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

OBJECTIVE INTUITIONI8M 199
a changing society of the society to which his ancestors
belonged. Conscience is in fact, on this view, society's
spy planted in the individual's soul.
Such theories deny that Conscience is a unique faculty,
and analyse it into simpler and more primitive elements.
nature no such
Just as it might be said that there are by
things as omelettes in the world, but only their constituent
eggs and butter, so psycho-analysts, subjective-intuitionists
and many modern psychologists are inclined to say that
there is by nature no such thing as Conscience in the
human make-up, but only instincts, renunciations of
instincts and feelings of guilt arising from such renunciations.
These views are at once the prop and the mirror
of the tendency of the times, which is to deny the existence
of innate moral faculties invested with unique and absolute
authority. To those who are steeped in contemporary
psychological views, Butler's doctrines cannot but appear
to be unduly naive and simple. There are, however, two
elucidatory comments to be made which, by qualifying
the apparent simplicity of Butler's doctrine on the subject
of Conscience, may have the effect of rendering it more
acceptable.
The Economical Use of Conscience* First, Butler
does not maintain that every detail of our lives ought to
be regulated by Conscience; on the contrary, he suggests
that, the more Conscience is kept in the background, the
better. It is a commonplace upon whose significance I
shall touch later, 1 that the best way to obtain happiness
is not deliberately to seek it. Similarly with moral virtue;
the best way to achieve it is not to keep its importance
constantly in mind; that way priggishness lies. It is bad
for our temperaments to be continually taking our moral
temperatures.
Butler is fully alive to these dangers. His ideal is not
that our actions should be constantly "vetted" by Conscience,
but that they should be such as Conscience would
1 See Chapter XI, pp. 409-409.