M̀oral sense' from the Cambridge platonists to Adam Smith

Abstract

This thesis traces the development of the notion of 'moral sense' from the midseventeenth century to the mid-eighteenth century. Its roots are in the moral writings of some of the Cambridge Platonists, it flourished as a moral theory with Francis Hutcheson in the 1720s, and it had many supporters in the decades that followed. Only with the much more astute philosophies of David Hume and Adam Smith were the basic presumptions behind the notion of a natural moral sense examined with renewed care. David Hume, I argue, retains the veneer of a moral sense theory, while providing arguments able to challenge it severely. Only with Adam Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments of 1759, is there a direct criticism and rejection of the moral sense theory in the form that it had held since the third Earl of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. One of the important assessments of this period in the history of British moral philosophy, David Norton's From Moral Sense to Common-Sense: An Essay on the Development of Scottish Common Sense Philosophy of 1966 (revised as David Hume: Common-Sense Moralist, Sceptical Metaphysician), made no room for Adam Smith's epistemological criticisms, nor his retention of some of the elements of the theory that he was so disparaging about. After an introductory chapter, chapter two surveys some of the moral writings of the Cambridge Platonists, especially Benjamin Whichcote and Henry More. An unmovable belief in God's goodness and his beneficence towards mankind was evidence that the human natural faculties included a moral faculty as its crown. Its proper use meant that people spontaneously and correctly could apprehend moral qualities in peoples actions and character traits. This 'boniform faculty' was happily confused, in their writings, with a bias towards benevolence and this confusion is still to be found in Hutcheson. The notion of the moral sense was consolidated by Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury. He is considered in chapter three. His Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times disseminated this optimistic assessment of human nature, underpinned by appeal to a natural moral faculty of moral discernment and motivation. Only with Francis Hutcheson was the notion of a moral sense self-consciously expounded as a theory. In chapter four I deal with the epistemology of Hutcheson's account of the moral sense, looking at the details of how Hutcheson describes the activity of the moral sense, either as a faculty of sense, or as a sensibility. In chapter five I suggest that his moral-sense theory is supplemented by a virtue theory. The direct objects of the moral sense are the virtues and vices, but Hutcheson's interest in developing what he sees as an adequate epistemology never makes him lose sight of his goal to exhort people to live well and cultivate virtue. Chapter six surveys some other moral-sense writers. Notable among them is Joseph Butler. His discussion of conscience in his Fifteen Sermons from Rolls Chapel is well within the moral sense tradition. Chapter seven considers the moral sense aspects of David Hume' s moral writings. His fundamental reassessment of human nature still leaves a place for some of the terminology of the moral sense, as well as a new emphasis on the non-moral assessment of others by 'sympathy'. It is left to Smith, however, to challenge explicitly some of the arguments brought to defend the belief in a moral sense. This is the burden of chapter eight. Smith leaves no doubt as to the flimsiness of this philosophical construction. Yet, in tearing it down, he retains two very important notions. The first is a secure, if more cautious, role for the emotions in our moral assessment of others. The second is to secure the impartial spectator as the personification of ideal moral standards to be aspired to. A short conclusion follows.