Difference and Enlightenment Violence: Locke, Shaftesbury, and Hutcheson

Author(s): David Alvarez

Source: The Eighteenth Century , SPRING 2012, Vol. 53, No. 1 (SPRING 2012), pp. 113-
118
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/41468166

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 Difference and Enlightenment Violence:
Locke, Shaftesbury, and Hutcheson

David Alvarez
DePauw University

According to Daniel Carey's Locke , Shaftesbury , and Hutcheson: Contesting Diver-

sity in the Enlightenment and Beyond (Cambridge, 2006), the early English En-
lightenment not only contests diversity (as the title indicates) but also cultivates
an openness to it. Carey finds in John Locke's interest in global ethical diversity
evidence that he resists a priori conceptions of human nature and is accepting
of human difference. Carefully reconstructing the arguments of both Locke and
his critics, Carey seeks to unpack their complexity, potentiality, and continu-
ing relevance. He claims that eighteenth-century critics who cast Locke as a
philosophical relativist and ethical nihilist oversimplify his position. But Carey
also celebrates the efforts of these critics: their response to Locke's thinking
about difference spurs them to defend ethical universalism with innovative ar-
guments that continue to structure contemporary thought. Our thinking about
difference, according to Carey, occurs within the framework established by
Locke and his critics in their debates about the significance of human diversity.
He contends that these Enlightenment arguments are relevant not only for how
we understand current concerns about ethics, multiculturalism, and human
rights, but also for how we imagine and justify a global future for democracy.
There is much to learn from Carey's detailed historical analysis of these
debates. He contextualizes arguments within broad networks of people and
texts, and situates clearly his own claims and reservations in relation to cur-
rent scholarship. These efforts can become digressive, but the overall structure
of the book is clear: Carey examines how Locke, Anthony Ashley Cooper, the
third Earl of Shaftesbury, and Francis Hutcheson continue to frame our op-
tions for thinking about diversity. His book raises big and urgent questions,
but it often responds to these questions obliquely It limits itself to outlining the
framework provided by these Enlightenment philosophers for thinking about
diversity and does not venture far in considering how we might think past it.
Given the book's admittedly political topic, it often treats the political impli-

The Eighteenth Century, vol. 53, no. 1 Copyright © 2012 University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

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114 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

cations of its analyses with su

inherent in our current "dispos
heir to eighteenth-century his
cially under-examined (13).
The book's first half examine
diversity in the early modern p
vated his epistemology and crit
diversity in his thinking, but
cism: "Locke merely intended
on a sounder footing than spec
ing this sounder footing in the
compile a "natural history of m
shaped" their approach (23). He
Rather, his method was to acce
instance and to establish patter
sions" (15). Carey argues that
a more productive, open-ended
larger claim that Enlightenmen
solely to establishing uniform
open to difference and he reje
But Locke's open-ended epistem
Carey notes, "politically, differ
lead [Locke] to abandon a colon
Locke's epistemology did not p
however, suggests that a prior
sponsible and that Locke is less
Locke's critics, according to C
hopes that motivated his intere
ments associated with philosop
the "law of opinion" as an exp
opponents relied upon Stoic thi
he turned to ancient and early
These skeptics argued that we
ethical behavior - consensus g
about right and wrong. The exi
absence of innate ideas. Because
rebuked for skepticism and ans
poraries" (43). Carey's Locke is th
guilt by association.
Locke's critics were also convi
the "law of opinion or reputat
Concerning Human Understand
motivates us to act ethically: "

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ALVAREZ- DIFFERENCE AND ENLIGHTENMENT 115

go together. Vertue is every-where that, which is thou

nothing else but that, which has the allowance of publi
tue."^ For Shaftesbury and many others, such passages
tivistic colors. Carey, however, is more sanguine, expl
here a sociological observation that is merely intende
that most human beings refer their actions to moral r
ion, reputation, and fashion, rather than anything highe
Locke's emphasis elsewhere on "the power of reason t
religious duty," is enough to show, for Carey, that Loc
lishing ethics on firmer ground than opinion and fash
Locke could be further elaborated, however, since wha
means is left unexplained.
Most of the book's second half examines how Shaft
argue against Locke's perceived ethical nihilism. To an
Shaftesbury develops a teleological account of nature
and latitudinarian theology. Humans were part of a l
signed to promote their well-being through the natural
friendship, and love. Carey emphasizes that Shaftesbu
tique of innate ideas by relying on the Stoic concept of
an anticipation rather than a fully formed principle o
to Shaftesbury, we are born not with innate ideas but
ceptions, or dispositions, "connatural" impulses that
nature for aesthetic and ethical judgments. This disp
also take account of ethical diversity, since it "still requi
'right application of the affections'" (115). Ethical diver
cannibalism of the Tupinamba of Brazil or the brutish
of Locke and Thomas Hobbes in England, is a result for
mity or the negative consequences of custom, educatio
Moreover, the existence of such diversity provided no
sus gentium, since Shaftesbury limits common consent t
He provided a hierarchical account in which the lowe
vast array of non-British or non-European peoples ex
of consensus" (124). Those who had not yet entered o
could hardly count, according to Shaftesbury, as fully
The implications of this view for Shaftesbury's relatio
had inherited a proprietorship in the Carolina colony
Carey presents Hutcheson as inspired by Shaftesbury
of nature and focus on benevolent impulses but also
epistemology. Appealing to a "moral sense" that operat
external senses, Hutcheson argues that moral ideas ar
reflection, which Locke claimed was true for all idea
sponds to events with an immediate pleasure or pain
wrong. But a frequently observed difficulty with his

