Hutcheson's Moral Sense: Skepticism, Realism, and Secondary Qualities

North American Philosophical Publications

Hutcheson's Moral Sense: Skepticism, Realism, and Secondary QualitiesAuthor(s): P. J. E. KailSource: History of Philosophy Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 57-77Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of North American Philosophical PublicationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27744873 .

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History of Philosophy Quarterly Volume 18, Number 1, January 2001

HUTCHESON'S MORAL SENSE: SKEPTICISM, REALISM, AND

SECONDARY QUALITIES

P. J. E. Kail

I

In

this paper I essay a reading of Hutcheson's moral sense theory that illuminates recently contested questions surrounding it, viz.

whether it is best conceived as a realist theory1 and the nature of

his comparison between vice, virtue, and secondary qualities.2 The

former issue is related to his rebuttal of moral skepticism: does his

animus against moral skepticism make him a realist? A central contention of this paper is that the theory is best understood as

analogous to a certain conception of the role of bodily sensation

that had some currency in the early modern period, and that the

contested issues benefit from reading it in this light.

II

We begin with the topic of skepticism: like any "ism," skepticism is

rather nebulous and thus difficult to pin down. Rather than offer

ing a sharp definition of skepticism I shall work with some strands

of thought associated with moral skepticism identified by the most

trenchant defender of the realist reading of Hutcheson, David Fate

Norton. The key features of skepticism are revealed in the follow

ing claims:

1) There can be no such thing as a good reason for a moral judg ment.3

2) Moral differences are merely a matter of taste.4

3) Moral differences are merely a matter of opinion or convention.5

57



58 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

4) Moral distinctions are not founded in objective (independent, publicly available) features of the world.6

5) There can be no genuinely altruistic acts.7

At this stage we can afford to be sketchy; we shall address these

claims in more detail in the context of Hutcheson's theory. Claim

number 5), however, can be disposed of immediately. While it is

true that 5) can be described as form of skepticism, it is indepen dent of the question of whether realism is true. The falsity of any kind of realism does not entail that all desire or acts must be self

interested. As Butler ably demonstrated, there is no a priori reason

for thinking that all desires must be desires for oneself (though of course your desires must be, trivially, your desires), and this point is neutral on the issue of realism. So I regard that point as strictly irrelevant to the issue at hand (though I shall have a little more to

say about this below).8

A common theme to the remaining skeptical thoughts is that a

distinction between "is good" and "seems good'"would either be

spurious (if merely a matter of taste) or arbitrary (if the distinc

tions were constituted by nothing but implicit agreement: if we all

got together and decided that some character trait like indolence was good there would be no objective basis from which to say that

this constitutes any error). Opposition to skepticism would then

consist in making a case for a genuine distinction between "is good" and "seems good." Does Hutcheson's opposition to skepticism thereby make him any sort of realist? I argue that this is not so.

But what is it to be a realist? Since the term "realist" is hardly

unambiguous, a first problem confronting us is that of determining the issue between the realist and non-realist readings of Hutcheson.

Much depends on how the contrast term, non-realist, is spelled out.

Popular candidates include "subjectivist," "non-cognitivist," "con

ventionalist," and even "skeptic" and "egoistic." Again, we can take our cue from Norton, who says that the question of realism

is, simply, whether or not the moral sense is a faculty capable of

apprehending independently existing, inter subjective (objectively real

features) of the world about us, just as the other, ordinary senses

presumably do.9

There is much to take issue with here,10 but let us keep to general matters. Two issues emerge from this statement, the epistemologi cal-cum-semantic and the ontological; that is to say, issues about

what we mean and believe and what things there are. One form of

non-realism, error theory, targets the ontological strand. Moral



HUTCHESON'S MORAL SENSE 59

commitments consist in representations with a specific content:

they represent the world to be a certain way, and those representa tions are true just in case the world is how they represent it to be.

Moral commitments are cognitive states (states that represent the

world), and the dispute turns on the way the world is.11 Error theory says that such beliefs are false because the world is not how moral

commitments represent it to be.

