HUTCHESON, FRANCIS. – English philosopher, born at Drumalig (Ireland) on 8 August 1694, died at Glasgow in 1747. From 1729 he was professor of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow.
He wrote: An enquiry concerning the original of our ideas of beauty and virtue (London 1725); Essay on the nature and conduct of the passions and affections (there 1728); A system of moral philosophy, his principal work, published posthumously (Glasgow 1755) with a biography of H. by W. Leechman.
H. is one of the secondary figures of the English Enlightenment and may be numbered among the moralists of the eighteenth century or among the philosophers so-called of the “moral sense.” An optimist (everything in the world bears witness to the goodness of God), like Shaftesbury, whose influence he reflects, he admits in man specific faculties given by God at creation, namely, the sense of beauty, that of sympathy, and others, including the moral sense, an independent faculty that cannot be reduced either to sympathy, pleasure, utility, etc. Just as the eyes perceive light and darkness, so the moral sense perceives virtue and vice. It is entirely disinterested, both for the person who acts and for the person who approves, even though H. ultimately identifies it with the utilitarian tendency to act so as to procure “the greatest happiness of the greatest number.” Precisely by considering the good of others, we promote our own greatest particular good.