Berkeley’s Passive Obedience: The Logic of Loyalty

Text by professor Timo Airaksinen

History of European Ideas 2021, Vol. 47, No. 1, 58-70.

https://doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2020.1777515

Abstract

Berkeley argues in Passive Obedience that what he calls morality is based on the divine laws of nature, which God gave us and whose validity is like that of the principles of geometry. One of these laws is the categorical demand for loyalty to the supreme political power. This is to say, rebellious action is strictly impermissible and passive obedience is morally required: we may disobey but only in terms of action omission and then we must accept the penalty or punishment. This paper clarifies the logic of Berkeley's argument and evaluates the acceptability of his results, especially when he considers possible exceptions in the case of a tyrant, usurper, and mad prince. What should one do? We may "sit still and pray for better times" and think of the day of divine judgement; is this enough when a citizen is under a tyrannical political rule? Can we trust the good will of magistrates, or expect God's help? Berkeley speaks of your moral duty to supreme power but in the last part of his treatise he also mentions the possibility of two competing princes, or no supreme power. 

Keywords: Berkeley, ethics, virtue, categorical duty, political philosophy, natural laws, loyalty, Kant, Hobbes, Hume.

Historical Background

The historical background of Passive Obedience (PO)[i] is interesting and important: we know that Berkeley's Whig enemies accused him of Jacobitism and justified this by referring to PO. The key evidence, I think, for its falsehood is his acceptance of de facto authority of a prince – the text of PO does not mention de facto/de jure distinction at all (I will return to this in a more detailed manner). Nevertheless, Berkeley professionally suffered from his bad reputation, for instance he lost two preferments, St. Paul's, Dublin (1714), and the Deanery of Down (1716), even if he much later became a Bishop in Cloyne, Ireland – but this was a remote see in Ireland and not in England, which he would have preferred.

The contemporary political situation explains the relevant controversy. Conroy writes:

After the flight of James II, the last Stuart king to rule the three kingdoms, the face of rising cries of anti-Popery and indignation at the alleged Popish Plot, Parliament brought over William Prince of Orange, together with his wife Mary, daughter of King James. Britain was now faced with the possibility of two kings, one legal and de jure, one de facto placed on the throne by the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. James […] attempted to regain his lost kingdoms.[ii]

Belfrage writes about the relevant political controversy:

Pamphlets about "Passive Obedience" were frequent at this period of time, often criticizing the Glorious Revolution that forced James II to abdicate in 1689. If rebellion in any form is a sinful act, as Berkeley argues in Passive Obedience, then the present government held office as a result of an immoral action. This was a typical Jacobite and Tory position.[iii]

The full title of PO is Passive Obedience, Or the Christian Doctrine of not resisting the Supreme Power, proved and vindicated upon the principles of the Law of Nature. In a Discourse delivered at the College Chapel. He published the lectures, or sermons, in 1712 and they were reprinted three times, although they did not create much public interest.[iv] Why did Berkeley revise PO in 1730 and omit "the theme of our duty to passively obey the civil power." Why did he not include PO in collection of A Miscellany in 1752?"[v] Did he reject his early doctrine? Belfage says he discovered a fatal inconsistency in his argument and thus rejected it while Berman leaves the question more or less open.[vi] Anyway, I agree with Belfrage that Berkeley "as a mature man defeated the [Christian] fundamentalism he developed in his youth."[vii]

Notes

[i] In Vol. 6, A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop (Eds), The Works of George Berkeley, 9 Volumes, London: Nelson, 1948-1957. Abbr. Works. References to PO are to numbered sections. – On the historical background of PO, see Bertil Belfrage, "The Mystery of Goodness in Berkeley's Passive Obedience." In R. Brook and B. Belfrage (Eds.), Bloomsbury Companion to Berkeley, London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2017, pp. 141-157; David Berman, "The Jacobitism of Berkeley's Passive Obedience," Journal of the History of Ideas 47 (1986), 309 – 319, and his George Berkeley, Idealism and the Man. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996, pp. 84ff; Graham P. Conroy, "George Berkeley and the Jacobite Heresy," Albion 3 (1971), 82-91; Ian Ross, "Was Berkeley a Jacobite? Passive Obedience Revisited," Eighteenth-Century Ireland 20 (2005), 17–30; and G. J. Warnock, "On Passive Obedience," History of European Ideas 7 (1986), 555-562.

