Joseph Butler
1692–1752 · British Moral Philosophy · Little-known
Butler was an English moral philosopher and Bishop of Durham. Against Hobbes he argued that human nature comes with a chain of command, and that conscience sits at the top of it, holding the standing to overrule appetite and self-interest alike. He called probability the very guide of life. Reasoning by analogy from the way nature runs, he concluded that God governs the world by moral law.
Signature
The position Butler is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Ethics
- leans Means
- Ethics Basis
- Natural Law / Virtue
Positions on the 14 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- strongly leans Purposeful (100 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (88 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- leans Describable (14 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Identity
- strongly leans Unchanging (0 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- strongly leans Inherent (93 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (79 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- strongly leans Objective (94 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (88 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Polity
- leans Illiberalism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- leans Means (84 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- Ignorance
- mildly leans Bondage (35 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
- Conviction
- mildly leans Uncertain (34 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
- Allegiance
- mildly leans Local (33 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
6 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Butler refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Confessional State
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Virtue
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Division of Good and Evil
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Knowledge
- Sense Experience / Intuition
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Natural Law / Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Time
- Eschatological
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Natural Law / Divine Revelation
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Law
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Judgement
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Adaptive Function / Virtue to Cultivate
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Imago Dei / Political Animal
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?