This begs the question of what the content of the moral commit

ments is supposed to be. What is it that the world lacks, but is

falsely represented as having? One line of thought, in the spirit of

Norton's view, is that what is represented in moral thought is the

existence of certain moral states of affairs (roughly speaking, things

instantiating moral properties). There are two candidates, broadly

speaking, for the property that fulfils this r?le. One could take the

moral property to be identical with either some candidate natural

property (e.g., benevolence) or some "non-natural" property that is

emergent from, or supervenient on, an underlying natural property.

Naturalism is ontologically unproblematic, but suffers from a

well-known problem. Since there is an alleged conceptual connec

tion between a moral judgment and motivation, no moral property can be identical with a natural property, for no natural property can be such as to be "internally related" to an agent's motivational

propensities.12 So moral commitments, if cognitive, must represent a special kind of non-natural property, a property that is both

"brutely there" and exerts a motivational pull on the agent. The

interesting form of error theory, then, is one that takes moral

commitments to be states that represent the world as containing non-natural properties and claims further that the world lets us

down: there are no such properties.

A brief word about the relationship between realism and skepti cism. Realism provides an answer to skepticism in this way: the "is

good/seems good" distinction is secured by inheriting an objectiv

ity from the notion of correct representation. A moral opinion is

then not a matter or taste or convention, since its correctness

consists in accurate representation of a mind-independent state of

affairs. A good reason for a moral opinion would require some

epistemic justification for the claim that the world is how the agent claims it to be; and the moral sense represents the general answer

to the epistemic question.

A different form of non-realism targets the first, semantic, strand

by denying that moral claims are expressive of belief. More care

fully: the function of the psychological state, whose expression




constitutes a moral commitment, is not that of representing the

world to contain certain features, but something else. Thus emotivism

takes moral claims to express emotions, which are states whose

function is not to represent the world. Since moral discourse is never in the business of representing the world as containing cer

tain kinds of moral facts, the dispute over their existence is otiose.

No one ever believed there were moral facts, except philosophers who erroneously thought that our first-order moral commitments were beliefs. Call this non-realism "non-cognitivism."13

Attention to the differences between these two forms of realism

protects against an ambiguity inherent in the cognitive/non-cogni tive pair.14 One might think that error theory and non-cognitivism amount to the same thing since both declare that moral commit ments do not "represent anything in the world." This is a mistake.

Error theory takes it that moral commitments are representations, but what is represented in those commitments does not, in fact, exist. Hence "not representing anything in the world" should be

glossed as "representing features that do not exist." Non-cognitivism focuses not on the world, but on the state of mind expressed by a

moral commitment. For independent reasons (e.g., to do with the

motivational aspect of morality, or a general theory of representa

tion), it alleges that the states involved are not in the business of

representing anything. Thus "not representing anything in the world"

is best glossed by saying that moral commitments are not represen tational. Non-cognitivism is a denial that the relevant states have a

representational nature, and non-realism issues from this.

At first blush, Hutcheson's theory invites a non-cognitivist read

ing. Our moral ideas are, for Hutcheson, peculiar pleasures and

pains, and pleasures and pains are not representational states. They cannot therefore represent moral facts. If the word "apprehending" in the quotation from Norton is supposed to impute to Hutcheson

the view that our ideas of virtue and vice are cognitive, then we

can provide what appears to be a compact demolition of a realist

Hutcheson. Since moral sentiments are states that do not even

purport to represent moral facts, no issue over the existence of

such facts is even intelligible.15

But nothing is ever that simple.

