A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy (1747)

Summary

Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746) was a leading figure in the Scottish Enlightenment and author of A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy (1747).  Founder of the “common sense” school of moral philosophy, Hutcheson resurrected Cicero’s idea that our minds have an innate “moral sense” or conscience, which disposes us to act benevolently toward others. For Hutcheson and the “moral sense” philosophers, morality was, in part, a matter of sentiment or feeling, rather than purely the result of a reasoned calculation of costs and benefits, short-term pleasure balanced against long-term pain.  In this excerpt, Hutcheson explores what he calls the individual’s “pursuit of happiness” – which he and other classical and enlightenment philosophers defined as a battle between our reason and passion so that we can be our best selves and serve others. For Hutcheson, each person is motivated to pursue her own happiness and to “shun the contrary.”

Selected by

Paul Rahe

Professor of History and Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in the Western Heritage at Hillsdale College

Jeffrey Rosen

President and CEO, National Constitution Center

Colleen A. Sheehan

Professor of Politics at the Arizona State University School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership

Document Excerpt

As soon as the mind has got any notion of good or evil by grateful or uneasy sensations of any kind, there naturally arise certain motions {of the Will}, distinct from all sensation; to wit, Desires of good, and Aversions to evil. For there constantly appears, in every rational being, a stable essential propensity to desire its own happiness, and whatever seems to tend to it, and to avoid the contraries which would make it miserable. And altho’ there are few who have seriously inquired what things are of greatest importance to happiness; yet all men naturally desire whatever appears to be of any consequence to this end, and shun the contrary: when several grateful objects occur, all which it cannot pursue together, the mind while it is calm, {and under no impulse of any blind appetite or passion,} pursues that one which seems of most importance. But if there should appear in any object a mixture of good and evil, the soul will pursue or avoid it, according as the good or the evil appears superior.

Beside these two calm primary motions of the Will, desire and aversion, there are other two commonly ascribed to it, to wit, Joy and Sorrow. But these two are rather to be called new states, or finer feelings or senses of the soul, than motions of the will naturally exciting to action. In this manner however we make up these four species mentioned by the antients, all referred to the Will, or rational appetite: when good to be obtained is in view, there arises Desire; when evil to be repelled, Aversion: when good is obtained or evil avoided, arises Joy; when good is lost, or evil befallen us, Sorrow.

. . . But beside the calm motions or affections of the soul and the stable desire of happiness, which employ our reason for their conductor, there are also others of a very different nature; certain vehement turbulent Impulses, which upon certain occurrences naturally agitate the soul, and hurry it on with a blind inconsiderate force to certain actions, pursuits, or efforts to avoid, exerted about such things as we have never deliberately determined to be of consequence to happiness or misery. Any one may understand what we mean by these blind impetuous motions who reflects on what he has felt, what violent propensities hurried him on, when he was influenced by any of the keener passions of lust, ambition, anger, hatred, envy, love, pity, or fear; without any previous deliberate opinion about the tendency of these objects or occurrences which raised these several passions to his happiness or misery. These passions are so far from springing from the previous calm desire of happiness, that we find them often opposing it, and drawing the soul contrary ways.

These several passions [violent motions of the soul] the antients reduce to two classes, to wit, the passionate Desires, and the correspondent Aversions; both which they teach to be quite distinct from the Will; the former aiming at the obtaining some pleasure or other, and the latter the warding off something uneasy. Both are by the schoolmen said to reside in the sensitive appetite; which they subdivide into the . . . concupiscible and irascible; and their impulses they call Passions. The sensitive appetite is not a very proper name for these determinations of the soul, unless the schoolmen would use the word senses in a more extensive signification, so as to include many perceptive powers of an higher sort than the bodily senses. For ’tis plain that many of the most turbulent passions arise upon certain occurrences which affect none of the external senses; such as ambition, congratulation, malicious joy, the keen passions toward glory and power, {and many others,} with the turbulent aversions to their contraries. The schoolmen however refer to this sensitive appetite all the vehement inconsiderate motions of the will, which are attended with confused uneasy sensations, whatever their occasions be.

Of these passions there are four general classes: such as pursue some apparent good are called {passionate Desires or} Cupidity; such as tend toward off evil are called Fears {, or Anger}; such as arise upon obtaining what was desired or the escaping evil, are turbulent Joys; and what arise upon the loss of good, or the befalling of evil, Sorrows. {[nor have we in our language words appropriated so as to distinguish between the several calm and passionate motions of the will.]} Of each class there are many subdivisions according to the variety of objects about which they are employed, which will be further explained hereafter.