Rough Draft

Divergence in the Study of Ethics as  a Byproduct of British Society

The systemization and understanding of conceptual right and wrong actions has been studied since before the Common Era, with the word “Ethics” first being defined by the Ancient Greeks with their word “ethikos.” Much of what moral philosophy deals with is rooted in questions like “What is the correct action?” or “What is the best way for people to act?” Ethics of the modern world, coming out of the Reformation and moving into the Enlightenment era, like many other fields of philosophical study were pushed forward by dozens of influential and pertinent philosophers, all while English and European societies were growing more and more complex. The study of ethics is fundamentally the same, with philosophers arguing definitions of “good” and “bad” and the perception of those actions, yet through the first three hundred years of the modern era philosophers in Great Britain and Europe developed ideas of ethics simultaneously, yet divergently, based on separate fundamental values of good, evil, and often the correct action. This paper will examine the opposite values taken by said philosophers, and the socio-economic standard and shifts in English society that might have led to a heavier application of emotion and attention to the many.

Two philosophers from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century each will be analyzed, with one from Europe and one from Great Britain. English society will be compared to European society as well, and themes will be pulled from actions in Great Britain that likely influenced the ideologies of the English philosophers at the time. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677) will be compared first, followed by David Hume (1711-1776) and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), and ending with John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). An analyzation of English society versus European society of the age will follow, and English social themes will be applied to the philosophical ideas of Hobbes, Hume, and Mill, as well as some of their predecessors.

Thomas Hobbes and Benedict de Spinoza

Thomas Hobbes, being the first of the British philosophers examined, was born in England in 1588, and grew to become one of the leading examples of free thought that became possible in Protestant countries following the Reformation. Growing up attending a private school, and then Oxford, Hobbes was very well-educated. Interestingly enough, following his graduation from Oxford, Hobbes traveled much of Europe. He wrote several influential works while abroad, most notably Leviathan (1651), which outlined his idea of “social contract theory.” The work begins with the hypothesis that humans are self-interested and the natural world does not provide for each of their needs, with men competing habitually in the time before civil society. He follows this up with his famous argument of a social contract, in which people sacrifice their right to attack others, and in return gets the same concession from everyone else. The work defines good as “the object of any man’s appetite or desire” (citation), arguing that nothing is simply good in itself. This definition, as well as his famed social contract theory, helped rocket ethics into the modern era. The important piece here is the definition itself, particularly the emphasis on desire, an appeal to the emotion of pleasure.

One of the other philosophical giants of the 17th century was Benedict de Spinoza, born in Amsterdam in 1632. Growing up in the cosmopolitan city of Amsterdam, Spinoza was subject to a culture that was tolerant of new ideas, allowing for the philosophers to develop his works in the hands of the intellectual community of the seventeenth century Dutch Republic. Spinoza’s most influential work, and the one that outlines his ethical theory, is aptly named Ethics, and was published after Spinoza’s death. This book differs heavily from Hobbes’ ideas of ethics, desire, and pleasure. Where Hobbes views pleasure as an indisputable aspect of human existence and necessary for decision making, Spinoza viewed it as just the opposite, seeing natural desires as bondage that hold one back from intellectual enlightenment. This opposition taken by Spinoza not only opposes Hobbes, but also Hume whose work centers around pleasure.

As shown, Thomas Hobbes and his work Leviathan depicted good as being synonymous with desire, and being necessary for society, and his Social Contract Theory. Benedict de Spinoza, on the other hand, outlined his view of desires as being the slavemaster of reason in his work Ethics. Both philosophers held fundamentally differing views on what defines “good” and which is more necessary for a good action, desire of rationality.

David Hume and Immanuel Kant

The ideas of differentiating philosophical definitions of “good” and “evil” were not isolated to the seventeenth century, and followed ethical philosophy into the eighteenth century with such philosophers as David Hume and Immanuel Kant, two of the largest and most influential philosophers to date. Hume, from Great Britain, takes a stance on pleasure and empiricism, while Kant does the opposite, standing by rationalism and reason.

Hobbes wasn’t the only philosopher of the time to expand on the idea of desire and pleasure. David Hume, born in Scotland in 1711, was one of the highly influential philosophers of the era, expanding on ideas of skepticism, empiricism, naturalism, and of course, ethics. Hume’s most famous work is A Treatise of Human Nature, which outlines Hume’s ideas of empirical investigation as human nature. One of the more important aspects of this work is Hume’s focus on pleasure, and its counterpart, pain. Hume argues that the most “good” action is the one that produces the most pleasure, and the most “evil” action is the one that produces the most pain. This belief drove Hume’s ethical philosophy as one of empiricism, and of being rooted in emotion. Not only did Hume build onto the foundation that would be expanded on by Utilitarians in the nineteenth century, but he also disagreed with the idea of reason as a basis for morality, believing that reason cannot give rise to moral judgements, which should be left to desire, pleasure, and emotion.

