**SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of.** - Philosopher, initiator of the moral philosophy of sentiment (v.), born in London on 26 Feb. 1671, died in Naples on 15 Feb. 1713. He was educated by his uncle according LOCKE (v.), who was also his first teacher. He studied the Neoplatonic philosophers (Cambridge school) and was in contact with the leading philosophers of his time not only in his homeland but also on the European continent, where he often travelled to improve his fragile health. Far removed from political life, he devoted himself entirely to meditation on moral problems. Of his ethical ideal, expounded in numerous works, he gave an example in his most noble manner of life, which was the object of great admiration among his contemporaries. In 1709 he married Jane Ewer, by whom he had a son. He spent the last two years of his life in Naples (cf. B. CROCE, *op. cit.* in bibl.).
S. conceived the universe as a perfectly harmonious unity, in which all things, through natural impulses, simultaneously tend toward their own perfection and that of the whole. Man is part of this universe: all his natural impulses are good, whether they are selfish (HOBBES) or altruistic (CUMBERLAND; cf. *Inquiry*, I, ed. 1900, p. 280 ff.), provided they are coordinated toward the integral perfection of the individual. Morality does not therefore consist in obedience to universal norms, divine precepts, or human laws, but in following natural impulses, which allow the joy of the fullness of one’s own life, in intimate inner communion with the harmonious life of all human society and indeed of the entire universe. Religion does not precede morality but follows it; indeed, it fundamentally coincides with it, since it is not reason but the living personal contact with the universe that makes one feel the existence of God as the animating principle of universal harmony. This living in intimate connection with the animating action of God is the ultimate meaning of all morality (cf. *Philosophical regimen*, p. 20 ff.). The criterion of morality does not derive from reason (rationalism), nor from empirical knowledge of utility (utilitarianism), but from moral sentiment, which is an intrinsic capacity of every individual, innate to his very being, to perceive immediately through reflection what is or is not in harmony with the harmony of his own being and thus with social and universal harmony (*Inquiry*, I, ed. cit., chaps. 2 and 3). Fundamentally, this is a matter of an aesthetic judgment or “moral taste,” since for S. the beautiful and the good are completely synonymous. Morality thus becomes the aesthetic activity of individual, social, and universal perfection and even the principle of all human knowledge. In this way, S. initiates dynamic optimistic individualism (v.) and anticipates many Romantic positions. His importance in the history of philosophy is due less to the intrinsic value of his thought—which was, moreover, profoundly modified by his immediate successors (HUTCHESON, BUTLER)—than to original intuitions that would be taken up not only by the Enlightenment thinkers (DIDEROT, VOLTAIRE) but also by KANT, LESSING, MENDELSSOHN, HERDER, SCHLEGEL, SCHLEIERMACHER, and which influenced literature as well (POPE, GOETHE).
Principal works: *Inquiry concerning virtue and merit* (1699); *The sociable enthusiasm* (1705), republished under the title *The moralist, or the philosophical rapsody* (1709); *A letter concerning enthusiasm* (1708); *Sensus communis: an essay on the freedom of wit and humour* (1709); *Soliloquy, or advice to an author* (1710); *Miscellaneous reflections* (1710). All these writings were reissued in a single work in 3 vols.: *Characteristics of men, manners, opinions, times* (1711; various subsequent editions; recent ed. in 2 vols. edited by J. M. ROBERTSON, London 1900). Of his unpublished writings and letters (the first collection of which dates to 1716) were published by B. BAND, *The life, Unpubl. letters and Philosophical regimen of A. Earl of S.* (ibid. 1900); S.’s second *Characters or the language of forms* (Cambridge 1914).