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Theistic Common Sense

Mark A. Noll

in America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln

By 1790, American Christians also embraced the “new moral philosophy,” a way of understanding their faith through “commonsense moral reasoning.” Because they came to believe that God had created ... More

By 1790, American Christians also embraced the “new moral philosophy,” a way of understanding their faith through “commonsense moral reasoning.” Because they came to believe that God had created humans with a capacity for moral reasoning, American Christians largely gave up the traditional, hierarchical arbiters of truth found in the established churches of Europe and took into their own hands the determination of religious truth and control of the churches.Less

Presbyterianism and the right of private judgement: Church government in Ireland and Scotland in the age of Francis Hutcheson

James Moore

in Philosophy and Religion in Enlightenment Britain: New Case Studies

This chapter examines Hutcheson’s ideas of rights and prudence in the context of debated issues of church government in early eighteenth-century Ireland and Scotland. He agreed with ministers in ... More

This chapter examines Hutcheson’s ideas of rights and prudence in the context of debated issues of church government in early eighteenth-century Ireland and Scotland. He agreed with ministers in northern Ireland who refused to subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith: he thought that every individual should enjoy the right of private judgement in matters of religious belief. And he argued in response to concerns expressed by his father, John Hutcheson, that determination of the form of church government must be left to human prudence. He endorsed an initiative within the Church of Scotland that ministers should be called by landed gentlemen or by magistrates, not by congregations who might call ministers who would insist on subscription to confessions and creeds. True religion could be best achieved by prudence and by respect for the right of private judgement.Less

Sentimentalism before Hume

Michael L. Frazer

in The Enlightenment of Sympathy: Justice and the Moral Sentiments in the Eighteenth Century and Today

This chapter consists of an overview of the work of the three British philosophers from the first half of the eighteenth century whose work most influenced the later sentimentalists: Francis ... More

This chapter consists of an overview of the work of the three British philosophers from the first half of the eighteenth century whose work most influenced the later sentimentalists: Francis Hutcheson, Bishop Joseph Butler, and Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Although all three made important contributions to the argument that justice and virtue cannot be products of reason alone, this chapter considers these authors primarily insofar as they presented the problems which Hume, Smith, and Herder were left to work out in their own writings. The first of these challenges was the need for a free-standing sentimentalist ethics—that is, one which does not rely on religion or metaphysics to establish the normative authority of our moral sentiments. The second challenge is to explain how our moral sentiments can lead us to a sense of justice capable of being instantiated in law-governed political institutions.Less

Morality without Religion

Paul Russell

in The Riddle of Hume's Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion

According to the irreligious interpretation, there are two key claims that Hume seeks to establish in the Treatise in respect of morality. The first is that Hume defends the “autonomy of morality” in ... More

According to the irreligious interpretation, there are two key claims that Hume seeks to establish in the Treatise in respect of morality. The first is that Hume defends the “autonomy of morality” in relation to religion. The foundations of moral and political life, he holds, rest with our human nature, not with the doctrines and dogmas of (Christian) religion. Closely connected with this issue, Hume also aims to show that “speculative atheism” does not imply “practical atheism” or any kind of “moral licentiousness.” Taken together, these two components of Hume's moral system constitute a defence and interpretation of “virtuous atheism.”Less

The “Sense” Of Beauty and the Sense of “Art”: Hutcheson's Place in the History and Practice of Aesthetics

Peter Kivy

in The Seventh Sense: Francis Hutcheson and Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics

Deals with the neglected topic of Hutcheson's philosophy of art, as opposed to his more talked about philosophy of beauty.

Francis Hutcheson’s Philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment: Reception, Reputation, and Legacy

Daniel Carey

in Scottish Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century, Volume I: Morals, Politics, Art, Religion

This chapter presents an account of the life and work of Francis Hutcheson. It charts his career from its beginnings in Dublin to the attempt to cement his place in British intellectual life that was ... More

This chapter presents an account of the life and work of Francis Hutcheson. It charts his career from its beginnings in Dublin to the attempt to cement his place in British intellectual life that was his posthumously published A System of Moral Philosophy. Hutcheson’s ideas were not universally welcomed and acclaimed. Religious conservatives constantly challenged him even after he was elected to the Glasgow chair of moral philosophy. The chapter describes the rationalist critique of Hutcheson’s moral sense theory, the criticism levelled at his conception of natural benevolence by those who remained attached to philosophical egoism, and the complaints of those who, under the influence often of Joseph Butler, believed that Hutcheson’s ethics needed to be supplemented by a more substantial account of moral obligation.Less

Hume's Use of the Rhetoric of Calvinism

James A. Harris

in Impressions of Hume

This chapter provides a new way of understanding the places in Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding where use is made of the language of Calvinist fideism: most notably, in Sections 8, 10, ... More

This chapter provides a new way of understanding the places in Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding where use is made of the language of Calvinist fideism: most notably, in Sections 8, 10, and 12. Hume's deployment of such language, it is argued, needs to be seen in the context of the conflict within the Church of Scotland between the ‘orthodox’ and the ‘modernizers’. It was the modernizers such as Francis Hutcheson and William Leechman who had been instrumental in denying Hume the Edinburgh moral philosophy chair in 1745, and, as M. A. Stewart has argued, the first Enquiry is best seen as a response to that episode. In various ways it attacks the modernizers' way of combining natural religion with neo-Stoic ethics: Hume's use of the language of the ‘orthodox’ opponents of that strategy is one of those ways. It is pointed out that later on in the eighteenth century, some of the orthodox quote Hume's attacks on rational religion with approval. The chapter does not claim that Hume had any sympathy with the orthodox agenda. Rather, it is concerned with the complex rhetorical strategies used by Hume in his writings on religion.Less

Varieties of Aesthetic Experience

Peter Kivy

in The Seventh Sense: Francis Hutcheson and Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics

Deals with the proliferation of aesthetic categories, and its implications for Hutcheson's theory of the sense of beauty.

