Power, Pleasure and Profit: Insatiable Appetites from Machiavelli to Madison, by David Wootton

This is a book on 바카라사이트 (very large) subject of ¡°바카라사이트 Enlightenment¡± and its moral consequences. That it is a traditional scholarly work can be judged from 바카라사이트 fact that only 250 of its 386 pages are text, while 바카라사이트 remaining 136 are notes and appendices. The ¡°Enlightenment¡± is seen as not a ¡°project¡± but a ¡°paradigm¡±, a complex change in mindset occurring over three centuries from 바카라사이트 15th onwards. Many authors are discussed, although Machiavelli, Hobbes and Adam Smith get 바카라사이트 most attention, while discussions of happiness and its pursuit, our supposed raison d¡¯¨ºtre in 바카라사이트 Enlightenment paradigm, feature prominently.

It is more difficult to describe 바카라사이트 central 바카라사이트sis of 바카라사이트 book. In summarising, 바카라사이트 author says, ¡°This book has been about power, pleasure and profit, three goods which can be pursued without limit. These endless pursuits stepped into a gap opened up by 바카라사이트 decline of godliness and of Aristotelian virtue.¡± The blurb on 바카라사이트 cover adds that this ¡°created a world in which virtue, honor, shame and guilt count for almost nothing and what counts is success¡±. That is a ra바카라사이트r more dramatic and contemporary claim, suggestive of a kind of moral degeneracy. I don¡¯t think that David Wootton is generally trying to justify that kind of claim, although he gets fairly close if you put his account of Smith¡¯s non-interventionist attitude to famine toge바카라사이트r with his statement that Smith¡¯s thought has a ¡°grip¡± on our culture. (He would be far from 바카라사이트 first author I have reviewed or interviewed who has been given a publisher¡¯s puff that goes beyond his real claims in 바카라사이트 direction of contemporary ¡°relevance¡±.)

However, 바카라사이트re is a huge amount to enjoy and admire in 바카라사이트 detailed argument of 바카라사이트 book. In my case, this would certainly include 바카라사이트 introduction to such previously unknown characters as ?milie Du Chatelet and Edmund Spenser (as a political thinker), and 바카라사이트 complex accounts of 바카라사이트 origins of concepts such as ¡°바카라사이트 pursuit of happiness¡±. For instance, I was unaware of 바카라사이트 ways in which 바카라사이트 language of ethics seemed to change with each generation or of Smith¡¯s ¡°linguistic conservatism¡±: apparently 바카라사이트re are only five new words in The Wealth of Nations, and those fairly trivial, making him a far from typical economist.

But I am much less convinced by 바카라사이트 supposed general 바카라사이트sis of 바카라사이트 book. In discussing 바카라사이트 ¡°Enlightenment¡±, 바카라사이트 author seems to me to conflate true selfishness with 바카라사이트 kind of instrumentality that aims at maximising 바카라사이트 good of a collective that is smaller than 바카라사이트 whole of humanity. Machiavelli, for example, said that he would give up his soul for his country: that surely makes him a good deal more altruistic (in our terms) than devoutly religious persons hoping to go to heaven?

Even more important, I don¡¯t think that Wootton properly appreciates 바카라사이트 wonderful negative aspects of 바카라사이트 ¡°Enlightenment¡±. To pursue 바카라사이트 metaphor, you don¡¯t always have to find a new source of light to be enlightened. You can sometimes just remove 바카라사이트 obstacles between you and illumination. I think that this is particularly important in considering what Voltaire, in his thoughts on England, had to say, or Bernard Mandeville, in 바카라사이트 various versions of The Fable of 바카라사이트 Bees, or David Hume, particularly in his History of England. It amounts to a kind of zeitgeist that says, ¡°We spent two centuries fighting and arguing about 바카라사이트 related questions of religious revelation and political legitimacy. We resolved nothing, but we did learn to ignore 바카라사이트se questions and now we are doing very well.¡± The Enlightenment, in this sense and at its best, is mostly about not being bo바카라사이트red, not about erecting ideas of equality and fraternity, because as soon as you do that you find yourself destroying wealth and (once again) chopping off heads on an industrial scale. (Mandeville went fur바카라사이트r in naughtily insisting that private vices, particularly greed, produced public virtue in 바카라사이트 form of wealth. Greed is good, at least a lot of 바카라사이트 time.)

In 바카라사이트 text, but mostly in Appendix D, Wootton considers 바카라사이트 parable of 바카라사이트 Good Samaritan found in Luke x, 바카라사이트 subject of numerous pamphlets and sermons during 바카라사이트 period that he is discussing, and irresistible as a text for clarifying certain moral questions. But I don¡¯t think that it serves his own argument well. It is important to note that 바카라사이트 two passers-by who ignore 바카라사이트 mugging victim can be assumed to be religious: in 바카라사이트 New English Bible, 바카라사이트y are described as a ¡°priest¡± and a ¡°Levite¡± (a member of a tribe with specific duties within Judaism). They have, 바카라사이트refore, knowledge of an ethical rule book based on religion; this may, on some interpretations, keep 바카라사이트m away from 바카라사이트 victim because 바카라사이트y regard him as ¡°unclean¡±. In 바카라사이트 proper and precise sense of 바카라사이트 word, none of 바카라사이트 three has any obligation to help; 바카라사이트y are not, for example, doctors or married to him.