Immanuel Kant, of course, stands on the opposite side of the argument, citing reason and intellectual pursuit as the ultimate good. Kant, born in Prussia in 1724 and leading a scholarly lifestyle for the entirety of his lifetime, argues, similarly to Spinoza, that actions that are rooted in desire cannot be free, thus showing their lack of “good.” Kant’s most distinctive contribution to the field of ethics is his insistence that one’s actions only possess moral worth when he does it for his own sake, his own intellect’s sake that is. Kant’s main point to this is his distinction between “hypothetical” and “categorical” imperatives, meaning that actions from desire are hypothetical, as it is a command of reason that applies only if one desires the goal. Kant was a staunch believer in moral universal law as the definitive factor of ethics, not the consequences of the actions themselves.

Like Hobbes and Spinoza before them, David Hume and Immanuel Kant illustrate the differences taken between ethics philosophers of Great Britain and Europe. Hume stands on the opposite side of Kant, arguing that pleasure, the byproduct of desire, is at its core the most good, and therefore actions that result in a maximum amount of pleasure are the best actions. Kant, on the other hand, argues that actions cannot be driven by desire as it is a hypothetical imperative, and actions based on desires can never reward someone with good. The correct action in Kant’s eyes would be the one that is based in universal moral law.

John Stuart Mill and Friedrich Nietzsche 

The argument of desire, emotion, and empiricism versus reason, intelligence, and rationalism, took the backseat to other philosophies that developed at the time. Utilitarianism, developed by John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, and Henry Sidgwick, was rooted in the concept of pleasure as the ultimate good, but did not differ against concepts that argued for reason. Instead Utilitarianism saw a much different philosophical opponent in Nietzsche’s existentialism and Ubermensch theory. The philosophy had shifted from reason and emotion, to arguments over which actions were right and wrong.

John Stuart Mill coined the term “Utilitarianism” in his work of the same name. Mill, born in London in 1806, was the son of John Mill, a famed economist and philosopher himself. J.S. Mill was an active member of the liberal party and fighter for social rights, as well as a student of Jeremy Bentham, who was seen as the forefather of Utilitarianism. Working with Bentham and Hume’s concepts of pleasure and pain, Mill argued in Utilitarianism that the action that produces the most good, would be the one that produces the most pleasure for the largest number of people. Mill also expanded on the ideas of higher and lower pleasures, arguing famously that it is “better to be a dissatisfied Socrates than a satisfied fool.” He believed that Utilitarians shouldn’t calculate each action by its outcome, but should instead adhere to a general principle to increase happiness. Mill’s basic argument is essentially that the actions that will provide the most pleasurable conditions for the most people is fundamentally the best decision one can make.

Friedrich Nietzsche argued a conflicting point of view. Nietzsche was a Prussian philosopher and social critic who was born in Prussia in 1844, most known for his introduction of existentialism and nihilism to the field of philosophy, as well as the notion that philosophers should do away with all philosophical works since the Ancient Greeks, and begin anew. Nietzsche’s views differed greatly from Mill’s, as he introduced his concept of the Ubermensch in his novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Mill defines the Ubermensch, or overman, as the byproduct of the death of God and the solution to the struggles of mankind. According to Nietzsche, the overman does not need to follow the moral code of good versus evil that the common man does, as he is above the “herd.” While Nietzsche’s overman theory is at its center an attempt to distance morality from Christianity and the notion of God, it sets up an ideology of a single person being above the “herd” of common folk, directly opposing Mill’s ideology.

Where J.S. Mill and Utilitarians saw the need for pleasure in the largest number of people possible, Nietzsche saw quite the opposite, as the Ubermensch was deserving to be above the common people and did not need to adhere to their concepts of good versus evil, as whatever action the Ubermensch takes is the best course of action. The philosophy of ethics of this era took a shift away from the common theme of rationality versus emotionality, and moved towards one based in the results of actions and whether those actions, and results, are for the better or worse.

English Society

We can see the divide between philosophers that was so prevalent during these periods, but it’s difficult to exactly pinpoint the cause of this divide. From here on out I will look at English and European society of these eras, studying the growing poverty and prices that was rampant across the landscape, and the actions the English took to better alleviate the struggles of the lower class as a possible piece of causation for the more emotionally centered ethical ideologies taken by English philosophers, as opposed to the more logic based ones taken by other European philosophers.

