author
Joseph Butler
1692–1752
Best known for clear, humane writing on conscience and moral life, this 18th-century bishop became one of the most influential English thinkers of his age. His sermons and religious arguments continued to shape philosophy and theology long after his lifetime.
3 Audiobooks
Human Nature, and Other Sermons
by Joseph Butler
Some Remains (hitherto unpublished) of Joseph Butler, LL.D.
by Joseph Butler
About the author
Born in Wantage in 1692, Joseph Butler was an English Anglican bishop, theologian, and moral philosopher. He was raised in a Presbyterian family, later joined the Church of England, and went on to become a prominent church leader, serving as Bishop of Bristol and later Bishop of Durham.
Butler is especially remembered for Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel and The Analogy of Religion. In these works, he argued that human beings are not driven only by self-interest and gave a powerful defense of religious belief against the skeptical and deist arguments of his time.
His writing is still valued for its calm, careful reasoning and its deep interest in conscience, character, and how people ought to live. Even readers who come to him through philosophy rather than theology often find him strikingly modern in the seriousness he brings to human nature and ethics.