Digressions&Impressions

John Locke on Money, National Greatness and the Liberal Art of Liberal Government,

Silver is the instrument and measure of commerce in all the civilized and trading parts of the world.

It is the instrument of commerce by its intrinsic value.

The intrinsic value of silver, considered as money, is that estimate which common consent has placed on it, whereby it is made equivalent to all other things, and consequently is the universal barter, or exchange, which men give and receive for other things they would purchase or part with, for a valuable consideration; and thus, as the wise man tells us, money answers all things.--John Locke (1695) "Further Considerations Concerning Raising the Value of Money"

It is no doubt a bit odd to read that X is intrinsic of Y and that X is (a) an estimate of Y (b) and it (the estimate) is product of common consent. But it is less odd when we remind ourselves that X is not the intrinsic value of silver as such, but the intrinsic value of "silver, considered as money." And money here is a mechanism for the (possible) buying and selling of infinite diversity of (possible) goods.

In commenting on this passage, and Further Considerations more generally, Christine Desane writes, in her fascinating (2014) book Making Money: Coin, Currency, and the Coming of Capitalism, Locke's "argument put sovereigns in a place peripheral to international trade." (346) This matters to Desan's more general argument because Locke is the main source of what early in her book she describes as "the conventional creation story"* which she attributes to Marx and Menger alike (27-28).    

My interest here is not in the metaphysics of value,+ or the details of the implied mechanism, although both are important topics. Rather, I want to reflect a bit on Locke's underlying political vision. It is easy to imagine why Desan thinks that for Locke the origin of money is a convention  (350), and, with a nod to the Two Treatises, "an act of agreement prior even to the political consent that created society" (351; emphasis in Desan; for my analysis of the material in the Two Treatise see here). That is to say, on Desan's interpretation, "money's foundation" is "not political, not legal, but social." (353) By "locating agency over money in the consensus of strangers or people without politics, Locke offered the image of a medium that needed no collective engineering. (353) Since this fits with a certain kind of libertarian interpretation of Locke, one may well assume that Desan gets Locke right even though the argument of her book is that money is the product of collective engineering.

Now, before I criticize this account of Locke, it is important to note that Desan recognizes that Locke's account of the origin of money is not identical to his account of the maintenance of money. In particular, on her treatment of Locke, the sovereign does have one "certifying" (346) role in facilitating the use of money in commerce: "the ascertaining of its quantity by a public mark, the better to fit it for commerce," (quoted on p. 346 of Desan). As Locke puts it, the mark is a kind of "a public voucher, that a piece of such denomination is of such a weight, and of such a fineness, i. e. has so much silver in it." That is to say, for Locke the sovereign's role is to provide a collective good, by guarding over the quality of money and providing a public signal of it. 

As an aside, we see here Locke recognizing that the state (bureaucracy/institutions) needs itself to possess high quality skills. And the state's role is to secure common measures (by "public authority warranted") and accurate information about them. 

More important, one of the explicit goals of the state is to promote commerce. So, it is a bit odd to treat Locke as depoliticizing money when he articulates his account of money in terms of quite specific political aims (namely the promotion of commerce).  But so far, I have said nothing that Desan might disagree with.

More subtly, Desan treats money (and she is here echoing in part Locke's opponent Lowndes) as an "emphatically domestic"  affair. (348) It would, thus, be tempting to see in Locke's politics a cosmopolitan project because (and now again quoting Desan about Locke) "exchange was an international matter, and he evidently assumed that money was as well," (349).

And, indeed, in one sense Locke's ideal is cosmopolitan: "perhaps it would have been better for commerce in general, and more convenient for all their subjects, if the princes every-where, or at least in this part of the world, would at first have agreed on the fineness of the standard to have been just one-twelfth alloy, in round numbers; without those minuter fractions which are to be found in the alloy of most of the coin of the several distinct dominions of this part of the world." (partially quoted on p. 346 and p. 348 by Desan) It is not silly to see in Locke as the hypothetical forefather of the Euro (or, at least, the EMU/EMS). But notice that here Locke ascribes to princes/sovereigns political agency. And this is Locke's (counterfactual) ideal. 

