ABSTRACT
Whatever the theological underpinnings of Butler’s thought, his moral psychology is, in one key respect, as wholly empirical as it appears. He claims that observation of our own thoughts and actions, and of the behaviour of others, is itself enough to show us that the ‘principles’ he discusses in his arguments are indeed present in human nature. In this he is surely right, at least to the extent that anyone who denies the presence of one or other of them has to offer special arguments. It does look as though we act from self-love, from benevolence, and from conscience, at least sometimes, and if a thinker denies that one of these is really to be found among our motives, he has the special duty of explaining apparent examples of their presence in some other way. If he fails, he can reasonably be accused of espousing a priori theories in the face of the evidence. Butler claims that both the psychological egoist and the psychological hedonist are guilty of this. The former holds that all our motives are selfish, and the latter holds that all our motives reduce to a desire for our own pleasure.
