Joseph Butler, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
The selfish theory rests on a confusion of words, and once the words are kept apart it has nothing left to stand on. Every particular affection, even love of our neighbour, is as really my own affection as self-love is, and the pleasure of its gratification is as much my own pleasure. If that is enough to call every affection self-love, then no creature can act but from self-love, and every action resolves into this one principle.1
But this is not the language of mankind, and we should want words for the difference between an action that proceeds from cool consideration that it will be to my advantage, and an action of revenge or of friendship by which a man runs upon certain ruin to do evil or good to another. What the two have in common is only that each gratifies an inclination in the man himself; the principles are totally different.1
So there is the cool principle of self-love, the general desire of our own happiness, and there are the particular affections toward particular external objects. Self-love cannot be the whole of our inward constitution, because these other parts come into it.1 The affections must have objects of their own prior to the pleasure. There could be no more delight in eating food than in swallowing a stone, were there not an appetite to one thing more than another.2
The pleasure presupposes the affection and so cannot be its aim. Hunger and the desire of esteem are occasions of pleasure and pain, and a coolly reflecting self-love may put us on seeking the means of the one and avoiding the other; but the feelings themselves are no more self-love than they are anything in the world. A man who hated himself would feel the pain of hunger as he would that of the gout.3
Benevolence therefore stands to self-love exactly as hatred, or love of arts, or love of reputation does. It is distinct, but so is every principle by which self-love is gratified, and things distinct from each other are equally so. That one affection tends to doing good and another to doing harm alters in no way the respect either has to self-love.4
The word selfish is commonly used to exclude all regard to the good of others, as property excludes other persons' interest. But exclusion is part of the idea of property, whereas to put that peculiar disregard into the idea of self-love is to add to it, to change it from an affection to ourselves.4 Self-love excludes love of others only by not including it, as it excludes love of arts.
Whoever is shocked to hear virtue called disinterested may be told that it is absurd to speak so of it, unless hatred and all the common affections and aversions of mankind are acknowledged disinterested too.4 Now the cool hour. I allowed that when we sit down in a cool hour, we can neither justify to ourselves this or any other pursuit till we are convinced it will be for our happiness, or at least not contrary to it.5
I will not take that back, but see what it concedes. It does not say that virtue is nothing but a means to happiness. In the same sentence I said that virtue or moral rectitude consists in affection to and pursuit of what is right and good as such.5 It does not say that happiness arises from self-love. Happiness consists in the gratification of the affections, appetites and passions with the objects nature has fitted to them; self-love may set us at work to gratify these, but enjoyment has no immediate connexion with self-love and arises from such gratification alone.6
And what the cool hour grants to egoism is no more than this: that a man who consults his interest has not thereby done anything wrong, and that religion, which lays our strongest obligation to benevolence, often addresses itself to that very principle, since there is no access to the understanding but by convincing men that the course of life we persuade them to is not contrary to their interest.5
I made the allowance for the cause of virtue, and I said so, to show that virtue loses nothing by it. Consider too what follows: benevolence contributes more to private enjoyment than any other particular affection, being in a degree its own gratification.5 Indeed those who have supported themselves with such satisfactions in sickness, poverty, disgrace and the pangs of death have found what the ambitious and the dissolute lose in those very circumstances.
Self-love, one would think, should be alarmed lest it pass over greater pleasures than those it is wholly taken up with.6 So the selfish theory is refuted at its root: it mistakes the owner of an affection for its object. And the cool hour gives egoism only what it never needed to be denied, that a reasonable man may ask whether virtue is against his happiness, and will find that it is not.
Self-love is the regard to our own happiness on the whole; the particular passions, hunger, ambition, compassion, desire of esteem, are directed to external things, and pleasure arises from their gratification and cannot be their object.7 So benevolence is no more selfish than hunger, and no more opposed to self-love than any other affection: they are to be distinguished, not set against each other.8
Immoderate self-love defeats itself. In a cool hour a man may ask whether virtue is against his happiness, and the answer is that it is not; conscience and reasonable self-love lead the same way.910
Every particular affection, even the love of our neighbour, is as really our own affection, as self-love; and the pleasure arising from its gratification is as much my own pleasureFifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel, with the Preface of 1729
there could be no enjoyment or delight from one thing more than another, from eating food more than from swallowing a stone, if there were not an affection or appetite to one thing more than another.Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel, with the Preface of 1729
the feelings themselves, the pain of hunger and shame, and the delight from esteem, are no more self-love than they are any thing in the world. Though a man hated himself, he would as much feel the pain of hunger as he would that of the goutFifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel, with the Preface of 1729
Love of our neighbour then has just the same respect to, is no more distant from self-love, than hatred of our neighbour, or than love or hatred of any thing else.Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel, with the Preface of 1729
Let it be allowed, though virtue or moral rectitude does indeed consist in affection to and pursuit of what is right and good, as such; yet, that when we sit down in a cool hour, we can neither justify to ourselves this or any other pursuit, till we are convinced that it will be for our happiness, or at least not contrary to it.Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel, with the Preface of 1729
Happiness consists in the gratification of certain affections, appetites, passions, with objects which are by nature adapted to them. Self-love may indeed set us on work to gratify these; but happiness or enjoyment has no immediate connexion with self-love, but arises from such gratification alone.Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel, with the Preface of 1729
Indeed the Epicureans, who maintained that absence of pain was the highest happiness, might, consistently with themselves, deny all affection, and, if they had so pleased, every sensual appetite too: but the very idea of interest or happiness other than absence of pain implies particular appetites or passions; these being necessary to constitute that interest or happiness.Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel, with the Preface of 1729
And it may well be supposed, that this is another reason why it is so much insisted upon by him, who knew what was in man. The chief design of the eleventh Discourse is to state the notion of self-love and disinterestedness, in order to show that benevolence is not more unfriendly to self-love, than any other particular affection whatever.Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel, with the Preface of 1729
For, if property and happiness are one and the same thing, as by increasing the property of another, you lessen your own property, so by promoting the happiness of another, you must lessen your own happiness. But whatever occasion the mistake.Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel, with the Preface of 1729
Therefore to those who are shocked to hear virtue spoken of as disinterested, it may be allowed that it is indeed absurd to speak thus of it; unless hatred, several particular instances of vice, and all the common affections and aversions in mankind, are acknowledged to be disinterested too.Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel, with the Preface of 1729
The classic refutation of psychological egoism, and the passage on the cool hour that Sidgwick and Butler's critics have turned into a concession of egoism's last word.