Of course, in practice this did not happen. But it alerts us that Locke's argument may be more political than Desan (and certain libertarians) let on.** And, in fact, Locke's argument about the role of money in commerce is itself intrinsically political: 

Money also is necessary to us, in a certain proportion to the plenty of it amongst our neighbours. For, if any of our neighbours have it in a much greater abundance than we, we are many ways obnoxious to them. 1. They can maintain a greater force. 2. They can tempt away our people, by greater wages, to serve them, by land, or sea, or in any labour. 3. They can command the markets, and thereby break our trade, and make us poor. 4. They can on any occasion ingross naval and warlike stores, and thereby endanger us.

In countries where domestic mines do not supply it, nothing can bring in silver but tribute, or trade. Tribute is the effect of conquest: trade, of skill and industry.

By commerce silver is brought in, only by an overbalance of trade.

An overbalance of trade, is when the quantity of commodities, which we send to any country do more than pay for those we bring from thence: for then the overplus is brought home in bullion.

For, Locke's argument is that a strong currency is connected to a high wage ("greater wages"), productive labor force ("skill and industry"), export driven ("overbalance of trade") political economy, which allows for a growing population and, thereby,  a greater military (and more powerful economy).++ What's really new here -- judging by Desan's larger narrative -- is not the strong currency part. (It seems the UK elites were all in on a strong currency for close to half a millenium prior to Locke.) But rather that in virtue of a strong currency one can pay high wages and support a growing population. 

This not ad hoc in Locke. It echoes Locke's more instrumental defense of property rights as conducive to consumption and rising standards of living. In particular, it fits quite nicely with the details of Locke's 'Art of government' (recall my treatment of sections 41-42 of Second Treatise, chapter 5): (i) open borders that facilitate immigration, abundance in food, fertility/family friendly policies. (ii) And we can take him to be committed to policies that improve the skill-set of the workforce that is the stimulation of public or private provision of education. In arguing for Jewish emancipation (and immigration), Toland (recall) explicitly picks up on Locke's argument, but rather than focusing on high wages he focuses on falling prices for mass produced goods. 

So, let me wrap up. I have not here evaluated Locke's economics. And I also grant that it's possible that Locke was a bourgeois ideologue supporting mercantile Whig elites at the expense of everybody else (Desan relies heavily on Macpherson) with any argument available. But it strikes me that the more natural and consistent reading is that Locke thought that state policy should enrich the population. If done right (by focusing on a hard currency, educating for the right skills, and yes defending property rights) this would lock Britain into a virtuous cycle of growing trade, growing wages, growing populations, and growing political might. This is not a cosmopolitan argument in favor of trade (of the sort Kant or Smith might try out); rather it is a second-best argument for national greatness because the international sphere is characterized by power politics. Since Locke's approach puts Britain on the path of zero-sum, great power politics, it is an open question whether this can be called 'liberal' (cf.  411 in Desan; but that's for another occasion).

 

