William Blackstone (Part 2) - Foundations of Ethics

In a previous post, I described Blackstone's approach: the laws of nature determine how inanimate objects act; the laws of nature determine what animals must do to subsist. Animals have no choice but to obey nature if they are to subsist.

Next, Blackstone turns to human beings. Unlike the lower animals, he notes, we have the faculty of reason, and must use our reason to understand the natural laws. Reason, he says, leads us to three fundamental principles of human action:

• live honestly
  
• hurt nobody
  
• render to every one his due

Notice the absence of altruism and patriotism. None of those laws says "help your neighbor" or "serve your country". Blackstone may agree that altruism is a virtue, but he does not list it as fundamental. (He notes that Justinian jurisprudence laid down the three fundamentals noted above.)

Next, Blackstone notes that man requires motivation to apply his reason. Man needs something to push him to use his reason, and discover the laws of nature. What is that universal human motivation? His answer: self-love. He calls self-love, "the universal principle of action". Blackstone says that we can reduce the laws of human action (i.e. ethics) to a single precept: "that man should pursue his own happiness." Notice that this is not a statement of Politics; Blackstone is not saying that the government ought to allow people to pursue their own happiness. He makes it clear that this is what people ought to be doing. He says: "This is the foundation of what we call ethics".

(After this, the text goes downhill as Blackstone tries to fit revelation into his epistemological framework. I won't comment on that. )

Here is the text described above:

Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. A being, independent of any other, has no rule to pursue, but such as he ascribes to himself; but a state of dependence will inevitably oblige the inferior to take the will of him, on whom he depends, as the rule of his conduct: not indeed in every particular, but in all those points wherein his dependence consists. This principle therefore has more or less extent and effect, in proportion as the superiority of the one and the dependence of the other is greater or less, absolute or limited. And consequently, as man depends absolutely on his maker for everything, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his maker's will.

This will of his maker is called the law of nature. For as God, he created matter, and endued it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for perpetual direction of that motion; so, when he created man, and endued him with freewill to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby freewill is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws.

Considering the Creator only as a being of infinite power, he was able unquestionably to have prescribed whatever laws he pleased to his creature, man, however unjust or severe. But, as he is also a being of infinite wisdom, he has laid down only such laws as were founded in those relations of justice, that existed in the nature of things antecedent to any positive precept. These are eternal, immutable laws of good and evil, to which the creator himself, in all his dispensations conforms; and which he has enabled human reason to discover, so far as they are necessary for the conduct of human actions. Such among others are these principles: that we should live honestly, should hurt nobody, and should render to every one his due; to which three general precepts Justinian has reduced the whole of the law.

But if the discovery of these first principles of the law of nature depended only upon the due exertion of right reason, and could not otherwise be attained that by a chain of metaphysical disquisitions, mankind would have wanted some inducement to have quickened their inquiries, and the greater part of the world would have rested content in mental indolence, and ignorance its inseparable companion. As therefore the creator is a being, not only of infinite power, and wisdom, but also of infinite goodness, he has been pleased so to contrive the constitution and frame of humanity, that we should want no other prompter to enquire after and pursue the rule of right, but only our self-love, that universal principle of action. For he has so intimately connected, so inseparably interwoven the laws of eternal justice with the happiness of each individual, that the latter cannot be attained but by observing the former; and, if the former be punctually obeyed, it cannot but induce the latter. In consequence of which mutual connection of justice and human felicity, he has not perplexed the law of nature with a multitude of abstracted rules and precepts, referring merely to the fitness or unfitness of things, as some have vainly surmised; but has graciously reduced the rule of obedience to this one paternal precept, "that man should pursue his own happiness." This is the foundation of what we call ethics, or natural law. For several articles into which it is branched in our systems, amount to no more than demonstrating, that this or that action tends to man's happiness, and therefore very justly concluding that the performance of it is a part of the law of nature; or, on the other hand, that this or that action is destructive of real happiness, and therefore that the law of nature forbids it.

Original text via Posner Memorial Collection (CMU). Audio-recording at Librivox.