1. Critics. Contemporary criticism of the idea of a
moral sense came from more than one direction. John
Balguy and Richard Price attacked it in the course of
defending and improving the position of rationalist
ethics. John Gay did so while reviving egoistic theory
under the aegis of associationist psychology. Adam
Smith should be regarded as the natural successor of
Hume in the history of empiricist ethics, but he quite
rightly distinguished his own theory from doctrines of
a moral sense.
Balguy criticizes Shaftesbury in A Letter to a Deist,
concerning the beauty and excellence of moral virtue
(1726), and Hutcheson in The Foundation of Moral
Goodness (1728). Price criticizes Hutcheson and Hume
in A Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties
in Morals (1758). Both Balguy and Price argue that
the beauty or attractiveness of virtue needs to be dis-
tinguished from its moral character proper. Price
allows that aesthetic judgments express feeling; Balguy
thinks, after some hesitation, that aesthetic, like moral,
judgments can represent an intellectual grasp of objec-
tive truth. Both, however, agree that the moral sense
theorists were misled by concentrating their attention
on the “moral beauty” of virtue and by neglecting the
notions of duty and rightness. They also both insist
upon the universality and law-like character of moral
principles, and point out that feelings are particular
and variable. Price was not alone in failing to see that
Hume had anticipated the latter criticism; but then
Hume's account of moral judgment as taking a general
point of view is a serious departure from the original
theory of moral sense or moral feeling, since Hume
brings in the imagination to perform the generalizing
function that the rationalists ascribe to reason.
Gay refers briefly to Hutcheson's moral sense in A
Dissertation concerning the Fundamental Principle of
Virtue or Morality (1731). Gay reverts to the egoistic
psychology which Hutcheson had criticized. He admits
that moral approval is not made with a conscious
regard to self-interest, but he argues that this is because
pleasure has become associated with what was at first
merely a means to pleasure, just as men may come
to take pleasure in money. One might as well speak
of a pecuniary sense, says Gay, as of a moral sense
and a sense of honor.
The moral philosophy of Adam Smith, set out in The
Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), is a fruitful devel-
opment of the empiricist approach of Hutcheson and
Hume. Its most striking features are a complex account
of sympathy (in relation to the motives of agents as
well as to the feelings of persons affected by action)
and a theory of conscience as a reflection of the views
of an impartial spectator. In both these matters Smith
is building upon elements of the positive side of Hume's
ethical thought. Nevertheless, Smith is a critic of the
theory of moral sense, both as it was expounded by
his admired teacher Hutcheson and as it was modified
by his beloved friend Hume. Smith objects to the idea
that there is a single peculiar feeling of moral approval.
He follows Hume in taking approval and disapproval
to be the expression of sympathy and antipathy, but
he points out that since we can sympathize with all
manner of feelings, our sympathetic sharing of feelings
can itself be of different kinds. Furthermore, the sense
of propriety is not the same as the sense of virtue, the
sense of merit, or the sense of duty. The sense of
propriety is straightforward sympathy with the motive
of the agent as being one that any normal man would
have in the circumstances. The sense of virtue, how-
ever, is a feeling of admiration for a motive that goes
beyond what is merely proper. The sense of merit is
a double sympathy, with the motive of the agent and
with the gratitude of the beneficiary of his action. The
sense of duty is a reflected idea of the judgments of
propriety that we imagine would be made by an im-
partial spectator of our conduct. There are therefore
several moral sentiments, not just one. That is why the
title of Smith's book speaks of “moral sentiments” in
the plural.
Later criticism too was not confined to a single point
of view. Thomas Reid and Immanuel Kant were both
critics of empiricism, in epistemology and ethics alike,
but neither simply continued the usual rationalist tra-
dition. They both perceived that there was partial truth
on each side in the dispute between rationalism and
empiricism, and they tried to effect a synthesis, Kant
with more rigor and deeper insight than Reid. Mean-
while Jeremy Bentham had his little fling at the idea
of a moral sense along with other theories, whether
empiricist or rationalist, on the ground that they were
all cloaks for prejudice.
Reid is the chief exponent of the philosophy of
“common sense,” and he often appeals to the evidence
of ordinary language. In his theory of knowledge Reid
holds that perception cannot simply be the receipt of
impressions but must include a rational judgment. He
is prepared to speak of perceptual judgment as the
work of the senses because this is in accordance with
ordinary usage. Similarly he is ready to speak of a
moral sense because in ordinary language we talk of
a sense of duty; but he is quite clear that what he means
by the moral sense is not at all what Hume means.
Reid means a rational judgment that has feeling as its
consequence. His arguments against the idea of the
moral sense as a feeling consist largely in showing that
it is inconsistent with our usual ways of speaking about
morals. Reid's views on ethics are in his
Essays on the
Active Powers of Man (1788).
Kant was influenced by the moral sense theory dur-
ing his earlier years, but in his mature critical philoso-
phy he classed it together with hedonism as a radically
mistaken conception of morality. Kant refers briefly
to the moral sense both in the Grundlegung zur Meta-
physik der Sitten (1785) and in the Kritik der Prak-
tischen Vernunft (1788). The detail of his compressed
criticism is similar to points made by Price and Reid:
moral principles have the character of universal law,
while feeling varies and applies only to the individual
experiencing it; the specifically moral feeling of rever-
ence is a consequence, not the cause, of moral judg-
ment. Kant nevertheless pays tribute to the moral sense
theory for recognizing the disinterested character of
morality.
One need not take with equal seriousness the equally
brief reference to the moral sense theory by Bentham
in An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
Legislation (printed 1780, published 1789). Bentham
throws together in one basket the doctrines of moral
sense, common sense, and all the different varieties of
rationalist and natural law theory. Each of them, he
thinks, is simply a way of trying to foist one's own
opinions upon other people, unlike the objective prin-
ciple of utility. Bentham obviously has no notion that
Hutcheson elicited the principle of utility from his
theory of moral sense, or that Hume (from whom
Bentham first learned of the principle of utility) was
also an advocate of the moral sense.
