Hutcheson's Aesthetics and Moral Philosophy

Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746) was a pivotal early figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, a movement which strongly embraced empiricism and concentrated on the study of human nature and the relationship of individuals and society. Born in Ireland to a line of Scottish Presbyterian ministers, Hutcheson was educated by dissenting Irish Presbyterians in Ulster before matriculating at the University of Glasgow, where he studied philosophy and theology. In 1719 he was licensed to preach in Ireland, but rather than adopting the more traditional views of his forefathers, he gravitated toward the tolerant and liberal “New Light” Presbyterianism. Instead of further pursuing the ministry for which he had trained, he put his efforts into founding a dissenting academy in Dublin—a successful venture that occupied him for the next ten years. While teaching in Dublin, he moved in intellectual circles, and it was there that he wrote the four early treatises—collected into two books, the Inquiry of 1725 and the Essay of 1728—that quickly established his reputation as a philosopher. On being appointed chair of moral philosophy at his alma mater, he left Ireland for Glasgow in 1729.

Contemporaries described Hutcheson as a popular and animated professor—the first at Glasgow to deliver lectures in English rather than exclusively in Latin. His most famous student was Adam Smith (enrolled 1737-40).

Hutcheson's influence on Scottish thinkers was considerable. With his emphasis on the primacy of feeling over reason in our moral perceptions, he inspired David Hume’s moral sentimentalism. His analysis of natural rights and property in the Inquiry (Treat. II Sect. VII) as well as in his later works directly influenced Smith. The Scottish school of common sense realism derived partly from Hutcheson's explication of moral sense theory. His influence also made its way to colonial America, where his works were included in college curricula beginning in the mid-1700s. John Adams and other signers of the Declaration of Independence are known to have read Hutcheson.

In the Inquiry, he takes up Locke’s epistemology of sense perception and broadens it into a theory of the “internal senses”—faculties of perception as powerful as the commonly designated five external senses. Elaborating Lord Shaftesbury’s notion of a “moral sense” and the earl's analogy between beauty and virtue, Hutcheson divided his Inquiry into a discussion of the sense of beauty and of the paramount moral sense—both being internal senses which operate without depending on mediation by the will or reason.

Like Shaftesbury and the philosopher Richard Cumberland, Hutcheson held a strong distaste for the Hobbesian worldview. In the vein of the former two, he promoted a vision of humans as naturally benevolent and innately interested in the welfare of others, maintaining that others’ good brings us no less pleasure than our own good.

Notably, he also sowed the seeds of utilitarian thought with his phrase “the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers” (Treat. II Sect. III).

Main Reading
The reading below is available at the Online Library of Liberty:

• The Inquiry, comprising the first two of Hutcheson's four early treatises (we are reading the 1726, or 2nd edition, of the book): read the Preface and Treat. I: Sections I, II, III (Art. IV is optional), (V is optional), VI, VII, VIII; and Treat. II: Intro and Sect. I, II, III (Art. XI, XII until “Intention, foresight” optional), IV, V, VI, and especially VII.
• Hutcheson's lecture upon his appointment at Glasgow, “On the Natural Sociability of Mankind." The first 3 paragraphs, until footnote 10, are optional.
• The beginning of the fourth treatise Illustrations, Sect. I, and Sect. IV.

Note that the ebook page on OLL can take a few moments to load.

Secondary resources
IEP - Hutcheson
SEP - Hutcheson
Liberty Fund: Editor’s Intro to Inquiry.
SEP - Scottish 18th C. Philosophy
Wiki - Scottish Enlightenment
Hutcheson and private property
Routledge: 1, 2, 3