Conscience, Consciousness and Ethics in Joseph Butler's Philosophy and Ministry

Offers a new interpretation of Butler's theology and suggests that exploration of his methods may contribute to modern thinking about ethics, language, the Church as well as religion and science. Joseph Butler [1692-1752] is perhaps Britain's most powerful and original moral philosopher. He exercised a profound influence over the contemporary Protestant Churches, the English moralists and the Scottish philosophical schoolbut his theory of the "affections", grounded in Newtonian metaphysics and p