Francis Hutcheson
A moral sense lets us approve of benevolence directly, without regard to our own interest, just as an inner sense perceives beauty as unity amidst variety; virtue cannot be reduced to self-love, and the best action procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.
Placement
Irish-born philosopher in Dublin and Glasgow: a “moral sense” lets us approve of benevolence directly, as a sense of beauty perceives harmony, without any calculation of self-interest; that action is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.
Key ideas
- Moral sense
- Benevolence against egoism
- Sense of beauty
- The greatest happiness for the greatest numbers
Students: Adam Smith
Influence
Influenced by 1
Shaftesbury
influenced by
The title page of Hutcheson’s Inquiry (1725) states that in it ‘the principles of the late Earl of Shaftesbury are explain’d and defended’ against Mandeville. F. Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725), title page; SEP “Francis Hutcheson”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Shaftesbury › 1671–1713
Influenced 3
David Hume
influenced ✓
Hume grounded the morals of Treatise Book III (1740) in a moral sense, following Hutcheson, and discussed the manuscript with him in letters of 1739–40. D. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book III (1740), “Moral distinctions deriv’d from a moral sense”; letters to F. Hutcheson (1739–40), in Letters, ed. J. Y. T. Greig (1932); SEP “Francis Hutcheson”
David Hume › 1711–1776
Adam Smith taught
taught
Smith studied at Glasgow from 1737 to 1740 and attended Hutcheson’s lectures on moral philosophy; in 1787 he still spoke of ‘the never to be forgotten Dr Hutcheson’. A. Smith to A. Davidson, 16 Nov. 1787, in Correspondence of Adam Smith (Glasgow ed.); I. S. Ross, The Life of Adam Smith (1995)
Evidence: AI draft
Adam Smith › 1723–1790
Immanuel Kant
influenced ✓
In the Prize Essay (1764) Kant saw in Hutcheson’s ‘moral feeling’ a promising start towards the first material principles of morality, before developing his ethics of reason. I. Kant, Untersuchung über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen Theologie und der Moral (1764); SEP “Kant’s Moral Philosophy”
Immanuel Kant › 1724–1804
Criticism
Criticizes 1
Bernard Mandeville
criticised
Hutcheson’s Inquiry (1725) defended Shaftesbury ‘against the Author of the Fable of the Bees’, arguing that a moral sense approves benevolence independently of self-interest. F. Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725), title page and Treatise II; SEP “Francis Hutcheson”
Evidence: AI draft
Bernard Mandeville › 1670–1733
Works
Two treatises defending Shaftesbury against Mandeville: an inner sense perceives beauty as “uniformity amidst variety”, and a moral sense approves of benevolence without regard to our own advantage; the best action procures “the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers”.
Posthumous summary of his Glasgow lectures on the moral sense, natural rights, the family and civil government; its arguments against natural, war and hereditary slavery were later reprinted by opponents of slavery in America.
Position
Hutcheson is on the map as the systematic founder of moral sense theory and a teacher of the Scottish Enlightenment. Defending Shaftesbury against Mandeville, he argued in his “Inquiry” (1725) that we have, besides the external senses, inner senses: a sense of beauty, which perceives “uniformity amidst variety” in nature, art and mathematics, and a moral sense, which approves of benevolent motives immediately and disinterestedly, without regard to any advantage of our own. Virtue therefore cannot be reduced to self-love, as Hobbes and Mandeville claimed. In the same book he stated the principle that “that action is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers”, later central to utilitarianism. His “Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions” (1728) analysed the passions and refined the theory. In his posthumous “System of Moral Philosophy” (1755) he set out natural rights, including a right of resistance and conditions under which colonies may become independent, and rejected the usual justifications of slavery – natural, war and hereditary slavery – with arguments that opponents of slavery later reprinted in America. Hume corresponded with him about the Treatise, Smith studied with him, and Kant in the 1760s saw his moral feeling as a promising starting point before developing his own ethics of reason.
Life & context
Francis Hutcheson was born on 8 August 1694 at Drumalig in County Down, Ulster, the son of a Presbyterian minister. As a Dissenter he studied not at Trinity College Dublin but at the University of Glasgow (1711–17). Back in Ireland he ran a Dissenting academy in Dublin, where he wrote his first books in the circle of Robert Molesworth, a friend of Shaftesbury. In 1729 he was elected professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow, where he was among the first to lecture in English rather than Latin; Adam Smith was one of his students. His liberal theology led to a heresy charge before the Glasgow presbytery in 1737–38, which came to nothing. He died in Dublin on 8 August 1746, during a visit to Ireland.
Further main works
- An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with Illustrations on the Moral Sense (1728)
- Philosophiae moralis institutio compendiaria (1742)
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