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

a8a BTHIGS
welfare of the community. The truly enlightened business
man, like Shaftesbury's truly enlightened individual,
realizes this ; he realizes, that is to say, that there is no conflict
between his own interests and those of society. When he
finds that what appear to be his personal interests and those
of society conflict, he may be sure that he is mistaken in
thinking that what appear to be his personal interests really
are his personal interests; in so far as he fails to realize
this mistake, he is not truly enlightened. The economist
Adam Smith (1723-1790) puts the point as follows:
"The study of a man's own advantage naturally, or rather
necessarily, leads him to prefer that employment which
is most advantageous to society." The conclusion is that
if each man pursues his own true self-interest, the social
and more, particularly, the economic effects are likely
to be better than they would be, if human beings were
prevented from pursuing their own interest by the arbitrary
act of external authority; in fact they are likely to be the
best possible. Thus the beliefin the Will ofNature combined
with the belief in the Natural Rights held by Locke 1 and
also with the Hedonism of the utilitarians* to provide an
ethical foundation for the economic theories which
were associated with the development of the Industrial
Revolution and the establishment of capitalist Indi-
vidualism.
The Relation between Reason and Feeling. In the
second place, the belief in the Will of Nature leads to an
intuitional theory of morality. Shaftesbury discusses at
length whether feeling or reason is the higher faculty, and
concludes in favour of feeling. Among our feelings he
includes direct intuitions in regard to moral issues. These,
he holds, it is our duty to follow, and, since they spring
direct from the operations of the Will erf" Nature within us,
to act in accordance with our intuitions is to establish the
best possible relations between the self and the world
outside the self, in which the Will of Nature also prevails.
1 See Chapter XIII, p. 493.
* See Chapter IX, pp. 348, 349.