Toland, Locke's Statecraft, and Jewish Emancipation

NOW, what ought to rejoice us all, thoſe of our own Nation are not only long ſince divested of ſuch barbarous and bloody Pračtises but likewise have by very sensible degrees (tho’ not so far as might be wished) quitted certain narrow and bigoted Principles, not more contrary to common Humanity and Genuine Religion, than to their own publick and private Interest. Our political Contentions, both the sign and support of Liberty, are no contradićtion to this Assertion. The vulgar, I confess, are seldom pleased in any Country with the coming in of Foreigners among 'em: Which proceeds, first, from their ignorance, that at the beginning they were such themselves; secondly, from their grudging at more Persons sharing the same Trades or Business with them, which they call taking the Bread out of their Mouths; and thirdly, from their being deluded to this aversion by the artifice of those who design any change in the Government. But as wise Magistrates will prevent the last, and are senſible of the first, so they know the second cause of the People's hatred, to be the true Cause of the Land's Felicity; and therefore, not minding those who mind nothing but their selfiſh Proječts, they'll ever encourage a Confluence of Strangers. We deny not that there will thus be more tailors and shoomakers; but there will be also more suits and shoes made than before. If there be more weavers, watchmakers, and other arteficers, we can for this reason export more cloth, watches, and more of all other commodities than formerly: and not only have ’em better made by the emulation of so many workmen, of such different Nations; but likewise have ’em quicker sold off, for being cheaper wrought than those of others, who come to the same market. This one Rule of More, and Better, and Cheaper, will ever carry the market against all expedients and devices. But to these Reasons we may further add, that the same vulgar, who are so averſe to the coming in of poor Strangers, are as well pleas'd with the rich, which will generally hold true of the jews, who moreover do always take care of their own Poor, wherever they are, and can not therefore be said, (according to our own Country phraſe just now cited) to eat the Bread out of the Mouths of others. All these Advantages are yet more evident with respect to the produćt of Lands, which shews (to uſe the * words of Mr. Locke) how much NUMBERS of MEN are to be preferred to LARGENESS of DOMINIONS and that the INCREASE of LANDS, and the right employment of them, is the great END of Government. That Prince (says he) who shall be ſo wiſe and god like, as by ESTABLISHED LAWS of LIBERTY, to secure Protection and encouragement to the HONEST INDUSTRY of mankind, against the OPPRESSION OF POWER, and the NARROWNESS OF PARTY, will quickly be too hard for his Neighbours. Such a Prince thou haſt upon the Throne, O Britain As a GENERAL NATURALIZATION is your peculiar interest, ye Men of fruitful acres. --John Toland (1714) Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews in Great Britain and Ireland, Chapter XVI. (All italics in original; I will quote Toland's Reasons by paragraph below.)

A few days ago I bumped into Toland's Reasons while looking for an online copy of his The art of governing by parties because the latter is discussed in Isaac Kramnick's wonderful Bolingbroke & His Circle (recall last week). Reasons calls for (nearly) full citizenship rights for Jews. (The exception being positions of authority in the Church of England.) Since anti-semitism is not uncommon among even very perceptive Enlightenment thinkers (recall Hume), I thought it worth digressing.

One of the oddities of our age, in which so many scholars embrace the reality and significance of moral progress, is to be found in the near total neglect of John Toland. Even historians of philosophers, who pride themselves on their contextual knowledge of the history of philosophy, are, by and large unfamiliar with his pioneering views, including (recall) his feminism, and his clever use of genealogical reasoning (recall; and here). I have never heard his very early advocacy of Jewish emancipation mentioned in a scholarly context. Toland has not been very well served by those with more familarity with his writings. For example, back in 1969 Isaac E. Barzilay argues (not incorrectly) that "most of the arguments are drawn from Rabbi Simone Luzzatto's Discourse on the Jews of Venice." (76)

As it happens, Toland does not hide debt to Luzzatto (who he praises greatly). But even if Barzilay were right, that still leaves some arguments not drawn from Luzzato. And while undoubtedly there are many excellent reasons to study the past, it cannot hurt from time to time, to reflect a bit on how it is possible, amidst so much wanton cruelty and intellectual perniciousness, some thinkers arrived at the right moral and political position well ahead of their contemporaries. And why, perhaps, they were ignored by them.

It is, of course, natural for readers to connect Toland's argument in favor of the naturalization of Jews to Locke's account of toleration. So, for example, the eminent Toland scholar, Ian Leask, writes in a recent article, "Toland cites Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government in the Reasons – but it seems that Locke’s First Letter concerning Toleration, the Epistola, is a more significant formative force." (3) He is right about the significance of Locke's views on toleration--Toland makes an explicit point that because the Jews lack a homeland, they will not naturally serve a foreign power. (VI) Laesk has lots of interesting to say connecting the arguments to Toland's fascination throughout his writings with Jewish history, Machiavellianism, and what has come to be known as political hebraism, in particular, of the Harringtonian kind (Toland edited Harrington). But somewhat oddly while he mentions it, Laesk ends up ignoring the explicit argument drawn from Locke (quoted above). 

