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Malthus, Hume, Rousseau and Godwin
Philosophy of Economics and Environmental Science
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back to Dr McConeghy's Environmental Science Page
Malthus, Hume, Rousseau and Godwin Philosophy of Economics and Environmental Science |
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As the Industrial Revolution created the modern world, it was recognized that problems in business, poverty and population are inextricably linked. Most of the early studies of this complex of problems were done in Britain, since it was England and Scotland that were facing the problems. For students of business and economics, there are several relevant classic authors who addressed these fundamental questions:
There is clearly a relationship between poverty and population. We do not know exactly how this relationship works, but it cannot be accidental that the poorest countries on earth nearly all have skyrocketing populations, while most wealthy countries are stable or actually declining! Why? Why? Why?
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The English "big four" who addressed these questions are sometimes described this way:
Interestingly, although Malthus and Ricardo strongly opposed each others economic ideas, they were personal friends who highly respected each other. Malthus also was closely associated with David Hume the brilliant Scottish philosopher whose ideas most clearly motivated this group.
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"In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long- continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The results of this would be the formation of a new species. Here, then I had at last got a theory by which to work". Charles Darwin, from his autobiography. (1876) |
Of these imporant figures, Thomas Robert Malthus was most influential in stimulating discussion and research about how populations work. His great book, commonly called the Essay on Population has been studied and argued over since 1798. It had a direct impact on Darwin's ideas about Evolution, and on Karl Marx's ideas about Capital, as well as influencing many other important writers and leaders...
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Thomas Robert Malthus 1766 - 1834
Malthus is best known for his pessimistic theories about human population. Or, was he just a realist? Or, was he a misunderstood optimist? "But nothing is so easy as to find fault with human institutions; nothing so difficult as to suggest adequate practical improvements. It is to be lamented, that more men of talents employ their time in the former occupation than in the latter. " Malthus was born into a wealthy English country family in 1766. His father was an intelligent and enthusiastic man who was very interested in philosophy and was a personal friend of two of the most influential philosphers of modern times, Hume and Rousseau (see below). Malthus was brought up in a home filled with intellectual discussions and argument. He was educated at Cambridge University where he was an outstanding scholar. After graduation he became an ordained Anglican (Episcopal) Priest. Following years of argument with his father (dad was a supporter of Rousseau, while son was more like Hume), in 1798 he published his most famous work, an Essay on Population. In later years this book was greatly expanded and it has been continuously in print ever since. It had a huge impact on economics, biology and social institutions.
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Malthus' Big Idea The 18th century was, in general, a very optimistic time. There were many bad conditions, but generally people believed that things were getting better and that with effort, life could be greatly improved for all classes of people. There were many philosophers and writers who believed that since people were naturally good, if we just followed our natural instincts, the world would be, as they called it, perfectible. If only we could allow people the freedom to think and act according to their natural, optimistic impulses, then everything would be swell. One of the people who believed in perfectibility was the Swiss-French writer Rousseau. Rousseau's greatest supporter in England was William Godwin, and Malthus's father was a supporter and friend of both William Godwin and Rousseau. Malthus himself was raised according to his father's ideas about Godwin and Rousseau. As young Malthus grew up, he was strongly influenced by his father's friend David Hume. Hume was a famous philosopher and historian, but he was definitely NOT a follower of Rousseau. To generalize, Hume believed that people were not particularly good or nice, and that if they were not taught carefully how to act, then they would act badly and life would tend to be bad. It's pretty much the opposite viewpoint from Rousseau's. In the case of Thomas Robert Malthus, discussions with his father and these other friends took the form of arguments about whether life was getting better or getting worse. Malthus eventually developed a set of arguments that basically say that life will be bad for most people most of the time, and that it has to be that way. Malthus' ideas work like this: 1. Population will expand exponentially, while resources can only expand linearly. We discussed the difference between exponential and linear our first week of the course. The bottom line is, population is going to be continuously outrunning supplies. Because population grows faster than resources, most people are going to be short of supplies most of the time. There was a huge argument about this going on when Malthus was writing -- how fast can populations grow? whose fault was it that poor people were starving, and could anything be done about it? 2. The normal condition for humans is misery. Misery in the 1700s meant poverty -- remember that psychology hadn't been invented yet, so they didn't discuss things in terms of mental conditions -- by misery, they meant not enough food, clothing, shelter, medicine. According to Malthus, it was obvious that if you grew the population faster than you grew resources, the end result had to be that most people would be left without supplies. Yes, sometimes in some places there would be a temporary condition when people would be rich and comfortable for a while, but in the end, most people would be poor most of the time. The result of this was that there were "positive checks" such as disease, starvation, misery, violence and vice which kept the population from growing too fast. 3. "Moral restraint" can slow population growth, so people will have a better quality of life. Instead of the "positive checks" Malthus suggested that humans could use "preventive checks" such as moral restraint (celibacy, delay of marriage)... By reducing the growth of population through these methods, the balance between population and growth could be reached. There would be enough jobs, food and material goods to go around. Of course, in Malthus' day no one suggested abortion, or birth control. That was considered very immoral -- Malthus was a priest, remember?
