This book is the first English-language monograph about Bishop Joseph Butler (1692–1752) by Japanese scholars. It is an especially interesting and controversial message coming as it does from Japan, a well-developed secular economic state where less than 1% of the population are Christians and opposing the recent trend of curtailing the eighteenth-century political economy into religiosity and theology.

This multidisciplinary edited book presents a different and new perspective from the recent work of Oslington et al., which seeks to reduce the political economy of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain to religiosity and theology, triggered by the writings of A. M. C. Waterman. Unlike those works, the present one aims to re-examine the largely forgotten Butler, who was said in the nineteenth century to be the most influential cleric and preacher in the Church of England of the previous century— not just as a clerical ideologue, but mainly as a proto-political economistbefore Adam Smith.

In order to achieve this goal, first, the authors clarify that Butler’s theory of conscience and probability, which began with passion and selfishness, was created with the development of eighteenth-century commercial society in mind. Second, the manner in which Butler’s discourse was directed not at anti-Anglicans or eminent intellectuals, but at the majority of ordinary secular society, is explored. How it was consistent with and defended their sentiments and economic behavior, not only in Analogy but mainly in Fifteen Sermons, is also investigated and explained. Finally, readers see that Butler’s antirational grasp of humanity and empiricist epistemology, based on “probability” presented in these inquiries, can in fact be considered a pioneering expression of the methodological premises of modern economics.

Table of contents

Front Matter
Pages i-xi

Introduction
Daisuke Arie
Pages 1-8

Butler in Commercial Society

Front Matter
Pages 9-9

A Compromising Preacher: Bishop Butler as a Proto-Political Economist
Daisuke Arie
Pages 11-24

Formation of Butler’s Moral Theology as a Foundation of Commercial Society
Naoki Yajima
Pages 25-40

Commercial Society and Religion: Butler, Paley and Priestley
Akihito Matsumoto
Pages 41-53

Butler’s Concept of Human Nature: Conscience and Self-Love

Front Matter
Pages 55-55

Butler’s Arguments for the Authority of Conscience
Toshinari Mizuno
Pages 57-77

Theories of Resentment and Civilisation from Perspectives of Butler and Lord Kames
Masahiro Kimiya
Pages 79-95

Butler and Adam Smith on Conscience, Self-deceit and General Rules
Hiroyuki Ota
Pages 97-113

Butler and the Scottish Enlightenment: His Relationship with Adam Smith
Shinji Nohara
Pages 115-127

Self-love in Butler and Rousseau
Shuma Yoshida
Pages 129-146

Range of Butler’s Theology

Front Matter
Pages 147-147

Science and Religion in British Philosophy: The Case of the Plurality of Worlds
Shinichi Nagao
Pages 149-165

Butler and Ben Shira’s Aphorism
Masatake Okubo, Naoki Yajima
Pages 167-183

Back Matter
Pages 185-189

版元の紹介ページ：　https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-99-9903-3