Ill

The way to understand Hutcheson is by considering the treatment

of bodily sensation in the work of Descartes and Malebranche.16

The essence of the view is that pleasures and pains are reliably




correlated with what is respectively beneficial and harmful to the

body, and act as "natural signs" for those properties. Descartes

discusses this r?le for pleasure and pain in (inter alia) the Sixth

Meditation and the Principles of Philosophy,11 but it find its fullest

expression in Malebranche's writings. His discussion is complex, but the simplified version given here will not mislead. When the

body is in its healthy state, objects that are beneficial for the body are apt to occasion bodily pleasure, whereas those that are harmful are apt to occasion pain. The sensations themselves provide no

insight or understanding of the nature of such properties, but dis

pose the subject to reject or elect their bearers. Pleasant tastes, Malebranche tells us, pick out healthy foods, and disagreeable tastes

unhealthy or unnourishing things:

The mind . . . must recognise this sort of good without examina

tion, and by the quick and indubitable proof of sensation. Stones do not provide nourishment; the proof of this is convincing, and taste alone produces universal agreement. . . . pleasure and pain are the natural and indubitable signs [caract?res] of good and evil.18

For our purposes, the notable aspects of Malebranche's account are

these. First, the kinds of goods and evils correlated with pleasure and pain are not good and bad "in themselves" but are a species of

relational good and evil?they are good or bad for the body and not

good or bad tout court. Secondly, the bodily sensations, or senti

ments, elicit an unreflective disposition to elect or reject the relevant item that is causally related to them. We are immediately drawn

to, or repelled from, something without having to understand why it is good or bad for us. The practical advantage of this is obvious; in our natural state of ignorance, we simply lack a proper theory of

which properties sustain the body and which are harmful to it, and so we cannot form a judgment as to what things we should seek

and what things to avoid. But God's providence is at hand by tying, in a lawlike fashion, pleasurable experiences to things that are good for

the body, and thus offering a natural inducement for electing them.

Now, the reason why this story utilizes pleasure and pain has to do with the motivational charge attaching to these senti

ments. Pleasurable sensations typically issue in pursual behavior,

painful ones in avoidance behavior. It is, however, of the utmost

importance not to construe "motivation" as some behavioral

disposition issuing from practical reason. That we are disposed to react against a painful stimulus is not to be explained by

citing our belief that the stimulus is painful coupled with a

desire to avoid pain, but is simply a primitive causal fact.




Ignoring for the moment the claim about God's providence, we

have at our disposal a set of natural properties that are physically beneficial or harmful, together with laws that link these properties with pleasurable and painful experiences. The respective sensations

may now be said to have a functional role, being caused by natu

rally good things and naturally bad things, and eliciting a disposition to appropriate behavior. They function normally when they tie the

health-promoting to elective behavior and the health-detrimental to

shunning behavior. In the dysfunctional state (when someone is

unwell, say), this correspondence breaks down. To use Descartes's own example, when one suffers from dropsy, the dryness of the

throat causes one to drink more, an activity that actually causes more damage to our health. Nevertheless, the function of pleasure and pain, in typical humans, is to preserve health.19 It is not inap

propriate to see those sensations as "signs" for the things that

typically cause those sensations. It is, with a nip here and a tuck

there, a perfectly ordinary causal story, which imputes to us noth

ing more than a covariance of behavioral dispositions with certain

types of causes, mediated by states that are not cognitive.

Let us revisit the topics of realism and skepticism. Is the above

theory a realist one? Well, certainly there are natural properties that are good or bad for the body. But there is no hint of non

naturalism in the sense of there being any non-natural property that provides both a standard for judgment and truth and exerts a

motivational pull on the sensibility of the agent. So if it is realist, it is naturalistic realism. But, crucially, if the valuational commit

ment is expressive of the sentiment (pleasure or pain), then realism is false since the states involved are not representations of the natural properties. Evaluational states are simply not in the repre sentational business, so questions about realism simply do not arise.

But is the theory skeptical? Given that there is a clear functional r?le that sensations play, then a distinction between "is good/seems good" can be sustained by appealing to that functional r?le. A plea surable reaction to some item is open to criticism if it does not

perform the function that that sentiment is given?if it causes one

to eat something unhealthy. Given that the function of pleasure is to cause us to select some health-giving property, failing to meet that function is grounds for criticism.