[ii] Conroy, 1971, p. 83.

[iii] Belfrage, 2017, p. 141

[iv] Berman, 1986, pp. 310,

[v] Belfrage, 2017, p. 141.

[vi] Belfrage, 2017, pp. 141-142.

[vii] Belfrage, 2017, p. 154.

Bibliography George Berkeley

The Works of George Berkeley, 9 Vols. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop (Eds). London: Nelson, 1948-1957. (Abbr. Works).

Passive Obedience (abbr. PO). Works Vol. 6. References are to numbered sections.

"A Discourse Addressed to Magistrates and Men in Authority," Works Vol. 6.

The Correspondence of George Berkeley. Marc A. Hight (Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

***

Airaksinen, Timo and Arto Siitonen, "Kant on Hobbes, Peace, and Obedience," History of European Ideas 30 (2004): 315-328.

Airaksinen, Timo, "In the Upper Room: Metaphysics and Theology in Berkeley's Ethics," Philosophical Theology 27 (2015): 427-456.

Belfrage, Bertil, "The Mystery of Goodness in Berkeley's Passive Obedience." In R. Brook and B. Belfrage (Eds.), Bloomsbury Companion to Berkeley. London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2017, pp. 141-157.

Berman, David "The Distrustful Philosopher: Berkeley between the Devils and the Deep Blue Sea of Faith." In Silvia Parigi (Ed.), George Berkeley: Religion and Science in the Age of Enlightenment. Dordrecht: Springer, 2010, pp. 141-157.

Berman, David "The Jacobitism of Berkeley's Passive Obedience," Journal of the History of Ideas 47 (1986), 309 – 319.

Berman, David, George Berkeley, Idealism and the Man. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.

Bertini, Daniele, "Berkeley, Theology and Bible Scholarship." In Parigi (Ed.), George Berkeley, 2010, pp. 123-139.

Conroy, Graham P., "George Berkeley and the Jacobite Heresy," Albion 3 (1971), 82-91.

Fischer, Karsten, "Hobbes, Schmitt and the Paradox of Religious Liberty." In J. Tralau (Ed.), Thomas Hobbes and Carl Schmitt: The Politics of Order and Myth. New York: Routledge, 2011, pp. 141-58.

Flage, Daniel, "Rickless and Passive Obedience," Berkeley Studies 28 (2019), 24-47.

Golding, Martin P., "Agreements with Hostage Taker." In T. Airaksinen and M. Bertman (Eds.), Hobbes: War among Nations, 1989, pp. 154-167.

Gylling, Heta, "Berkeley as a Worldly Philosopher." In Sébastien Charles (Ed.), Berkeley Revisited. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2015, pp. 22-35.

Häyry, Matti, "Passive Obedience and Berkeley's Moral Philosophy," Berkeley Studies 23 (2012), 3-14.

Häyry, Matti and Heta Häyry (Gylling), "Obedience to Rules and Berkeley's Theological Utilitarianism," Utilitas 6 (1994) 233-242.

Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan (1651). Ed. C. B. MacPherson. Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1968.

Hume, David, Treatise of Human Nature, 1739-1740. Ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge and Revised by P. H. Nidditch. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.

Kant, Immanuel, Kant's Political Writings. Eds. Hans Reiss and Tr. H. B. Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.

Mirarchi, Lawrence A., "Dynamic Implications of Berkeley's Doctrine of Heterogeneity: A Note of the Language Model of Nature." In Colin Turbayne (Ed.), Berkeley, Critical and Interpretative Essays. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982, pp. 447-260.

Nixey, Catherine, The Darkening Age: The Cristian Destruction of the Ancient World. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2018.

Pitcher, George, Berkeley. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984.

Rickless, Samuel, "The Nature, Grounds, and Limits of Berkeley's Argument for Passive Obedience," Berkeley Studies 26 (2016), 3-19.

Ross, Ian, "Was Berkeley a Jacobite? Passive Obedience Revisited," Eighteenth-Century Ireland 20 (2005), 17–30.

Sterba, Jim, Ethics: The Big Questions. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1998.

Warnock, G. J., "On Passive Obedience," History of European Ideas 7 (1986), 555-562.

xxx