Hobbes and Butler on Human Nature
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and Joseph Butler (1692-1752) hold contrasting views on how to build a human society. For Hobbes the most important issue is to achieve and maintain peace, and points out, that men ought to give up their natural rights and transfer them to a sovereign. For Butler the best way is to follow the rules of God which are already inside of every man’s soul. The two both start with an account of human nature: Hobbes notes that it is lead by appetites and aversions and results in selfish individuals; Butler argues that man is born to virtue, so that every human being is naturally benevolent and has an inborn motivation to love and help others. In the pages that follow I shall refer to different arguments by Hobbes and Butler to understand each other’s conceptions on human society.
Hobbes’s conception of the will
The will is a very problematic term in Hobbes’s moral philosophy. Round 1640 it was the subject of fierce debates with the Bishop of Derry, John Bramhall, and eighty years later received harsh criticism from Joseph Butler. Hobbes’s main idea is that there is no such thing as ‘free will,’ regarded by Bramhall as the faculty of the rational soul to act or not, depend on moral considerations (Bramhall, vol. 4, p. 290, Russell, p. 5). What we call the will, insists Hobbes, is merely the last appetite or aversion that moves us to act: “In deliberation, the last appetite, or aversion, immediately adhering to the action, or to the omission thereof, is that we call the WILL, the act (not the faculty) of willing. And beasts that have deliberation must necessarily also have will.” (Leviathan, p. 33).
This phrase of Hobbes can be seen as a summary of all his views on man as a moral agent in building a peaceful society. In his definition of ‘deliberation’ as ‘the whole sum of desires, aversions, hopes and fears’, we can find two important features: (1) deliberation and reason are not equivalent, and (2) deliberation is not an exclusive faculty
Hobbes’s conception of the will
The will is a very problematic term in Hobbes’s moral philosophy. Round 1640 it was the subject of fierce debates with the Bishop of Derry, John Bramhall, and eighty years later received harsh criticism from Joseph Butler. Hobbes’s main idea is that there is no such thing as ‘free will,’ regarded by Bramhall as the faculty of the rational soul to act or not, depend on moral considerations (Bramhall, vol. 4, p. 290, Russell, p. 5). What we call the will, insists Hobbes, is merely the last appetite or aversion that moves us to act: “In deliberation, the last appetite, or aversion, immediately adhering to the action, or to the omission thereof, is that we call the WILL, the act (not the faculty) of willing. And beasts that have deliberation must necessarily also have will.” (Leviathan, p. 33).
This phrase of Hobbes can be seen as a summary of all his views on man as a moral agent in building a peaceful society. In his definition of ‘deliberation’ as ‘the whole sum of desires, aversions, hopes and fears’, we can find two important features: (1) deliberation and reason are not equivalent, and (2) deliberation is not an exclusive faculty
Bibliography: Bramhall, John. The Works of the most Reverend Father in God, John Bramhall. Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1844, vol. IV. Butler, Joseph. Five Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel and A Dissertation upon the Nature of Virtue. New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1950. Hobbes, Thomas. The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic: To Which Are Subjoined Selected Extracts from Unprinted Mss. of Thomas Hobbes. Edited by Ferdinand Tönnies. London: Simpkin, Marshall and Company, 1889. Electronic version retrieved from: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Hob2Ele.html Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Edited by Edwin Curley. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1994. Russell, Paul. “Hobbes, Bramhall, and the Free Will Problem”. Retrieved from: philpapers.org/rec/RUSHBA.