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116 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

"is that we tend to consider f

(165). Hutcheson's moral sense
judges: "As if from the judge's
over all that human beings do, o
thoughts, actions, volitions, pr
is proper, what is right, and w
Hutcheson at one point calls th
Quality ," prompting Carey to
tributes, the most obvious of w
Hutcheson's moral sense canno
collapses into an ungrounded a
Like Shaftesbury, Hutcheson s
example, he cites a number of
the moral sense: education, reli
ceptions of happiness, among o
to argue that Locke had oversta
"presented himself as somethin
ety" (186). He was not alone. Al
experts on non-Europeans, and
travel narratives are sites of an
cast as evidence for and agains
Most importantly, these three
ing non-Europeans. Carey first
ernment (1689), which underst
and Europeans not "as fixed an
and occasioned by historical si
continuum running from barb
fore, can be accounted for in t
ture. Shaftesbury and Hutches
Carey traces through to the Sc
that American Indians "show u
Europe shows them their futu
the telos of his framework for
Although Carey does not put it
Treatises) contains an a priori e
plain why Locke's epistemology
The polarities established by L
Hutcheson on the other are ap
in anthropological theory, mul
and Clifford Geertz are aligned
the modern heirs of Shaftesbu
Carrithers and Tz vetan Todoro
fications for human rights alon

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ALVAREZ- DIFFERENCE AND ENLIGHTENMENT 117

pointing to the recurrent obstacles confronting appro

or based on an account of human nature. The commen
minating, though mostly limited to showing how eigh
"continue to define important parameters of current t
Debates about multiculturalism, according to Car
from the Enlightenment disputes he analyzes because
not between but within nations. But even according
this is not wholly accurate. As he notes, Locke's criti
partly motivated by religious differences within Engla
that unmediated access to ethical and theological truth
factions and violence (38). Locke seeks to mediate access
his epistemology and anthropology, which as a model
difference extends to managing colonial space. This bo
more work to be done along these lines.
Carey also focuses on how our current concept of cu
"within the world more resolutely than [in accounts
ners'" (225). But this understates both the depth of th
that caused the carnage of the English civil war - no l
there - and the efforts required not simply to think p
divisions. We need to consider not just the conceptua
dimensions of the changes that have made the accept
sible. Nonetheless, Carey's description of our current
"equivalent to difference" enables him to highlight the
of thinking about democracy as unifying while at the
radical difference. Foregrounding how assimilation a
in the concept of democracy, Carey seems to side wi
for a more "conflictual" and "agonistic" model of dem
still requires "mutual validation" (228). He concludes, h
provocative claim: "It is not a case, therefore, of optin
or for diversity, but of finding ways to combine the tw
Given his consideration of how political force can be
of democracy, Carey's analysis of the teleology inhere
current "dispositionalist theory of democracy" is surp
He argues that the progressive history that allowed
to explain away diversity continues to justify our own
future of democracy:

Variations in the form of government around the world do

of democracy: rather, they speak to differences of historic
recognition of a good embraced by all, a matter of ost
emerge. If war and economic influence bring about this ch
ated fashion, then the West has merely played a facilitatin
own vision on the rest of the world. (13)

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118 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The irony here (at least, one a

irony) seems misplaced, not jus
porary political violence too o
nificance of his analysis. The
and contemporary conceptions
violence. Much effort, of cour
of modern violence in Enlighte
of critique that has been explo
Ashis Nandy. Their analyses f
Carey's work locates the ideolo
time and in different epistemo
yet adequately examine a rich
to commit violence in the nam
much to illuminate how Enligh
nialism, communism, and the s
Such a pursuit, however, seem
Enlightenment ways of thinki
difference, Carey argues agains
imposing a globally destructive
we remain indebted to the pola
debate about diversity for our
and democracy, Carey seeks to
ters. It clearly does. But while
more open to difference than
the reverse: He shows us instead that debates about difference are focused on
European concerns (especially the need to contain religious violence) and, more
importantly, that the homogenizing historicism generated by Enlightenment
attempts to account for global diversity overrides the acknowledgment of dif-
ference, then and now.

NOTES

1. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding [1690], ed. Peter H. N

(Oxford, 1975), 354.

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