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Truth, Happiness and Obligation: the Moral Philosophy of William Wollaston

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

Stanley Tweyman
Stanley Tweyman
Affiliation:
Glendon College, York University, Toronto
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Extract

William Wollaston, a leading British moral philosopher of the eighteenth century, has fallen into obscurity primarily, I believe, for two reasons. In the first place, it is usually supposed that Wollaston's moral theory was refuted by Hume in the opening section of the third book of the Treatise of Human Nature. Secondly, Wollaston's theory, or parts thereof, have been assigned pejorative labels such as ‘odd’ and ‘strange’, which create the impression that it is not a moral philosophy which can be taken seriously. In this paper I attempt to deal with the second of these reasons by setting forth what I take to be Wollaston's meaning in certain key sections of his work, The Religion of Nature Delineated, especially in so far as they help to shed light on his theories of truth and happiness, and the relation of these to his theory of obligation. Wollaston will be found to be a moral philosopher with important things to say, and therefore to be a moral philosopher with a theory worth taking seriously. If I am correct in my interpretation of Wollaston, then it can also be established that Hume has not refuted Wollaston in the opening section of Book III of the Treatise. But here my attention will be confined entirely to Wollaston's own moral theory.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 51 , Issue 195 , January 1976 , pp. 35 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1976

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References

1 Wollaston, William, The Religion of Nature Delineated (the fifth edition, London, printed for James and John Knapton at the Crown in St Paul's Churchyard, 1738)Google Scholar. Hereafter this work will be cited as R.N.D. with the page number following.

2 Both these terms are employed, for example, by Kydd, R. M. in her book Reason and Conduct in Hume's Treatise (New York, Russell and Russell Inc., 1964), PP. 32 and 33.Google Scholar

3 R.N.D., p. 8.

4 R.N.D., p. 8. Italics in text omitted.

5 R.N.D., p. 8. Italics in text omitted.

6 Kydd, p. 33.

7 Kydd, p. 33.

8 R.N.D., p. 13. Mrs Kydd has also noticed this passage (p. 33 of her book) but as I shall go on to show it does not support the view that acts are propositions.

9 R.N.D., p. 8. Italics in text omitted.

10 R.N.D., p. 8.

11 R.N.D., p. 9.

12 R.N.D., p. 8.

13 The entire passage reads as follows: ‘If that proposition, which is false, be wrong, that act which implies such a proposition, or is founded on it, cannot be right: because it is the very proposition itself in practice’ (R.N.D., p. 13).

14 R.N.D., p. 9. Italics in text omitted.

15 R.N.D., p. 13. Italics in text omitted.

16 R.N.D., p. 16. Italics in text omitted.

17 R.N.D., p. 9. Italics in text omitted.

18 R.N.D., p. 10. Italics in text omitted.

19 Kydd, p. 32.

20 R.N.D., p. 13. Italics in text omitted.

21 ‘If a man steals a horse, and rides away upon him, he may be said indeed by riding him to use him as a horse, but not as the horse of another man, who gave him no licence to do this. He does not therefore consider him as being what he is, unless he takes in the respect he bears to his owner. But it is not necessary perhaps to consider what he is in respect of his colour, shape, or age: because the thief's riding away with him may neither affirm nor deny him to be of any particular colour, etc. I say, therefore, that those, and all those properties, respects, and circumstances, which may be contradicted by practice, are to be taken into consideration. For otherwise the thing to be considered is but imperfectly survey'd; and the whole compass of it being not taken in, it is taken not as being what it is, but as what it is in part only, and in other respects perhaps,. as being what it is not’ (R.N.D., pp. 18–19. Italics in text omitted).

22 R.N.D., p. 13. Italics in text omitted.

23 R.N.D., p. 23.

24 Kydd, p. 32.

25 R.N.D., pp. 13–15.

26 Wollaston gives no indication that this problem arises.

27 Again, Wollaston sees none of this.

28 R.N.D., p. 14. Italics in text omitted.

29 R.N.D., p. 14. Italics in text omitted.

30 R.N.D., p. 15. Italics in text omitted.

31 R.N.D., p. 31.

32 R.N.D., p. 15.

33 R.N.D., p. 16. Italics in text omitted.

34 R.N.D., p. 38. Italics in text omitted.

35 This view does, of course, stand in great need of elaboration, since it would be difficult, for example, to justify incarcerating someone for a misdeed if this would not lead to his happiness. Wollaston is aware of such objections and deals with some of them (see ibid., pp. 25–31). Essentially his view concerning all such objections is that a man must be regarded from various perspectives, and each relevant perspective must be taken into account when deciding how to treat someone. His treatment of specific objections need not concern us here.

36 For Wollaston the words ‘good’ and ‘right’ on the one hand, and ‘evil’ and ‘wrong’ on the other are identical: ‘Moral good and evil are coincident with right and wrong. For that cannot be good, which is wrong; nor that evil which is right’ (R.N.D., p. 20. Italics in text omitted).

37 R.N.D., p. 38. Italics in text omitted.

38 See p. 42 and fn. 31.

39 R.N.D., p. 40. Italics in text omitted.

40 R.N.D., p. 24.

41 R.N.D., p. 24.

42 R.N.D., p. 36.

43 R.N.D., p. 40. Italics in text omitted, italics in quotation added.

44 Broiles, R. D., The Moral Philosophy of David Hume (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1964), pp. 13–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It should be noted that Broiles offers no passages from Wollaston to confirm his view.

45 Kydd, p. 22. Mrs Kydd also does not offer any passages to confirm her view.

46 R.N.D., p. 38 (quoted on p. 43).

47 R.N.D., pp. 25–26. Italics in text omitted.

48 R.N.D., p. 40. Italics in text omitted.