In response to kenneth winkler's criticism of my suggestion (found in my "david hume: common sense moralist, sceptical metaphysician") that frances hutcheson embraced an interesting form of moral realism. i show important differences between hutcheson and locke, amplify my previous account of hutcheson's notion of concomitant ideas, and provide evidence that hutcheson's contemporaries, including his student adam smith, believed him to have maintained "that there is a real and essential distinction between vice and virtue". ("theory of moral sentiments").

THE P R E F A C E, Giving fome ACCOUNT of the LIFE, WRITINGS, and CHARACTER of the AUTHOR. T"\R. FRANCIS HUTCHESON was born on the 8th of ...

It is shown that belief in providence and a future state are key components of Hutcheson’s account of moral virtue. Though Hutcheson holds that human beings are naturally virtuous, religion is necessary to give virtuous dispositions support and stability. The aspects of Hutcheson’s moral psychology which lead him to this conclusion are spelled out in detail. It is argued that religion and virtue are connected in this way in both the Dublin writings (the Inquiry and the Essay ) and the (...) later pedagogical texts, and that, therefore, there are reasons to question claims made by James Moore to the effect that Hutcheson had two distinct philosophical “systems.”. (shrink)

Contrary to the view that Francis Hutcheson attempted to expound, defend, and further develop the philosophical system described in Shaftesbury's Characteristics, some contemporaries of Hutcheson considered Hutcheson's differences from Shaftesbury to be at least as profound as the similarities. The clearest descriptions of those differences can be found in William Leechman's preface to Hutcheson's 1755 System of Moral Philosophy, and more elaborately in a review of Hutcheson's System, probably by Hugh Blair, published in the 1755 Edinburgh Review. Examining Shaftesbury's and (...) Hutcheson's moral philosophies in light of these two descriptions reveals that Shaftesbury's defense of virtue as natural to human beings, while a plausible response to Locke, clearly did not escape Hutcheson's censure of Epicurean egoism. (shrink)

It used to be that everyone read the "notorious" Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733). He was a great satirist and come to have a profound impact on economics, ethics and social philosophy. "The Fable of the Bees" begins with a poem and continues with a number of essays and dialogues. It is all tied together by the startling and original idea that "private vices" (self-interest) lead to "publick benefits" (the development and operation of society).