Commercial Society and Religion: Butler, Paley and Priestley

This chapter delvesCommercial society into the views of Butler, Paley[aut]Paley, William and Priestley[aut]Priestley, Joseph on the emergence of commercial societyCommercial society and its impact in 18th-century Britain. Initially, Butler acknowledged the growth of commercial societyCommercial society, foresaw its promising potential, and emphasised the importance of religion within it. However, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, Paley[aut]Paley, William realised the potential dangers posed by the rapid transformation of commercial societyCommercial society. To protect the social order, he preached a theological utilitarianismUtilitarianism, advocating that virtuous acts in this life would lead to salvation in the next. He promoted policies such as poverty alleviation and condemned excessive propertyProperty rights, the full implementation of which had to wait until the nineteenth century. In contrast, Priestley[aut]Priestley, Joseph welcomed the Industrial RevolutionIndustrial revolution and the expansion of commercial societyCommercial society, and sought to give religious and practical legitimacy to his opponents by adopting Scottish economic ideas such as Locke’s[aut]Locke, John natural rights-based theory of propertyProperty and Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. Unlike Paley[aut]Paley, William, Priestley[aut]Priestley, Joseph and his opponents were more accepting of the social changes brought about by commercial societyCommercial society, highlighting how different religious positions affected their views and their justification for their development.