Hutcheson: Two Texts on Human Nature

Francis Hutcheson was the first major philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment, and one of the great thinkers in the history of British moral philosophy. He firmly rejected the view, common then as now, that morality is nothing more than the prudent pursuit of self-interest, arguing in favor of a theory of a moral sense. The two previously inaccessible texts presented here are the most eloquent expressions of this theory. Thomas Mautner’s introduction provides a mass of new information on the intellectual context of Hutcheson’s work.