Toland's general argument assumes, against prejudicial "bias," that humans are by nature equal; it is only "the different methods of government and education" that account for observed differences. (ch. VIII; in my terminology, he is a methodological analytic egalitarian.) And, he also assumes, as common knowledge (at least among the learned), "we all know that numbers of people are the true riches and power of any country." (ch. III) In addition, he offers empirical-historical reasons (by contrasting Dutch experiences with other European countries) for claiming that a number of policies are conducive to growing populations and wealth: population will grow in those countries that practice "liberty of conscience;" that are welcoming immigrants from "all nations to the right of citizens" (III); and practice "inviolable security of...goods and persons." (IV) These points are not original in Toland; they are implied, conceptually, in the final chapters of Spinoza's Theological Political Treatise; we find them developed more empirically in De La Court's True Interest of Holland (which was (recall) quite popular in England). These are works are familiar to Toland.

Even so, the particular turn Toland gives to the argument draws out an important strand of Locke's second Treatise. Well, it is important to me because. as it happens, I quoted the very same paragraph  from Locke's second Treatise (recall) a few months ago.* I noted that Locke treats it as an aside on the "art of government." In particular,  the art of government is presented while Locke offers an instrumental defense of property rights as conducive to consumption and rising standards of living with the development of a growing, skilled labor force. Locke is, in fact, committed to policies that promote population growth, including immigration. It's that argument that Toland notes explicitly in the passage quoted above.

In fact, Toland's argument is directed, in part, at those among the British pro commercializing elite (the "wise magistrates") for whom national economic policy meant a growing population, increasing production, growing exports ("export more cloth, watches, and more of all other commodities than formerly"), increasing competitive markets, and cheaper and technologically improved commodities ("have ’em better made by the emulation of so many workmen"). And while there is undoubtedly a hint of mercantile doctrine in here, Toland addresses the concerns of the working poor head-on. Yes, they will have to compete with new workers. But these new workers will also ensure a larger internal market with an improved cost of living ("cheaper wrought" goods).+ That is to say, Toland grasps and fully articulates the more liberal win-win logic that is essential to Locke's argument.** 

I do not mean to suggest Toland's argument for Jewish emancipation is only couched in enlightened self-interest of national greatness rooted in a growing population with a growing economy and high quality goods. As the opening sentence above suggests, Toland also offers an argument from "common humanity" (the eighteenth century conceptual framework made popular by Hume and one of the roots of human rights talk down the road). That argument is rooted in the particular historical injustices committed against the Jews in England. But that's for another occasion.

For now, I wish those of you that celebrate it, a happy socially distanced Passover!

 

On Toland's Veneration of Hypatia

Her Disciples entered into a strićt Tye of Intimacy with one another, stiling themſelves Companions, or, as in our Colleges Fellows; which was likewiſe the Cuſtom at Athens, and in other famous Seminaries of Learning. This commonly begot Effects of Benevolence thro’ the whole Courſe of their Lives, and Hypatia was by way of Excellence named The Philoſopher, altogether as much on Account of her pro found Knowledge, as for her public Profeſſion of Teaching. Nor was any Profeſſor ever more ad mired by the World, or more dear to his own Scholars. Hers were as remarkable as numerous.--John Toland (1720) Hypatia, chapter V.