Malthus was strongly influenced by the ideas of two philosophers, Rousseau and Hume. See below for more information about these two men. |
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David Hume 1711 - 1776 Malthus' father was a follower of Rousseau, but Thomas Robert Malthus was closer to David Hume. David Hume, "the most acute thinker in Britain" was born in Edinburgh in 1711. He entered the University of Edinburgh at age 11 and graduated at age 15. He held a variety of responsible posts and for part of his life he was the chief researcher and librarian for the Scottish Law Courts. He wrote a long history of England which was very popular and highly respected. At age 30 he wrote a long 2 volume treatise on philosophy which was practically ignored at the time but is now recognized as one of the great philosophical works of history. A shorter version of this work was published later as An Inquiry into Human Understanding. He wrote several important books which had a great impact. In general, his ideas can be summed up as a kind of "law and order" approach, except that he had a contempt for religion and clergy, which very much distinguished his writings from earlier philosophers. Eventually his ideas came to be extremely important and were the foundation for many writers. "Hume is our Politics, Hume is our Trade, Hume is our Philosophy, Hume is our Religion." said 19th century British philosopher James Hutchison Stirling. Hume was a very good-natured and friendly person, but some of his neighbors didn't like his atheistic views. A famous anecdote recalls that an elderly woman on her way to church found the overweight historian stuck in some deep mud -- she agreed to help him get out, but only if he first recited the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer (the two most important Christian prayers). Hume rejected the concept of rational or natural religion, or certain knowledge. His Empiricist philosophy centered on the idea that our understanding of the world came only from the impressions that we are exposed to, and that we form our ideas based on whichever impressions we get. We are basically neither good nor bad, but we will turn out according to the influences that surround us. That implies, for example, that if you want people to be good, it is important to try to direct and control what they see as children -- to be sure that they see only good examples. So, a follower of Hume might be in favor of censorship. On the other hand, if you want a child to be able to think about difficult choices and topics, then you must provide some practice, and help the child understand the difference between right and wrong.
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William Godwin 1756-1836 was an interesting character -- at first he was the main English interpreter of Rousseau, but he he went beyond Rousseau to apply Rousseau's ideas to practical life -- he became the first English Anarchist, the first supporter of free public education in Britain, and he had a big influence on the people around him-- his wife was Mary Wollstonecraft who wrote Vindication of the Rights of Women -- the first major Feminist work in English, and his daughter was the author of the book Frankenstein and wife of Percy Shelley the great poet. He was definitely a believer in "perfectibility." |
Jean Jacques Rousseau 1712 - 1778
Most philosophers had considered the world from a mechanical or religious viewpoint, but Rousseau tried to include the passionate and emotional side of human nature in his philosophy. Rousseau felt that humans are essentially good, and "noble savages" when in the "state of nature" -- that is, the way we were before civilization happened to us. Society corrupts us and makes us unhappy, he thought. Born in Geneva, his mother died when he was an infant and his dissispate father paid almost no attention to him. At age 16 he ran away, found refuge in France and spent many years essentially as a guest of various wealthy patrons. After age 30 he began to write, and became famous, then sank into a depressed, isolated and probably psychotic old age. At his best, he is eloquent, brilliant and profound and his writings had a huge impact on the world. He can be summed up as the father of the "back to nature" movement. In his essay, "Discourse on the Arts and Sciences" (1750), he argues that the advancement of art and science had not made us better or happier. It only made governments more powerful, and oppressed individuals. When he compared Europe with more primitive society (like American Indians or Pacific Islanders) he argued that wealth and technology had actually made it less possible for us to have true friendship, instead we have jealousy, fear, envy and suspicion. He felt that primitve life was better. As he and other Europeans learned more about native peoples, they admired them less. After a while Rousseau had a significant change in his thinking. Instead of admiring primitive societies, he explained that people come together to form social groups because nature is dangerous and we can better protect ourselves if we are in a group. But, in his famous book, The Social Contract (1762) he argues that our communities become corrupt if we develop ownership of private property and authoritarian government. When a state fails to act in a moral fashion, it no longer has the right to exert genuine authority over the individual. Then people have the right, or even the duty, to disobey the law. You see why Rousseau's ideas appealed to the American Colonists such as Thomas Jefferson, who revolted against Britain in 1775 -- obviously this exact philosophy is echoed in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the USA -- and Rousseau was the Philosopher of the 1789 Revolutionaries of France, oppressed and kept poor by the corrupt government, nobles and King. -- And of course, there are many people today who believe that they do not have to obey when the government orders them to act in way they consider immoral. That's in the newspaper almost every day!
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Compare the attitude or followers of either Rousseau or Hume to the old medieval view that the King is selected by God to rule by Divine Right, and that the King's (or Priest's) will is both the Law of the Courts and the Moral Law -- to rebel against authority was not only illegal, but was inherently immoral in the Medieval view. A rebel against the King was a Rebel against God. Both Hume and Rousseau were seeking new ways to think about our duties to ourselves, our children, and our communities. Many questions regarding population, resources and development are inherently moral and ethical questions. But, to argue about these, we first need to know the facts...
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