tion," and hence it cannot pretend to be legislative, because to hold it as such would make a subjective determining principle of choice serve as an objective determining principle of the will.[1] Butler's principle of self-love, on the other hand, may be regarded from the point of view of the end as objective in character; since, as far as it is permitted to legislate, it has for its function the task of making man's actions conform to the law of his being.
The regulative function of self-love implies that it is superior in kind to the particular affections, and that they, as determinants of conduct, must be subordinated to the higher principle. To illustrate the qualitative superiority in human nature of self-love over the passions, Butler contrasts the case of an animal allured into a fatal snare by some bait that tempts it to gratify its appetite, and that of a man, rushing into foreseen ruin, for the sake of present indulgence. In the former instance, "there is an entire correspondence between his whole nature and such an action"; but in the latter, such an action is unnatural and disproportionate. Now, the disproportion or unfitness "arises, not from considering the action singly in itself, or in its consequences; but from comparison of it with the nature of the agent." The unnatural character of the act does not lie in the violation of self-love "considered merely as a part of man's nature, for passion or appetite is equally a part of his nature"; nor does it lie in a suppression of any "principle or desire which happens for the present to be strongest." Hence, the difference is one, not of strength or degree, but of nature and kind. Consequently, when the alternative is between passion and self-love, a violation of the higher principle is a contradiction of human nature as a whole." Thus, without particular consideration of conscience, we may have a clear conception of the superior nature of one inward principle to another, … quite distinct from degrees of strength and prevalency."[2]
From its regulative function, it follows also that self-love must be capable of deciding what man's true happiness is, of learning
