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

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ETHICS
determined ; if it is reason or akin to reason, it would appear
to require the admission of considerations which
Intuitionism would not regard as relevant* A brief examination
of the relevant views of some of the English
intuitionists ofthe seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries
will serve to underline this criticism. It is interesting to
see how the views of these writers, who were in intention
strictly intuitionist, nevertheless, evince an increasing dis-
position to recognize the importance of taking consequences
into account, and by so doing prepare the way for the
criticisms which, in the nineteenth century, the utilitarians
were to bring against the whole intuitionist position.
Views of Shaftesbury. After Butler, whose views we
have already considered, the most important writer of
the English intuitionist school is Shaftesbury (1671-1713).
His views, published in works entitled Enquiry Concern-
ing Virtue and Characteristics of Men, Manners, Nations and
Times is based upon a principle which he calls the Will of
Nature. The Will of Nature is conceived primarily in
physical terms; it is the force which underlies the uniformity
of nature and maintains its equilibrium. Now human
beings are part of nature; therefore the Will of Nature
operates also in us. The Will of Nature is a beneficent force
Shaftesbury often writes as if, by the Will of Nature, he
meant what others have called the Will of God so much
so, that we have only to act in accordance with it to achieve
happiness. Happiness Shaftesbury conceives as a condition
which may be achieved internally in complete independence
of external circumstances; to obtain it we have only
to live in accordance with the Will of Nature. Shaftesbury
would have approved of Mrs. Knox's frequently re-
iterated doctrine in Fanny's First Play that "happiness is
within ourselves, and doesn't come from outward pleasures.
. . * If a girl has not happiness in her she won't
be happy anywhere".
This cheerfrd doctrine had two important consequences.
The first was its influence upon what was shortly to be the