from the ethics of utilitarianism that it is in complete accord with the extreme rationalism of the Kantian ethics. For Kant, too, we can do nothing of consequence to our fellows but promote their happiness, since perfection is a matter which the agent alone can realize for himself.
It is then in the above sense that the principle of benevolence, together with a corresponding course of behavior, embraces all social duties. And, in addition to comprehending all duties to our fellows, it exercises an influence upon personal virtue, and is one of the chief securities of proper self-regarding conduct.[1] "Hence," Butler concludes, "it is manifest that the common virtues, and the common vices of mankind, may be traced up to benevolence, or the want of it," and this, he thinks, is a justification of his text, "whatever cautions and restrictions there are, which might require to be considered, if we were to state particularly and at length, what is virtue and right behaviour in mankind."[2]
So, although in the conclusion of this sermon he avows that benevolence "includes all that is good and worthy," and although in the sermon upon "The Forgiveness of Injuries" he even goes so far as to declare that a due recognition of the fact "that mankind is a community … that there is a public end and interest of society which each particular is obliged to promote, is the sum of morals,"[3] he does not mean that benevolence is the whole of virtue, or that the good of society is the sole end approved by conscience. That he does not intend to identify virtue with benevolence may be seen from the twelfth sermon itself. The important cautions which he utters both at the beginning and close of the discussion in that sermon[4] show that he has throughout had in mind certain reservations, which, when explained, plainly indicate that he does not regard benevolence as alone constitutive of virtue. A footnote explanatory of the "limitations and restrictions" to which he has referred, makes it evident that he has not surrendered his view of morality as intrinsically worthy, and
