In "Nature and Conscience in Butler's Ethics," Nicholas Sturgeon argues that Butler's account of the role of conscience in morality is fundamentally Incoherent. Butler's emphasis upon conscience as the most superior principle rendering acts natural or unnatural is inconsistent with his tacit commitment to the "Naturalistic Thesis" that conscience always uses naturalness and unnaturalness as grounds upon which it bases its approvals and disapprovals. I argue that Butler is not committed to the Naturalistic Thesis, and hence his views are saved (...) from incoherence. This Thesis is not entailed, as Sturgeon claims, by two of Butler's central doctrines, and there are reasonable interpretations of the passages Sturgeon cites that do not conurlt Butler to the Thesis. Butler's view is that the logically primary perception-approvals of acts as virtuous and perception-disapprovals of acts as vicious by themselves can render acts natural and unnatural, respectively, without the need for conscience to rely upon some other superior principle to first determine the naturalness or unnaturalness of acts. (shrink)

How, if at all, could a person intentionally persuade himself into believing something he knew to be false? Acting upon his intention would apparently require that he knowingly use his grasp of some truth in the very act of concealing that truth and in getting himself to believe the opposite falsehood. Sartre's elaboration of this problem as well as his examples of self-deception are widely acclaimed, yet too often the remainder of his account has been dismissed as hopelessly riddled with (...) paradox and obscure jargon. I first provide an exegesis of the account that displays its coherence and rich suggestiveness. Next I argue that the account falls short of fully resolving the problems to which it is addressed, but that nevertheless a satisfactory resolution of the problems does emerge from a close examination of Sartre's examples. (shrink)