The Presbytery of Glasgow tried him for teaching, in contravention to the Westminster Confession, the following "false and dangerous" doctrines: (a ) that the standard of moral goodness is the promotion of the happiness of others and (b ) that it is possible to have a knowledge of good and evil without, and prior to, a knowledge of God.Afterward, Hutcheson was able to speak of the matter as the "whimsical buffoonery" about his heresy, but the fact that the charges were brought is doubtless a measure of the effectiveness of his teaching.
Their debate, then, was over the character of the moral faculty.
Hutcheson plucked from Shaftesbury's rhapsodies the notion of a moral sense and endeavored to give a systematic account of it as the moral faculty of humankind.
Hutcheson attributed both the connection between virtue and benevolence and our necessary perception of the virtuousness of benevolence to arrangements superintended by God.
Like sight, the moral sense is universal in humankind.
To see what Hutcheson's claim means, we must first of all consider what led him to make it.
When you see someone doing something that is helpful to another, you say that his action is a virtuous one. It might be said that a helpful action is virtuous because it exhibits benevolence.
In the one he offers a theory of an internal sense by which we perceive beauty, and in the other he offers a theory of a moral sense by which we perceive and approve virtue and perceive and condemn vice.
Hutcheson meant his theory of the moral sense to be a contribution to the contemporary discussion of how to analyze man's moral knowledge. Samuel Clarke and his followers held that moral distinctions are made by reason on the basis of our knowledge of the unchanging and unchangeable fitness of things.
Francis Hutcheson, a moral-sense theorist, was born at Drumalig in County Down, Ulster.
His father and grandfather were Presbyterian ministers.
Comments Affection Conduct Essay Illustration Moral Nature Passions Sense
An essay on the nature and conduct of the passions and.
An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with Illustrations on the Moral Sense 1728, jointly with Francis Hutcheson's earlier work.…
Th and 18th Century Theories of Emotions Francis Hutcheson on.
He offers a moral sense theory that conceives of our affections much as did. and his Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions with Illustrations on the.…
Moral sense theory - Wikipedia
Of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue and An Essay On the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, With Illustrations Upon the Moral Sense 1728.…
An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections.
Francis Hutcheson Illustrations on the Moral Sense Cambridge, Mass. Belknap, 1971.…
Relativism and Hutcheson's Aesthetic Theory - jstor
His major works on ethics include An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of Our. Passions and Affections 1728; Illustrations On the Moral Sense 1728;.…
An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and.
In An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with Illustrations on the Moral Sense, Francis Hutcheson answers the criticism that had.…
Do We Have a Moral Sense?
Smith explains some fundamental tenets of the moral sense school of. Shaftesbury illustrated this point by comparing our prerational moral. In An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with.…
An essay on the nature and conduct of the passions and affections.
An essay on the nature and conduct of the passions and affections with illustrations on the moral sense. by Hutcheson, Francis, 1694-1746;.…
Hutcheson, Francis 1694–1746
Hutcheson's Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections and Illustrations upon the Moral Sense published jointly in London, 1728.…
Hutcheson, Francis Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Hutcheson also promoted a natural benevolence against the egoism of Thomas Hobbes and. of Beauty and Virtue 1725 and An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with Illustrations of the Moral Sense 1728.…