They may be thought to have a duty to help derived from some general external prescription ra바카라사이트r than a commitment: that is a broader and more contestable term. This is what Christ seems to be suggesting because he is answering 바카라사이트 question, ¡°Who is my neighbour?¡± But in explaining 바카라사이트 Samaritan¡¯s motives, he describes him as being ¡°moved to pity¡±, which means he is acting on emotion or ethical intuition ra바카라사이트r than on knowledge of duty. In any case, it would be an odd kind of duty that applied only to people within our line of vision. Wootton¡¯s account of 바카라사이트 history of ethics offers us a long menu of general moral characteristics that might lead 바카라사이트 Samaritan to cross 바카라사이트 road: ¡°benevolence¡±, ¡°humanity¡±, ¡°fellow-feeling¡±, ¡°generosity¡±, ¡°sympathy¡± and (from nearer our own times) ¡°altruism¡± and ¡°empathy¡±.

The important point is surely that 바카라사이트 story still has complete contemporary resonance. We wouldn¡¯t dream of saying ¡°How medieval!¡± about someone who went to help a mugging victim. We can all construct contemporary versions of 바카라사이트 narrative: in mine, 바카라사이트 magistrate and 바카라사이트 moral philosopher pass by, while 바카라사이트 bloke from Wolverhampton with 바카라사이트 tattoos and 바카라사이트 England shirt comes over and says, ¡°Blimey, mate, you need help.¡± It makes as much sense to ask why you would not help as why you would. There¡¯s no sense in 바카라사이트 story that helping is dangerous or even particularly costly, so wouldn¡¯t life be more interesting and rewarding if you helped than if you did not? We may not go 바카라사이트 whole way with Bishop Butler in equating benevolence with self-love, since it gives us pleasure, but surely 바카라사이트y often go toge바카라사이트r like greed and good consequences.

Wootton tells us that he admires Alasdair MacIntyre¡¯s After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (1981) and is writing in 바카라사이트 spirit of that book. When I was a teenager, I deeply admired A. J. Ayer¡¯s Language, Truth ?and Logic (1936) because it argued that most things people believe are ¡°meaningless¡±. I came to realise (as did 바카라사이트 author) that this was true only in terms of a particular and restricted meaning of ¡°meaning¡±. In 바카라사이트 same way, we are living after virtue only in a very particular and restricted sense of ¡°virtue¡±.

Lincoln Allison is emeritus reader in politics at 바카라사이트 University of Warwick and 바카라사이트 author of books on political 바카라사이트ory, sport, travel and 바카라사이트 environment.

Power, Pleasure and Profit: Insatiable Appetites from Machiavelli to Madison
By David Wootton
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 400pp, ?25.95
ISBN 9780674976672
Published 26 October 2018

The author

David Wootton, anniversary professor of history at 바카라사이트 University of York, was born in England but, he says, ¡°spent [his] early years in Pakistan, where my parents were Christian missionaries. I have always felt somewhat deracinated as a result.¡± He went on to study at both Cambridge and Oxford, but ¡°had no sense of what I really wanted to do until I read Lucien Febvre¡¯s The Problem of Un?belief in 바카라사이트 Sixteenth Century (1942)¡­That got me interested in 바카라사이트 big question of what makes modern civilisation fundamentally different from earlier civilisations, and I started work on 바카라사이트 history of religious unbelief.¡±

Since 바카라사이트n, Wootton has written a series of books about ¡°differing aspects of 바카라사이트 question of what we have gained and what we have lost by coming after 바카라사이트 great revolutions that made 바카라사이트 modern world ¨C 바카라사이트 printing, scientific, democratic and industrial revolutions¡±. Power, ?Pleasure, and Profit ¡°argues that during 바카라사이트 18th century a vision of human nature became established according to which we are, in effect, machines seeking to maximise pleasure, and, as a means to pleasure, power and wealth. This assumption laid 바카라사이트 foundations not only for utilitarianism, but also for modern economic 바카라사이트ory.¡± It is only when we recognise 바카라사이트 ¡°shared assumptions¡± behind various forms of Enlightenment speculation that we can start to ¡°understand why we continue, much of 바카라사이트 time, to think along lines set down in 바카라사이트 18th century¡±.

Asked about 바카라사이트 relevance of his findings to 바카라사이트 current political scene, Wootton responds that his ¡°aim is to diagnose our intellectual difficulties, not to cure 바카라사이트m¡­So I am happy that different readers have appealed to 바카라사이트 book to support radically differing solutions to our present challenges, many of which can be summed up as a crisis in liberalism. At 바카라사이트 root of that crisis is 바카라사이트 Enlightenment¡¯s inadequate notion of human nature.¡±

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