Francis Hutcheson and the Possibility of Moral Virtue Beyond the Scope of Benevolence

Abstract

The ethics of Francis Hutcheson is an important milestone in the history of the modern conception of morality. This conception presupposes that moral values and requirements motivate agents to seek the good of other person, other people, society, and humanity. The non-other-regarding virtues and duties lie beyond the limits of morality or occupy a marginal niche within these limits. Hutcheson identifies moral good with benevolent feelings and actions sprang from them. However, there are some fragments in his works where actions and features of character lacking in apparent ties with needs and interests of other people have moral significance. The author tries to show that Hutcheson does not depart from his identification of morality with benevolence because he believes that many virtues and duties though appear non-other-regarding actually have implicit tie with the good of other people and especially with the good of society (“the whole system”). To put it differently, he demonstrates the possibility to reduce them to benevolent feelings. The paper contains an analysis of some major directions of this reduction. The first pertains to duties to God, the second reinterprets the duty to care for oneself, and the third reveals altruistic aspects of the human aspiration to beauty and truth.