The distinguished scholar, Ian Leask, gave an excellent lecture last week in Dublin on John Toland as a (proto-)feminist. In addition to Letters to Serena, a key bit of evidence in his argument is Toland's (1720) Hypatia: Or, The History of a Most Beautiful, Most Vertuous, Most Learned, and every way accompliſh'd Lady, Who was torn to pieces by the clergy of Alexandria, to gratify the Pride, Emulation, and Cruelty of their Archbishop, com monly but undeſervedly ſtiled St. Cyril. Today I'll accept Lask's treatment of Toland as a feminist.* Toland (recall; and here), arguing from “common humanity” *Ch.XX) really believes that men ought to be collectively "ashamed" about here fate (ch. I). The subtitle also gives a clear sense of the anti-clerical animus of Toland's tract. 

Today, I focus on a different angle, which I take to be the more significant theme of the brief tract: Toland's more critical treatment of Hypatia, who is praised for her skill in astronomy, mathematics, and expositor of philosophy, as a political leader. This feature is mentioned at once: she "succeeded" her father "in the Government of the Platonic School at Alexandria." In so doing she became a celebrity in her age (see above) in the center of learning that was, simultaneously, one of the most important imperial cities.

That the public impact, especially in legal affairs, of Hypatia matters is clear from this description: "that never Woman had a more unspotted Charaćter. She was held an Oracle for her Wisdom, which made her be conſulted by the Magiſtrates in all important Caſes; and this frequently drew her among the greateſt Concourſe of Men, without the leaſt Cenſure of her Manners."  And, in fact, she became the center of political life: "That the Governors and Magiſtrates of Alexandria regularly viſited her, that all the City...paid Court to her, is a Diſtinction with which no Women was eyer honoured before," (Ch. XI).++

Toland hints at the theme slyly when he introduces his main character witness/authority, Synesius: "It was then that with greater Boldness than any of the Grecians (as he tells us himself) he pronounced before the Emperor that extremely fine Oration concerning Government, which, in a Country ſo juſtly fond of liberty as ours, I wonder has never been tranſlated. This defect I have ſupplied, and will impart it to the Public on a proper Occaſion," (Ch. VI, emphasis in original.) Unlike Hypatia, the "truth-telling" (Ch. VIII) Synesius is recorded as an author in political philosophy.+ While the work on Government (and its bearing on liberty) is only mentioned, Synesius' apology of philosophy, Dion, is discussed in more detail (Ch. VII); the bottom line being -- and here Toland's Synesius anticipates Hume -- that philosophy ought to be "useful" in the present world.** 

Toland's selection of Synesius's portrait of Hypatia is somewhat less admiring than one would expect. Chapters IX-X reproduces  plaintive letters from Synesius, who, after being promoted/banished to "the Biſhoprick of Ptolemais" was simply ignored by his former companions and teacher. Synesius writes to complain after hearing no word of sympathy or consolation from them after his wife and children had died. Hypatia is revealed as lacking in compassion for others and lacking sensitivity in earthly matters.

The key to Hypatia's downfall is her closeness to the governor of Alexandria, Orestes. Unfortunately, Orestes was hated by Cyril, who was politically ambitious and grew envious of their (political, even personal) intimacy. Cyril, who is presented as intolerant of religious dissent (and persecutor even banisher of the Jews, who had lived there for more than nine centuries since the age of Alexander), is especially focused on the "Unity of the Church" and any obstacle that "weakens the Government of the clergy. (Chs. XVI-XVII).

That is to say, Hypatia is presented as caught in the middle between a battle of political control between church and state. . For, Toland argues that clerical power in political affairs has predictable consequences (including depopulation, persecution, and economic decline). And the source of her death is that Orestes is incapable of maintaining law and order in Alexandria against the sedition of Cyril; Hypatia gets killed by a clerical mob during the disturbances (Chs. XIX-XX).

So, what then is the moral  here? I think it’s pretty clear, and not especially profound. Even a popular beloved philosophy (as Hypatia was) presupposes stable political authority, if not law and order. As he writes (recall, in Letters to Serena)

[T]he punishment of the wicked and the recompense of the good, not being contained in fables, but exhibited to our eyes, each party is every day put in mind of his duties; and by this custom there grows the best and most useful reformation of manners. Letters to Serena, Letter II, quoting Diodorus Siculus).

