GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

OBJECTIVE INTUITIONISM l8l
in human psychology are, he also tells us what ought to be
the relation between them. Nevertheless, the main trend
of his work is psychological. Butler is an exceedingly acute
thinker who states, as dearly perhaps as anybody has
ever done, the moral principles which govern the actions
of decent people. In this respect his ethical philosophy
fulfils what I have suggested on a previous page to be
the main purpose of ethics, 1 namely, that of analysing
and clarifying our common moral experience.
Butler divides human psychology into three main
elements, just as Plato divides the soul into three parts.
There is, first, a set of passions or affections; examples of
these, which we should now call impulses, are anger,
sexual desire, hunger, envy and malice. Each passion
or impulse is concerned solely to obtain satisfaction for
itself, irrespective of the needs of the rest of our natures.
Secondly, there are two general principles or motives to
action which Butler calls respectively Benevolence and
Self-love. Benevolence is a tendency which exists in all
or most men to seek the greatest happiness of all without
respect of persons; Self-love, which Butler often calls
cool Self-love to emphasize its deliberative character, is
a tendency to seek the greatest happiness of ourselves.
Thirdly, there is Conscience, a supreme principle set. in
authority over the rest, whose function it is to determine
to what extent the particular impulses may be indulged
and the two general principles, Self-love and Benevolence,
Mowed.
Analogy
Between Human Nature and a Watch.
Like Plato, Butler identifies moral excellence not ;
one of these faculties or propensities, but
relation between them. Each of our faculty
in itself good; how, indeed, could it
God implanted them in us? But evil
wrong relationship between them; any ,
function excessively or insufficiently or
1 See Chapter V, p. 174.