¹ Spencer, , The Principles of Ethics, 2 vols., London, 1897–1900, i. 210–11.Google Scholar

² Of the numerous places where this argument appears, see, for example, the essay ‘Over-legislation’ in Essays: Scientific, Political and Speculative, 3 vols., London, 1868, iiGoogle Scholar, and ‘The Sins of Legislators’, The Man Versus the State, London, 1907.Google Scholar

³ Spencer, , Social Statics, London, 1892, p. 54.Google Scholar

⁴ For example, Weinstein, D. ‘Equal Rights and Utility in Spencer's Moral Philosophy’, History of Political Thought, xi (1990), 119–42Google Scholar, and Gray, J. ‘Spencer on the Ethics of Liberty and the Limits of State Interference’, History of Political Thought, iii (1982), 465–81.Google Scholar

⁵ Social Statics, pp. 1–14Google Scholar and 32–4. Mostly Spencer argues against a position which reflects a misunderstanding of Bentham.

⁶ ‘Desert’ has many meanings. The precise sense which Spencer had in mind becomes clear shortly.

⁷ Principles of Ethics, ii. 9Google Scholar. Actually, this rule only applies to individuals in their maturity. The reverse applies to the young of a species—individuals should get more as they are least deserving, since this is required for the preservation of the species.

⁸ Ibid., p. 147.

⁹ Social Statics, p. 146.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Miller, D., Social Justice, Oxford, 1976, Ch. 6.Google Scholar

¹¹ See Principles of Ethics, ii. 21–4Google Scholar for the general principle of overriding rights, and, for example, Ch. IX, p. 71 for its application to the right of physical integrity.

¹² This paragraph displays disagreement with Weinstein, David's claim that ‘Spencerian moral rights are irrefutably stringent. Overriding them is never justified’Google Scholar. See his article, ‘The Discourse of Freedom, Rights and Good in Nineteenth-Century English Liberalism’, Utilitas, iii (1991), 251Google Scholar. It is true that he continues this statement with the parenthetic qualification ‘(at least insofar as liberal societies begin approaching liberal perfection)’. But this qualification ignores one cause of the legitimate overriding of rights—defensive war, when the survival of the group can justify the suspension of the right to physical integrity (and all other rights too). See Principles of Ethics, ii. 71, 79, 102, 125, 131, 139, 146Google Scholar for statements of the precedence of national defence over the rights derived from the law of equal freedom.

¹³ Apart from several scathing remarks about Christian armies which shoot savages, Spencer says virtually nothing about how societies ought to behave to each other.

¹⁴ Social Statics, pp. 35–44Google Scholar, and Principles of Ethics, ii. 270–1Google Scholar. These are only two of the places where the priority of justice is asserted.

¹⁵ Social Statics, pp. 41–3.Google Scholar

¹⁶ See e.g. John Harsanyi's endorsement of this principle and its egalitarian implications in his ‘Some Epistemological Advantages of a Rule Utilitarian Position in Ethics’, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vii (1982), 394–5.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Principles of Ethics, i. 201 and ii. 268.Google Scholar As we shall see, Spencer does broaden his notion of altruism in his account of the good society.

¹⁸ Principles of Ethics, i. 203.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Ibid., ii. 1.

²⁰ Ibid., 407.

²¹ See e.g. Fishkin, J., The Limits of Obligation, New Haven and London, 1982Google Scholar; Scheffler, S., The Rejection of Consequentialism, Oxford, 1982.Google Scholar Both offer book-length defences of a freedom from moral demands.

²² I say ‘usually’ because one might think that Spencer's claims that we ought to sacrifice ourselves when the survival of the group requires it is too demanding. But the duties to give up wealth which he claims that we have clearly are not too demanding.

²³ Ibid., 22 and 395–6.

²⁴ Social Statics, p. 230.Google Scholar

²⁵ See Spencer's condemnation of those who perform charitable acts which allow the idle to flourish.

²⁶ Principles of Ethics, i. 191–2.Google Scholar

²⁷ Some of the following points are, as Spencer himself said, ‘trite enough’. Ibid., 205.

²⁸ One can take pleasure in the pleasure of others when one has caused this by one's altruistic behaviour, but also when one just has a sympathetic identification with others' happiness. Spencer called both of these ‘altruistic’, perhaps because he thought of sympathy as the basic motivation of altruism. (See Principles of Ethics, ii. 430.Google Scholar) This represents a different use from his biological account of altruism, which made no reference to underlying motivation.

²⁹ Principles of Ethics, i. 213.Google Scholar

³⁰ See Ibid., Ch. XIV, and ii. 430–2.

³¹ Michael Taylor claims to detect a tension between Spencer's advocacy of duties of charity and his commitment to ‘the idea of a struggle for existence in which the “weak go to the wall”’. (Taylor, M., Men versus the State, Oxford, 1992, p. 95.Google Scholar See also pp. 73, 93–4.) If there were this tension, one would also expect it to exist in Spencer's argument from incentives and his endorsement of charity. But at least part of this tension is avoided by his insistence that help should only be given to those who are victims of bad luck. Discriminating individual acts of charity would not encourage the growth of bad characteristics.

³² Ibid., p. 392.

³³ See the discussion of the Poor Laws in Social Statics, pp. 141–5Google Scholar and Principles of Ethics, ii. Ch. VII.Google Scholar