Characteristicks of Men, 3-Volume Set

This new edition of Characteristicks presents the complete 1732 text of this classic work of philosophy and political theory. Widely regarded as the first exponent of the view that ethics derives, not from reason alone, but from ‘sentiment’, Shaftesbury criticizes not only Locke but, especially, Hobbes for the dim view that ‘the state of nature’ is ‘a war of all against all’. To the contrary, Shaftesbury argued that human nature responds most fully to representations of the good, the true, and the beautiful, and that human beings naturally desire society. In all of these reflections, he provides a large scope for the exercise of individual liberty and responsibility. The grandson of a founder and leader of the English Whigs, and tutored by John Locke, Anthony Ashley Cooper, was the Third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), and Characteristicks is regarded as one of the most intellectually influential works in English of the eighteenth century.