The revival of Classical learning and culture that began in 15th-century Italy and then slowly spread throughout Europe did not give immediate birth to any major new ethical theories. Its significance for ethics lies, rather, in a change of focus. For the first time since the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity, man, not God, became the chief object of philosophical interest, and the main theme of philosophical thinking was not religion but humanity—the powers, freedom, and accomplishments of human beings (see humanism). This does not mean that there was a sudden conversion to atheism. Most Renaissance thinkers remained Christian, and they still considered human beings as being somehow midway between the beasts and the angels. Yet, even this middle position meant that humans were special. It meant, too, a new conception of human dignity and of the importance of the individual. Machiavelli
Although the Renaissance did not produce any outstanding moral philosophers, there is one writer whose work is of some importance in the history of ethics: Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527). His book The Prince (1513) offered advice to rulers as to what they must do to achieve their aims and secure their power. Its significance for ethics lies precisely in the fact that Machiavelli’s advice ignores the usual ethical rules: “It is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessities of the case.” There had not been so frank a rejection of morality since the Greek Sophists. So startling is the cynicism of Machiavelli’s advice that it has been suggested that The Prince was an attempt to satirize the conduct of the princely rulers of Renaissance Italy. It may be more accurate, however, to view Machiavelli as an early political scientist, concerned only with setting out what human beings are like and how power is maintained, with no intention of passing moral judgment on the state of affairs described. In any case, The Prince gained instant notoriety, and Machiavelli’s name became synonymous with political cynicism and deviousness. Despite the chorus of condemnation, the work led to a sharper appreciation of the difference between the lofty ethical systems of philosophers and the practical realities of political life.
Niccolò Machiavelli, oil on canvas by Santi di Tito; in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.Mondadori Portfolio/age fotostock
The first Protestants
It was left to the English philosopher and political theorist Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) to take up the challenge of constructing an ethical system on the basis of so unflattering a view of human nature (see below Hobbes). Between Machiavelli and Hobbes, however, there occurred the traumatic breakup of Western Christendom known as the Reformation. Reacting against the worldly immorality apparent in the Renaissance church, Martin Luther (1483–1546), John Calvin (1509–64), and other leaders of the new Protestantism sought to return to the pure early Christianity of the Scriptures, especially as reflected in the teachings of Paul and of the Church Fathers, Augustine foremost among them. They were contemptuous of Aristotle (Luther called him a “buffoon”) and of non-Christian philosophers in general. Luther’s standard of right and wrong was whatever God commands. Like William of Ockham, Luther insisted that the commands of God cannot be justified by any independent standard of goodness: good simply means what God commands. Luther did not believe that these commands would be designed by God to satisfy human desires, because he was convinced that human desires are totally corrupt. In fact, he thought that human nature itself is totally corrupt. In any case, Luther insisted that one does not earn salvation by good works; one is justified by faith in Christ and receives salvation through divine grace.
It is apparent that if these premises are accepted, there is little scope for human reason in ethics. As a result, no moral philosophy has ever had the kind of close association with any Protestant church that, for example, the philosophy of Aquinas has had with Roman Catholicism. Yet, because Protestants emphasized the capacity of the individual to read and understand the Gospels without first receiving the authoritative interpretation of the church, the ultimate outcome of the Reformation was a greater freedom to read and write independently of the church hierarchy. This development made possible a new era of ethical thought.
From this time, too, distinctively national traditions of moral philosophy began to emerge; the British tradition, in particular, developed largely independently of ethics on the Continent. Accordingly, the present discussion will follow this tradition through the 19th century before returning to consider the different line of development in continental Europe. The British tradition from Hobbes to the utilitarians Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes is an outstanding example of the independence of mind that became possible in Protestant countries after the Reformation. To be sure, God does play an honourable role in Hobbes’s philosophy, but it is a dispensable role. The philosophical edifice he constructed stands on its own foundations; God merely crowns the apex. Hobbes was the equal of the Greek philosophers in his readiness to develop an ethical position based only on the facts of human nature and the circumstances in which humans live, and he surpassed even Plato and Aristotle in the extent to which he sought to do this by systematic deduction from clearly stated premises.
Thomas Hobbes, detail of an oil painting by John Michael Wright; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London
Hobbes started with a severe view of human nature: all of man’s voluntary acts are aimed at pleasure or self-preservation. This position is known as psychological hedonism, because it asserts that the fundamental motivation of all human action is the desire for pleasure. Like later psychological hedonists, Hobbes was confronted with the objection that people often seem to act altruistically. According to a story told about him, Hobbes was once seen giving alms to a beggar outside St. Paul’s Cathedral. A clergyman sought to score a point by asking Hobbes whether he would have given the money had Christ not urged giving to the poor. Hobbes replied that he gave the money because it pleased him to see the poor man pleased. The reply reveals the dilemma that always faces those who propose startling new explanations for human actions: either the theory is flagrantly at odds with how people really behave, or else it must be broadened or diluted to such an extent that it loses much of what made it so shocking in the first place.
Hobbes’s definition of good is equally devoid of religious or metaphysical assumptions. A thing is good, according to him, if it is “the object of any man’s appetite or desire.” He insisted that the term must be used in relation to a person—nothing is simply good in itself, independently of any person who may desire it. Hobbes may therefore be considered an ethical subjectivist. Thus, if one were to say of the incident just described, “What Hobbes did was good,” one’s statement would not be objectively true or false. It would be true for the poor man, and, if Hobbes’s reply was accurate, it would also be true for Hobbes. But if a second poor person, for instance, was jealous of the success of the first, that person could quite properly say that the statement is false for him.
Remarkably, this unpromising picture of self-interested individuals who have no notion of good apart from their own desires served as the foundation of Hobbes’s account of justice and morality in his masterpiece, Leviathan (1651). Starting with the premises that humans are self-interested and that the world does not provide for all their needs, Hobbes argued that in the hypothetical state of nature, before the existence of civil society, there was competition between men for wealth, security, and glory. What would ensue in such a state is Hobbes’s famous “war of all against all,” in which there could be no industry, commerce, or civilization and in which human life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” The struggle would occur because each individual would rationally pursue his own interests, but the outcome would be in no one’s interests.