Inquiry Concerning Joseph Butler's Theory Of Conscience

The diverse human behaviors can be grouped into two main categories: instinctive reactions without reflection and conscious choices after reflection.To distinguish the moral ones from the others in these behaviors,a reasonable criterion which can reveal the specific nature and philosophically explain human moral behaviors should be established.Throughout the history of ethics,many philosophers have tried to found a way to philosophically explain the moral behaviors,including Socrates' s "virtue is knowledge",Plato's "cardinal virtues" and medieval theological virtues.But all of these failed to do it until Hobbes tried to attribute the basis of human moral behaviors to "self-interest" underling the course of human social progress and put forward the "social contract theory" in modern times.Although Hobbes had made a progress that traced the moral behaviors to human themselves rather than preconditions,Butler perceived the shortage of his utilitarian moral theory.He criticized Hobbes' s simple and crude handling methods,and proposed the theory of conscience.Butler's "theory of conscience" renders the moral behaviors of human beings as social activities,and should be based on human's "social attribute" rather than "natural attribute".As the moral behaviors is due to the combined influence of affections,self-love and benevolence,Butler proposed that moral behaviors were human's response to their own nature and the conditions in which they were living.So human nature became the law of their own,which is constituted by three parts: the laws in their hearts,the witness of conscience and the reflection of their thought.Behaviors accord with the nature are moral,reversely,immoral.According to Butler`s analysis,the human nature and living conditions are requirements for happiness.The inner principles which guide moral actions are affections,self-love and benevolence,to which we should hold positively.Conscience will take the authority of these inner principles to become the criterion of moral actions.Every action is made under certain circumstances.If we want to judge it,the agent`s nature property and the environmental factors should also be taken into consideration.Otherwise,the judgement would be biased or even morally hijacked.what's more,these inner principles also affect with each other.The great part of Butler`s theory is to hold self-love positively,taking conscience as the evaluation criterion for moral behaviors.He thought that self-love is consistent with benevolence in essence.And they have the same power that the former contributes to the "private good",and the later to the "public good".So judgement on moral action is of that,which part of self-love and benevolence surpass the other to dominant the action and after which our conscience reflects the whole things.Butler's "theory of conscience" focuses on the judgment of human moral behaviors in the field of practice,such as defining what kind of moral behaviors could be evaluated and why.Whereas previous philosophers used motivation to judge human moral behavior,Butler chose to use reflection process and conscientious to accomplish it.We can judge according to Butler's conscientious reflection especially when there is a discrepancy between actions and intentions,when it is impossible to judge the behaviors by motivations or results alone.However,on the level of social practice in morality,Butler's conscience reflection theory cannot be used as the criterion of encouragement and punishment for moral behaviors,as conscience is always a weak judgment and Butler's "theory of conscience" still have a strong idealistic flavor.The reason behind Butler's idealism is not fully because he is an idealist,but also derived from the characteristics of conscience which embodied in humankind but must go beyond the individual level,such as internality and transcendence.After his establishment of conscience as the criterion of moral evaluation,Butler explored the moral requirements in the field of practice from the view of his "theory of conscience",that is the moral imperative which could be grouped into two categories: one based on Plato's "cardinal virtues" and the other on the medieval theological virtues.Next,Butler clarified the consistence between the conscience and the "affections,self-love and benevolence" as the criterion of moral evaluation.At last,he pointed god is the most criterion in the moral behaviors of religion,and conscience demands the good just as the god does.In this point of view,Butler's theologian identities come into play.So both of these two categories of moral behaviors implicates "self-love" and benevolence" are consistent in their aims,that is "Man is born good".