 

On Hutcheson stopping Motion and a hidden, perhaps, polemic with Spinozism

This universal Benevolence toward all Men, we may compare to that Principle of Gravitation, which perhaps extends to all Bodys in the Universe; but like the Love of Benevolence, increases as the Distance is diminish’d, and is strongest when Bodys come to touch each other. Now this increase of Attraction upon nearer Approach, is as necessary to the Frame of the Universe, as that there should be any Attraction at all. For a general Attraction, equal in all Distances, would by the Contrariety of such multitudes of equal Forces, put an end to all Regularity of Motion, and perhaps stop it altogether.--Frances Hutcheson (1726) An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue.

In a lovely paper that he delivered in Ghent on Wednesday, Tamas Demeter made good use of the eminently quotable paragraph, with its seductive comparison between benevolence and Newtonian gravity, quoted above. Ignoring Newton's strictures, Hutcheson implies that attraction is governed by sympathy (see here). The image has a non-trivial after-life in Hutheson's student and astute critic, Adam Smith ("All the different members of it are bound together by the agreeable bands of love and affection, and are, as it were, drawn to one common centre of mutual good offices," [HT Ryan Hanley]) as well as in Smith's careful reader, Wollstonecraft ("private virtue becoming the cement of public happiness, an orderly whole is consolidated by the tendency of all the parts towards a common centre,") [recall this post].

But my eye rested on the final sentence of Hutcheson's paragraph which expresses a counterfactual about the impossibility of an alternative force-law. (Not all possible alternatives, of course.) When you start thinking about it, he seems he has packed quite a bit into the claim. Hutcheson really makes two counterfactual predictions about what would happen if there was uniform gravity (so not based on distance [presumably just based on masses]) in the universe: (a) motion would stop being regular or (b) motion would stop altogether. I focus on (b) first; this is really a kind of anti-cosmogeny. It claims that the world could not have evolved with such a force law.

In fact, Hutcheson's second (b) point ("a general Attraction, equal in all Distances, would by the Contrariety of such multitudes of equal Forces...stop [motion] altogether") sounds (recall this post) akin to a claim that Clarke makes against Spinoza: “because the determination of this self-existent motion must be every way at once, the effect of it could be nothing else but a perpetual rest; it's a an argument that I have long struggled with (see this paper). For the aficionados: I am pretty sure that the then also famous Bentley-Newton correspondence got started by a (now lost) question from Bentley to Newton to rule the possibility of the solar system evolving out of a homogeneous plenum (which the English think Spinoza ought to embrace) with Newtonian force laws. Hutcheson's (b) seems 'intuitive' because one can understand the idea that all forces can cancel each other out so that there is no motion.

But one thing Hutcheson's counterfactual thought experiment, (b), requires is that matter needs to be uniformly or symmetrically distributed (through the infinite universe). Otherwise there is no reason to think that all the possible forces would simply cancel each other out from the start, forever. (We leave aside Norton dome style thought experiments--from my Marij Van Strien's work we know these were familiar in the 19th century, but there is no evidence they were really understood at the start of the 18th century [NB the wikipedia page is weak on the history].) So, contrary to the argument of the General Scholium, Hutcheson is tacitly assuming something like a plenum here (at least as the starting point of cosmogeny). Why he would do so is odd, unless the paragraph originates in an earlier polemic against Spinozism (or the impious development of Cartesianism)? This is a plausible inference, given that Hutecheson is familiar with the polemics surrounding Spinoza and Toland (see here and here), and Hutcheson is often at pains at showing and/or assuming the existence of final causes.

On Necessity in Clarke & Newton (and Spinoza), against Toland....

