Francis Hutcheson
We have a "moral sense" that approves of benevolence; the best action is the one that brings the greatest happiness to the greatest numbers.
Life
Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746), born in Ulster, was a philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment and professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow, where Adam Smith was his pupil. He holds that we have a "moral sense", like a further sense, that makes us approve benevolence, and a sense of beauty responsive to uniformity amidst variety. He influenced Hume and utilitarianism: he writes that the best action is the one that procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.
Main works
Beauty and virtue come from internal senses, not from reasoning; benevolence is the source of virtue.
Develops the theory of the moral sense and the place of the passions.
A full statement of his moral philosophy, published after his death.
In his own words
« That Action is best, which procures the greatest Happiness for the greatest Numbers; and that worst, which, in like manner, occasions Misery. »
« Whence this secret Chain between each Person and Mankind? How is my Interest connected with the most distant Parts of it? »
Positions
click a row to see the evidenceBenevolent order in nature points to a wise and good Creator, and the moral sense is God's gift.
Hutcheson, A System of Moral Philosophy (1755)
Moral ideas come from a sense, an inner experience, not from innate ideas or pure reasoning.
Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725)
The best action procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.
Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725)
We have a natural disinterested benevolence, which the moral sense approves.
Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725)