From Fénelon to Hume

Christopher Brooke

in Philosophic Pride: Stoicism and Political Thought from Lipsius to Rousseau

This chapter views a series of philosophical exchanges in the eighteenth century, which showcases the back and forth between plausibly Stoic and Epicurean concerns and arguments. It first takes a ... More

This chapter views a series of philosophical exchanges in the eighteenth century, which showcases the back and forth between plausibly Stoic and Epicurean concerns and arguments. It first takes a look at François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, the major opponent from within French Catholicism of the Augustinian tendency towards Epicureanism, before turning to Bernard Mandeville's critique of Shaftesbury. The chapter also studies the moral philosophies of Joseph Butler and Francis Hutcheson, both of whom directed their arguments against Mandeville and in defence of Shaftesbury. In addition, the chapter discusses a persuasive interpretation of David Hume as a somewhat Epicurean and certainly anti-Stoic moral theorist.Less

Hume on the origin of ‘modern honour’: A study in Hume’s philosophical development

John P. Wright

in Philosophy and Religion in Enlightenment Britain: New Case Studies

Recent work on dating Hume’s manuscripts by M. A. Stewart, with further evidence adduced here, establishes the likelihood that Hume’s manuscript ‘An historical essay on chivalry and modern honour’ ... More

Recent work on dating Hume’s manuscripts by M. A. Stewart, with further evidence adduced here, establishes the likelihood that Hume’s manuscript ‘An historical essay on chivalry and modern honour’ was written in 1732 or 1733. What can we learn from the chapter about the development of Hume’s ideas in ethics and religion at this time, six or seven years before the publication of his Treatise of human nature? Throughout the chapter Hume assumes Hutcheson’s theory that genuine virtue is natural, and that its perversion results from artifice. Both the chapter itself and Hume’s contemporary correspondence strongly suggest also, however, that he was beginning to be influenced by the sceptical philosophy of Bernard Mandeville which stresses the role of artifice in moral judgement. The overreaching principle developed in the early chapter appears to be applied also in Hume’s later writings on religion, where the scepticism of Mandeville and Bayle is explicit.Less

The Sense of “Sense”

Peter Kivy

in The Seventh Sense: Francis Hutcheson and Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics

This chapter concerns what, following Locke, Hutcheson meant by the sense of beauty.

The Sense of “Beautiful”

Peter Kivy

in The Seventh Sense: Francis Hutcheson and Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics

Deals with the question of what, according to Hutcheson, we assert when we say ‘X is beautiful’.

Scotland Moves into the Age of Enlightenment

Alexander Broadie

in A History of Scottish Philosophy

This chapter considers three philosophers of the earliest years of the Scottish Enlightenment: Gershom Carmichael, George Turnbull and Francis Hutcheson. Carmichael, who is critical of many of Samuel ... More

This chapter considers three philosophers of the earliest years of the Scottish Enlightenment: Gershom Carmichael, George Turnbull and Francis Hutcheson. Carmichael, who is critical of many of Samuel Pufendorf's teachings, is for Pufendorf an important aspect of the cultivation of sociability, for the latter argues that the demand ‘that every man must cultivate and preserve sociability so far as he can’ is that to which all the duties are subordinate. The main lines of thinking in Turnbull's Principles of Moral Philosophy and Christian Philosophy are reviewed. Hutcheson wrote An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, a work comprising two treatises, the first concerning beauty and the second concerning virtue. Hutcheson's Essay further emphasises the role of the study of morals as a means to the practice of morality.Less

Hume—and Others—on Marriage

Sarah M. S. Pearsall

in Impressions of Hume

This chapter seeks to determine how conflict was reconciled within loving marriages in the 18th-century British-Atlantic world. It begins by considering changing social theory. Hume and Francis ... More

This chapter seeks to determine how conflict was reconciled within loving marriages in the 18th-century British-Atlantic world. It begins by considering changing social theory. Hume and Francis Hutcheson refined conclusions put forward by John Locke, and focused on marriage not as a government in which the husband ruled, but rather as a partnership of affection. Too little connection has been made between social theory from this period, most often discussed by philosophers and political scientists, and the experience of ordinary people, most often discussed by social and cultural historians. The chapter thus attempts to bridge that chasm and bring the two areas together. There are echoes of this new marriage paradigm in letters from Revolutionary-era marriages in which the couple was separated by the Atlantic. The wives, at odds with their husbands, attempted to achieve their ends by deploying what the chapter terms ‘the coercive language of affection’. The idiom of affection and shifting visions of ideal masculinity informed these correspondences. Ultimately, it is argued that roles for white women and men shifted under the influence of intellectual currents that antedated and transcended the American Revolution, most critically the Scottish Enlightenment.Less

The Logic of Taste: The First Fifty Years

Peter Kivy

in The Seventh Sense: Francis Hutcheson and Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics

Deals with how the perception of beauty was conceived of, what its ‘logic’ was, in the first fifty years of modern aesthetic theory, or, rather, how it evolved, from Joseph Addison to David Hume.