In his correspondence with (a then very youthful) Joseph Butler, Samuel Clarke writes the following:

Necessity absolute and antecedent in the order of nature to the existence of any subject has nothing to limit it; but if it operates at all (as must needs do), it must operate (if I may so speak) everywhere and at all times alike…. (Clarke’s “Answer to Butler’s Third Letter,” Dec 10, 1713)[1]

To put Clarke’s point informally: absolute necessity has the same impact everywhere and all times and should have the same consequence everywhere and all the time. So, if such necessity operates in some respect, Y, then we ought to expect Y to be homogenous in relevant ways. And if the most fundamental form of necessity operates in all (possible) respects, then we ought to expect general homogeneity.   

This view of necessity turns out to be a non-trivial principle that, surprisingly enough, is shared by Clarke and Spinoza, and, even in considerable part, by Newton. (Recall Newton's claim in the General Scholium (added to the third edition): “No variation of things arises from blind metaphysical necessity, which must be the same always and everywhere.”) I emphasize two features of Clarke’s position. First, according to Clarke necessity is the “formal cause” of God (Clarke’s “answer to sixth Letter to another Gentleman” [published first in 1738]).[2] That is to say, Clarke does not just allow the question, ‘what causes God?’ to be intelligible,[3] but it even has a proper response: in a certain sense, one can say that for Clarke God is the consequence of a species of necessity.[4]  There is, in fact, an unmistakable echo of this doctrine of the relationship between necessity and God in Newton's "General Scholium:" “’Tis allowed by all that the supreme God exists necessarily; and by the same necessity he exists [391] always and every where” (emphasis added). In the quote, Newton insists (i) that God’s necessary existence is common ground among all philosophers.[5] Newton, then, (ii) ascribes to necessity explanatory ‘power’ to help account for (at least some of) God’s properties. It’s this type of explanatory power that is captured by Clarke’s claim that necessity is a formal cause.

Second, Clarke uses the necessity as formal cause of God principle to rule out the existence of multiple substances (Clarke’s first response to Butler, 10 nov 1713, and see Clarke's A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, [hereafter Demonstration] VII). So, like Spinoza [(E1D1 & E1p7)] & (E1p5&E1p7), Clarke treats God as the only true substance.[6] In particular, in order to make credible substance monism, Clarke relies on the idea that absolute necessity does not just have the same impact everywhere and all times and should have the same consequence everywhere and all the time, but also that in the most absolute sense these consequences ‘displace’ the ‘instantiation’ of other hypothetical (but not genuinely possible) effects derived from hypothetical (but not genuinely possible) causes. [7]

If we attend to some of the further details of Clarke’s letter to Butler, we also learn something about the explicit target of Clarke’s argument:

On Necessity and Smithian Social Explanation

[This week I am in Minnesota to hang with the excellent faculty and students (and give some talks) at Macalester College, UMN Mankato, and UMN Twin Cities.  So, I may blog less frequently.--ES]

Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (hereafter WN) starts, as the Aristotelian sounding title promises, with a (tentative) causal claim: "THE greatest improvements in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour." (WN 1.1.1) According to Smith, a single cause has a variety of effects, including -- strikingly enough as Craig Smith has emphasized -- on our cognition ("judgment").  After a fuller description of these effects (including the famous pin-factory example), Smith's second chapter, turns to descriving the cause(s) of the division labor:

THIS division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another. Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature of which no further account can be given; or whether, as seems more probable, it be the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and speech, it belongs not to our present subject to inquire. (WN 1.2.1)

Now, there is a lot to be said about Smith's account of human propensities (and his bracketing of the further question), but here I focus on the nature of explanation that Smith offers. For, in it we find the template of the dominant form of explanation in Smith's social theory. According to Smith social phenomena (e.g., division of labor), which have social utility,* can be explained by the unforeseen (and unintended) necessary workings of human propensities over time. Stated at this level of generality this will not surprise. Smith thinks that given our original and immediate instincts the propensity to barter and truck will arise eventually (it is “the necessary, though very slow and gradual consequence.”) Much ink has been spilled over Smith as a theorist of unintended consequences (and invisible hands, here and here).