Social Bliss Considered

"He deserves to be much better known than he is – even among scholars he’s a fairly obscure figure. He’s from a very ordinary background in Liverpool and was, as far as we can see, pretty much self-taught. We find him first as a school teacher, and then he developed a system of shorthand that became very well known. I chose him because he’s an obscure guy from a humble background and yet if we look into his mind – and we can do that through his writings – he epitomises the revolution in outlook that had already taken place by 1749, the date Social Bliss Considered was published, in thinking about ethics and morality. “He tries to reason – from natural law, from conscience and from all the other bases that 18th century people like to use – for a new kind of sexual morality.” In the book, he does two things. He applies to the question of sexual morality the same kind of reasoned, rational outlook that he applies to all other subjects in life. He becomes mildly infamous for doing this with respect to religion in the early 18th century, in trying to strip away what he sees as the superstitions of priests and so on and return to what he understands as the essence of Christianity. He has an archetypal 18th century faith in reason as the only true guide. The second thing he does is think: “What does this mean for sexual ethics? Is it true and right that we should, as the Bible and church teaches us, only restrict ourselves to sex within marriage?” His answer is a resounding “no”. He tries to reason – from natural law, from conscience and from all the other bases that 18th century people like to use – for a new kind of sexual morality. In doing that he puts forward in this book a remarkably modern set of proposals. He says men and women should be free to have sex with whomever they like for as long as they like, and to co-habit freely and divorce freely. The only thing that mattered, in his eyes, was the care of children. In a nutshell, this book put forward views in 1749, more than 250 years ago, that we now take for granted as being common sense in terms of sexual morality. He was incredibly brave. He did not back down. If he thought something was rational and he was battling against superstition, he would never compromise. And that’s what makes him such an attractive and interesting character. This book is also a great read – it’s very funny. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter"