Illustrations on the Moral Sense / / Francis Hutcheson; ed. by Bernard Peach.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter HUP e-dition: Complete eBook Package
• VerfasserIn: Hutcheson, Francis,
• HerausgeberIn: Peach, Bernard,
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2013]; ©1971
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: Reprint 2014
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (252 p.)

The writings of Francis Hutcheson played a central role in the development of British moral philosophy in the eighteenth century. His Illustrations on the Moral Sense is significant not only historically but also for its exploration of problems of concern in contemporary ethics. Yet except for brief selections it has not appeared in print since the eighteenth century. Independent moral philosophy began in England with Hobbes and the reactions to his views, in which two divergent strains were implicit: one a rationalistic appeal to eternal and immutable essences and the other an empirical appeal to human affections and desires. Hutcheson countered Hobbes' theory, which was based on self interest, with a theory based on the moral sense and made explicit the opposition between the school of reason and the school of sentiment. His treatment of these and other issues set British moral philosophy on a line of development that has continued to the present. This edition of Illustrations on the Moral Sense again makes available Hutcheson's contributions to normative ethics and metaethics, thus making possible a more accurate evaluation of his significance in the history of ethics. His epistemology of morals and his theory of justification are critically examined in a substantial introduction by the editor, Bernard Peach. In addition, Hutcheson's correspondence with Gilbert Burnet, the Younger, which is central to an understanding of the controversies in British moral philosophy in the eighteenth century, is made accessible here for the first time since 1735 in an extensive appendix.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- Editor’s Introduction -- Illustrations on the Moral Sense -- Preface to An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections with Illustrations on the Moral Sense -- Contents -- Introduction -- Section I. Concerning the character of virtue, agreeable to truth or reason -- Section II. Concerning that character of virtue and vice, the fitness or unfitness of actions -- Section III. Mr. Wollaston’s significancy of truth, as the idea of virtue, considered -- Section IV. Showing the use of reason concerning virtue and vice, upon supposition that we receive these ideas by a moral sense -- Section V. Showing that virtue may have whatever is meant by merit and be rewardable upon the supposition that it is perceived by a sense and elected from affection or instinct -- Section VI. How far a regard to the Deity is necessary to make an action virtuous -- Appendix. The Correspondence between Gilbert Burnet and Francis Hutcheson -- Index