The Concept of Moral Sense in Francis Hutcheson (Early Period)

Abstract

The concept of ‘Moral Sense’ is one of the main focuses in Francis Hutcheson’s moral philosophy. This is evident already in his early work, An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725), which is substantially analyzed in this paper. Hutcheson justified moral sense in its opposition to reason – a faculty aimed to utility and to social factors of decision making, like custom, education, tradition, religion, etc. Owing to Hutcheson’s specification of moral sense as a capacity of perception and judgment independent of concerns regarding private good and opposite to reason as a capacity for means analysis one can appreciate Hutcheson’s conception as a pre-Kantian attempt of justification of moral autonomy. Hutcheson is distinguished for explicit presentation (with particular theoretical means) the variety of external factors limiting the moral agent’s independence. By explication of person’s self-sufficiency in motivation and judgment, her independence of external determination and, hence, the specificity of morality, Hutcheson demonstrated a way, how the moral phenomenon may be conceptualized. Hutcheson’s moral philosophy provides a true basis for understanding the process of conceptualization of morality in Modern philosophy.