Teleological hedonism in the service of anti-egoism

Bishop Butler’s Sermon XI “Upon the Love of Our Neighbour” is often celebrated for containing a vigorous refutation of egoism and a short cryptic argument in the sixth paragraph that is usually interpreted as an objection to hedonism. There is a long philosophical tradition of interpreting Butler as challenging hedonism in this short cryptic argument by advancing an extreme form of anti-hedonism: the view that when we are motivated by a desire we are never motivated by the prospect of the pleasure that would arise in gratifying that desire. This tradition misinterprets Butler in a variety of ways, but most significantly by (1) ignoring Butler’s defense of the idea that our creator, as the designer of the human constitution, uses pleasure and pain to direct our behavior in a way that promotes ends that are good for us or for society and (2) failing to grasp that Butler’s Stone Argument is part of an argument against any form of egoism rather than an argument against hedonism in particular.