2. Hutcheson. The moral sense theory proper is best
seen in the first two books of Francis Hutcheson, An
Inquiry into the original of our Ideas of Beauty and
Virtue (London, 1725), and An Essay on the Nature
and Conduct of the Passions and Affections. With
Illustrations on the Moral Sense (London, 1728). In
Hutcheson's later work, notably the final version of his
lectures as Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow
(posthumously published as A System of Moral Philoso-
phy, Glasgow and London, 1755), his original distinc-
tive views are overlaid with ideas derived from Butler.
The primary aim of Hutcheson's initial thoughts in
moral philosophy was one which he shared with Butler
but which he pursued in his own way. It was to refute
an egoistic interpretation of ethics, recently revived
by Bernard Mandeville. Hutcheson presents arguments
for the view (1) that men can have disinterested mo-
tives, i.e., that they can act for the sake of the good
of others and not merely for their own advantage, and
(2) that they can make disinterested practical judg-
ments, i.e., that they can think an action good for
reasons other than that it will serve their own advan-
tage. The disinterested motive with which Hutcheson
is chiefly concerned is benevolence, and the disinter-
ested form of judgment that is relevant to ethical
theory is the expression of approval and disapproval.
Hutcheson's view is that a feeling of approval is the
natural reaction of a spectator when he sees a man
act from the motive of benevolence. This feeling of
approval is what Hutcheson calls the moral sense. A
contrary feeling of disapproval would arise naturally
towards the motive of malevolence, but disinterested
malice, Hutcheson believes, is hardly possible for
human nature; hatred is usually the effect of self-love,
and in such circumstances self-love is disapproved,
though self-love in itself is neither approved nor disap-
proved, neither virtuous nor vicious. Virtue for
Hutcheson is the motive of benevolence approved by
the moral sense, and vice is a motive (usually partial
to self or to a narrow circle) that overcomes benevo-
lence and is accordingly disapproved by the moral
sense.
According to Hutcheson, the reactions of the moral
sense are akin to the kind of love or admiration that
naturally arises towards beauty. Virtue therefore is a
sort of beauty, moral beauty; and to say this is simply
to express the thought that our warm reaction to
benevolence is like our warm reaction to physical
beauty in being natural, immediate, and a species of
love.
As Hutcheson's theory developed, however, it turned
into the first explicit statement of utilitarian ethics in
the following way. Benevolence aims at the happiness
of others; a wide benevolence is approved more than
a narrow one, and a universal benevolence is approved
most of all. Therefore “that action is best which pro-
cures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.”
Strictly speaking, this conclusion departs from the
original moral sense theory, for it makes ethical judg-
ment, the judgment of what is best, depend on the
thought of consequences and not on an immediate
reaction of love for the motive of benevolence.
Hutcheson speaks of a moral “sense” because he
accepts the empiricist theory of knowledge. John
Locke had said that all ideas come from sensation and
reflection. Hutcheson thinks the word “reflection” can
mislead in suggesting only reflection upon ideas that
come to us originally from the external senses, and so
he prefers Locke's alternative expression, “internal
sense,” which clearly means a source of ideas that is
additional to the external senses. In his second book
Hutcheson distinguishes several internal senses. They
are all different species of pleasant and painful feeling:
the sense of beauty (or “the pleasures of the imagina-
tion”), the public sense (sympathetic pleasure and pain
with the happiness and misery of others), the moral
sense (the pleasant feeling of approval and the un-
pleasant one of disapproval), the sense of honor and
shame (pleasure at the approval of our actions by
others and pain at their disapproval), and perhaps a
sense of decency or dignity (a nonmoral esteem or
approval of some pleasures over others). While in his
first book Hutcheson had been arguing chiefly against
egoistic theory in order to establish the disinterested
character of moral action and moral judgment, in the
second book he defends the empiricist assumptions of
his account against the views of rationalists. He argues
that justifying reasons are concerned with means to
presupposed ends and that the approval of ultimate
ends must be a function of “sense,” i.e., feeling.
