Happiness and Utility. The science of human nature
and the science of the legislator supply the key also
to the ethics and politics of the Enlightenment. Its
moral thought is based upon the principle of utility,
the greatest happiness of the greatest number. For
Locke, the fundamental interests (he expresses them
still in terms of the law of nature) are the preservation
of the individual and of mankind. To that end, freedom
under the law, equality of individuals, and justice
among them (
pacta sunt servanda) are required: “...
being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm
another in life, health, liberty or possessions” (
Of Civil
Government, Book II, Ch. II). The science of human
nature lays bare man's basic propensities, namely self-
interest and sympathy. Both these qualities, says Hume,
are useful to the individual and to society, and it is
their utility that makes people virtuous. Like Liberty,
“Virtue is considered as means to an end” (Hume,
Treatise, Book III, Part III, Sec. VI), namely the happi-
ness or well-being of the individuals composing society.
For the thinkers in the utilitarian mainstream there
is no identity of human desires or interests. Man's
selfishness, his insatiable avidity for acquiring power
and possessions for himself and his group, if left to
itself, is destructive of society. Therefore, it must be
restrained and regulated through institutions governing
property, rights, obligations, etc.; it is the science of
the legislator, based on experience and reflection,
which suggests the right balance between warring
interests. Adam Smith (in the Wealth of Nations, Book
IV, Chs. IX, V, II; Book I, Ch. VI; Book III, Ch. I)
extols “the natural effort of every individual to better
his condition, when suffered to exert itself with
freedom and security... in a well-governed society
... in a civilised country... as long as he does not
violate the laws of justice....” Provided security is
created by the legislator without unduly restraining
spontaneous individual activity, “an invisible hand”
leads man “to promote an end which was no part of
his intention,” that is, socially desirable ends. What
ends are conducive to the well-being of society, can
be discerned from past general and national experience
and the observation of consequences; on this basis it
is possible to advise the legislator on what regulations
to promote and which to avoid. However, what acts
are conducive to the perfection of the individual except
in his role of a citizen, is no concern of the legislator,
nor does utilitarianism have much to offer on this
subject (despite attempts like Adam Smith's Theory of
Moral Sentiments, 1759). Man's nature is inscrutable,
his motives and intentions are manifold and complex,
and it is therefore overambitious for the philosopher
to pronounce on his self-regarding morality.
Voltaire gives expression to the philosophical
anthropology of the period in typical passages:
L'homme, étranger à soi, de l'homme est ignoré.
Que suis-je, où suis-je, où vais-je, et d'où suis-je tiré?
(“Man, stranger to himself, does not know himself. What
am I, where am I, where am I going, and from where have
I come?”; Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne, 1756)
le ciel, en nous formant, mélangea notre vie
De désirs, de dégoûts, de raison, de folie,
De moments de plaisir, et de jours de tourments,
De notre être imparfait voilà les éléments...
(“Heaven, in creating us, made our life a blend/ Of desires,
of loathing, of reason, of madness,/ Of moments of pleasure,
and of days of torment,/ Of our imperfect being these are
the elements”; Discours en vers sur l'homme [1738], Premier
Discours)
Our exploration of human nature serves to contain, not
to change it. Man's hope of salvation must come from
religion or his own creativeness and discipline. The
utilitarian may judge actions, but not the agent. He
is restricted to the exploration of human propensities
and their consequences, and to the demarcation of
social (and only indirectly of individual) good. Utilita-
rianism is a public philosophy, not a purely personal
ethics. Therefore there is no contradiction contained
in Bentham's famous statement that it is for our “two
sovereign masters, pain and pleasure... to point out
what we ought to do as well as to determine what
we shall do.” What we shall do, follows from our
instincts and passions. What we ought to do, “is deter-
mined by and proportional to the tendency which (the
utilitarian) conceives to have to augment or to diminish
the happiness of the community” (Introduction to the
Principles of Morals and Legislation [1789], Ch. I, Para.
1, 9).
It is true that there was an alternative influential
philosophy, that of Lord Shaftesbury, who put the
emphasis on the perfection of the individual rather
than on the reform of society. It is echoed in Diderot's
aesthetics, and, allied with the predominant Neo-
Platonic and Pietist tradition, it helped to thwart the
short-lived German Enlightenment. According to
Shaftesbury's Hellenic or aristocratic philosophy
(Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times,
1711), the Beautiful, the Good and the True are equally
expressions of the sense of harmony and proportion.
While rejecting the Promethean dogma of human
corruption, he proclaims the benevolence of nature and
the identity of human interests. The Eros of contem-
plation elevates the cultivation of taste, and the felicity
derived from the gemlike flame of vital experience,
to the level of virtue. Accordingly, in life, as in art,
the end can be neglected; it is subordinated to the
intensity of contemplation, passion, and action (though
Shaftesbury, in his scintillating and confused work,
speaks also of the controlling power of the intellect
and of the public interest).
In the English-speaking world, however, Francis
Hutcheson's philanthropic and democratic thought,
intentionally developed against Shaftesbury, has
dominated the philosophical, literary, and aesthetic
scene. In Hutcheson's view the sense of beauty and
the moral sense are not the same. Harmony, rather than
being natural and good in itself, is the concord of
individual character with the social good. “Uniformity
amidst variety,” i.e., order and proportion find their
perfect expression in the reign of the moral law, in
“the love of humanity, gratitude, compassion, a study
of the good of others and a deep delight in their happi-
ness” (Hutcheson,
An Inquiry into the Original of our
Ideas of Beauty and Virtue [1725], Treatise I, Para.
2; Treatise II, Para. 1).