From what we understand about all of Europe in the 16th through 18th century, is that things like population, prices, and poverty were near constantly on the rise. The difference taken by many European governments and the English government however, is evident in the social acts that the English lawmakers pushed through in attempts to ease the suffering of their people. This not to say that governments in Europe did not enact social laws to help alleviate the problems of the poor, but it does show that the British government put more of an effort in helping their lower class through social actions, and in part through the activism of many individuals. The philosophies of the English ethical philosophers is evidenced in the types of social change the British ruling body enacted.

The people of England throughout these eras dealt with problems that all other nations of Europe were themselves dealing with, namely poverty, growing population demands, and rising prices of goods. Similar to other nations of Europe, the people of Great Britain were aware of the poor conditions they lived in, and used other vices to shift their focus away from their day to day. “People had an ingrained tolerance of such inconvenience and squalor, and compensated by aggressive pursuit of pleasures and passions. Emotion was near the surface.” (Porter, pg. 19). Porter is arguing that the English people, living in squalor, put an intense effort into the acquisition of pleasure and passion, very often engaging in activities like drinking, love-making, rough sports, and social gatherings.

The pursuit of pleasure was not unseen across Europe, but it seems to be highly prominent in Great Britain, with its smaller population and larger divide between aristocracy and peasantry. According to census data taken from 17th century statiscian Gregory King, landowners made up 1.2 percent of the population, while farmers, labourers, and cottagers and paupers, made up some eighty percent (Porter, pg. 48). This divide was evident in the society of Great Britain, and accounted for much of the wealth flowing upwards to the “one-percent,” leaving the lower class of English peoples in the state of squalor that many had grown accustomed to.

It wasn’t just the divide between the upper and lower classes that contributed to the difficult conditions for the lower class in Great Britain. From 1704 to 1804, prices for wheat and bread nearly tripled, while the goods from producers struggled to double, leaving the lower class in a position of decline, (pg. 372 England). With prices rising rapidly and income from goods not rising enough to meet those demands, poverty begins to take hold as people cannot afford food from their profession. This was also heavily affected by population growth, which was rampant over these periods.

According to (England pg. 361), the population in 1681 was 4.9 million, and the population in 1811 was 9.8 million. The population of Great Britain doubled in the span of 100 years, and markets and farmers struggled to meet the demand of new mouths to feed and care for. Much of this can be attributed to the rise of newer medical practices that allowed for infants and children to live through childbirth and childhood, but that is beside the point.

As we can see, England, as well as much of Europe, was struggling with problems that often face advanced societies, being poverty, rapid population growth, and a lopsided wealth distribution. What set England apart however, is the comprehensive approach to the treatment of its poor. England enacted change, beginning back in the 1600s, that would “set the poor on work, relieve the impotent, and to correct the willfully idle.” These objectives were not actually accomplished by the government, who still played a highly influential role, but rather the parishes that the citizens of Great Britain inhabited. The “Act of Settlement” in the late seventeenth century decreed that the parish in which a person is born holds responsibility for that individual throughout their lifetime, unless they were accepted into another parish. This act put Britain in a different place from the rest of Europe, as it shifted the responsibility of vagrants and the poor on the people of the parish, resulting in a bizarre mixture of benevolence and cruelty towards the poor.

The system implemented by the British government that shifted the blame for the poor and vagrant from the government itself to the individual parishes was not the only piece of British legislation that really set it apart. Voltaire believed that Britain had several “fundamental virtues” that seemed to set it apart from other governments and nations. Its political freedom and balanced government, the intellectual freedoms, and the multiple religions of England, as well as the value of commercial commercial enterprise and initiative of the nation (Woloch, 237).

The philosophers of these eras, like everyone else, were born into an environment of hardship with poverty, rising population, and class divide evident across the continent. The philosophers of Great Britain, however, lived during times of British social legislation geared towards relieving some of the pressure from the citizens of their nation. Having lived during periods of social change for the benefit of the masses, as well as likely witnessing the poor conditions of many of Great Britain’s population and seeing the need for various outlets to increase the pleasure of said population, the ethics philosophers of Great Britain during these periods were presumably influenced into centering much of their ethical views in emotion, desire, and pleasure.

 

Items To Correct for Final Draft

• Full Citations (Lacking in many places)
• Updated Bibliography with Numbered Sources at the Bottom of the Page
• Spelling, Syntax, and Diction Revisions