesborough (Burke, Bernard, The General Armory of England, 1884, p. 153))
- ^
Tennant, Bob (2011).
Conscience, Consciousness and Ethics in Joseph Butler's Philosophy and Ministry
. Boydell Press. p. 21.
ISBN
978-1-84383-612-4
.
- ^
"Butler, Joseph (CCEd Ordination ID 26955)"
.
The Clergy of the Church of England Database 1540?1835
. Retrieved
5 September
2014
.
- ^
"Rosewell House"
.
Images of England
. English Heritage. Archived from
the original
on 18 October 2012
. Retrieved
2 September
2009
.
- ^
"The Calendar"
.
The Church of England
. Retrieved
27 March
2021
.
- ^
Will and Ariel Durant,
The Age of Voltaire
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1965, p. 125.
- ^
Livingston,
Modern Christian Thought
, p. 51.
- ^
Stephen L. Darwall, "Introduction" to Joseph Butler,
Five Sermons
. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983, p. 1.
- ^
Darwall, "Introduction<" p. 3.
- ^
Darwall, "Introduction," p. 1.
- ^
Butler,
Five Sermons
, p. 37.
- ^
Butler,
Five Sermons
, p. 45.
- ^
Joseph Butler,
The Analogy of Religion
. Cincinnati: Jennings and Graham, 1847. p. 324.
- ^
Lesser Feasts and Fasts 2018
. Church Publishing, Inc. 17 December 2019.
ISBN
978-1-64065-235-4
.
References
[
edit
]
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain
:
Cousin, John William
(1910).
A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature
. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – via
Wikisource
.
- William Lucas Collins
,
Butler
, Philosophical Classics for English Readers, Blackwood, 1881
- Adamson, Robert
;
Grieve, Alexander James
(1911).
"Butler, Joseph"
.
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). pp. 882?885.
- David E. White, "
Joseph Butler
,"
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
, J. Fieser & B. Dowden (eds.), 2006
- Aaron Garrett
Joseph Butler's Moral Philosophy
,
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
, 2012
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Austin Duncan-Jones
Butler's Moral Philosophy
, Penguin 1952
- Bernard Ramm, "Joseph Butler,"
Varieties of Christian Apologetics: An Introduction to the Christian Philosophy of Religion
, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, 1962, pp. 107?124
- James Rurak, "Butler's
Analogy
: A Still Interesting Synthesis of Reason and Revelation,"
Anglican Theological Review
62 (October), 1980, pp. 365?381
- Colin Brown,
Miracles and the Critical Mind
, Paternoster, Exeter UK/William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1984
- William Lane Craig
The Historical Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus During the Deist Controversy
, Texts and Studies in Religion, Vol. 23. Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, New York & Queenston, Ontario, 1985
- Penelhum, Terence,
Butler
, New York: Routledge, 1985
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
|
Bristol (1542)
| |
---|
Bristol (1897)
| |
---|
|
---|
Deans
| High Medieval
| |
---|
Late Medieval
| |
---|
Early modern
| |
---|
Late modern
| |
---|
| |
---|
Clergy
(current)
| |
---|
Related
| |
---|
|
|
---|
Bishops of Lindisfarne
| |
---|
Bishops of Chester-le-Street
| |
---|
High Medieval Bishops of Durham
| |
---|
High Medieval Bishops
rulers of the
County Palatine of Durham
| |
---|
Late Medieval Bishops
rulers of the County Palatine of Durham
| |
---|
Early modern Bishops
rulers of the County Palatine of Durham
| |
---|
Late modern Bishops
| |
---|
|
---|
17th century
| |
---|
18th century
| |
---|
19th century
| |
---|
Since 1900
| |
---|
|
---|
International
| |
---|
National
| |
---|
People
| |
---|
Other
| |
---|