Approaching Philosophy of Religion by Anthony C. Thiselton

Author:Anthony C. Thiselton
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780281076772
Publisher: SPCK
Published: 2017-04-07T16:00:00+00:00

2 Subjective and utilitarian views of the good: Hobbes, Hume and Bentham

In the early modern era, Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) tended to define good merely as what was pleasant, expedient or useful, and human beings as, basically, egoists. Desires and aversions were virtually physical dictates. Many have described his ethics as no more than psychological hedonism. In Leviathan he described Aristotle’s system as absurd, and even repugnant to government. Indeed Hobbes could see, in the end, only the monarch’s use of force as a way of maintaining order and a semblance of ‘good’ for society. Power, he said, is the chief regulating principle in ethical judgement. ‘Virtue’ is any esteemed quality that sets people above their fellows. Love is valuable only as a social influence. Benevolence is merely ‘a half-conscious mutual contract’ of expectation of a good return for favours done. Everyone is ‘vehemently in love with their own opinions’.162

David Hume (1711–76) stressed consequential ethics, like Hobbes, but in a more utilitarian way. His method was naturalistic and dependent on observation. Unlike the Aristotelian-Thomist tradition he believed that reason was the slave of the passions. Good is the action ‘of whose consequences most men approve’ and what is ‘fitted to be beneficial to society’.163 We cannot infer ‘ought’ from descriptions of what ‘is’ (although some dispute this interpretation).164 Although he is, like Hobbes, naturalistic, Hume modifies Hobbes by utilitarian concerns.

Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) more explicitly advocated utilitarianism as seeking ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’.165 His criterion of ethics is whether something tends to augment or diminish this. He even attempted to measure happiness by ‘intensity, duration and extent’. Clearly, as in Hume, his ethics are consequential; i.e. he asks, ‘What are the consequences of this action?’ One problem is that of measurement. How does extreme pleasure for a handful of individuals rank against the low-level pleasure of the very many? In his politics, Bentham’s criterion is ‘the mass of the interests of individuals’. Incidentally he rejected all notions of ‘natural rights’.

J. S. Mill (1806–73) built on Bentham’s utilitarian ethics. He attempted to address the problem of criteria and measurement by distinguishing between ‘lower’ and ‘higher’ pleasures. One of his best-known ethical axioms is, ‘It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied’.166 But to introduce qualitative difference between pleasures is to add another ethical criterion to utilitarianism. He regarded utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions.

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