Joseph Butler’s Moral and Religious Thought

Abstract The essays in this book mark the tercentenary of the birth of Bishop Joseph Butler, the leading Anglican theologian of the eighteenth century and also an important moral philosopher. They cover the full range of Butler's theological and philosophical writings—from his Christian apologetic against the deists to his discussion of the role of conscience in the moral agent—as well as setting them in their historical context and suggesting their relevance to contemporary religious and philosophical issues. At a time of renewed interest in Butler’s thought, as well as in the theological positions he was opposing, it is timely and appropriate that these detailed studies of Butler's thought should now be made available.