IV

It seems to me that an adapted Malebranchian story constitutes the basic materials employed by Hutcheson to account for our evaluative




practice. Hutcheson was certainly familiar with Malebranche20 and he

endorsed the functional explication of bodily sensation espoused by Malebranche. Thus in An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the

Passions he says:

Now, our Reason, or Knowledge of the Relations of external Things to our Bodies, is so inconsiderable, that it is generally some pleas ant Sensation which teaches us what tends to their Preservation; and some painful Sensation which shews what is pernicious.21

To see how the moral sense develops from this thought, we shall

approach the matter as Hutcheson himself does by considering his

aesthetic theory.

In the first section of An Inquiry concerning Beauty, Order,

Harmony and Design,22 Hutcheson states that our idea of beauty is a phenomenologically peculiar pleasure, and our disposition to en

joy such a pleasure is one instance of what Hutcheson calls an

"internal sense," which he defines as:

a Determination of the Mind, to receive any Idea from the Presence of an Object which occurs to us, independent on our Will.23

So far this concurs with our naturalistic sketch of evaluation:

certain pleasures occur independently of our wills. The non-volun

tary nature of aesthetic approval allows Hutcheson a first move

against a skepticism that takes aesthetic approval to be the result

simply of decision. We do not, and cannot, decide which things are

beautiful and which things are ugly. That point, however, will not move a skeptic who argues that the "is beautiful/seems beautiful"

distinction is unfounded. The fact that we cannot help making aes

thetic discriminations tells us nothing about that issue.

A first difference between bodily pleasures and pains and those of the

aesthetic sense, is that whereas in the case of bodily sensations we need

not represent the property which causes the sensation (the fire will hurt

you whether you believe it or not), it is only upon the apprehension of

certain relational features of the complex ideas?similitude, proportion,

harmony, and uniformity?that we enjoy the unique sentiment of approba tion.24 This representational state is a complex or "concomitant"25 idea.

The pleasure of beauty that arises from this representational state is

logically distinct from it in that it is perfectly possible to enjoy the com

plex idea and not receive the "pleasure of beauty,"26 but the converse does

not hold: nowhere does Hutcheson countenance the possibility of experi

encing beauty without experiencing a complex idea. It is thus only from

complex ideas that the idea of aesthetic beauty is "raised up in us."27 In

Hutcheson's terminology the aesthetic sentiment is a reflex idea.28




So we have a marked difference between bodily sensation and

the aesthetic sentiments. But this does not threaten our compari son just yet. The difference is important to Hutcheson because the

function of aesthetic sentiments is rather different from that of

bodily sensations. Bodily sensations have a health-preserving func

tion; the inner sense of beauty, by contrast is implanted in us by God "to excite us to the Pursuit of Knowledge and reward us for

it."29 It does so by linking aesthetic approval to certain features

that render the universe more explicable. Since the sentiments are

linked to the pursuit of knowledge, then it must involve our under

standing?for bodily sensations can perfectly well perform their

function without the subject having any understanding of the ob

ject that causes the sensation.

Once the function of the aesthetic sentiment is acknowledged, we can hold at bay the natural incredulity elicited by the discovery that Hutcheson centers his discussion of beauty on mathematics.

Early into his discussion, he focuses on the beauty of the squares and triangles, and then proceeds to the beauty of theorems.30 Beauty resolves itself to the "figures which excite in us the Ideas of Beauty, seem to be those in which there is Uniformity amid Variety."31 His

leading conception of beauty is that of a mathematics that renders a seemingly disparate world understandable through the media of a few uniform principles.32 The sense of beauty is implanted in us

by God to detect the uniform amid the various, for the reason that

the universe operates on very general laws and our sense of beauty assists us in understanding the world in terms of them.33

The functional nature of the aesthetic sense is brought out by Hutcheson when he considers the supposition that irregular ob

jects might elicit the sentiment of beauty:

[I]f irregular Objects, particular Truths and Operations pleased us, beside the endless Toil this would involve us in, there must be a

perpetual Dissatisfaction in all Rational Agents with themselves; since Reason and Interest would lead us to simple general Causes, while a contrary Sense of Beauty would make us disapprove them: Universal Theorems would appear to our Understanding the best Means of increasing our Knowledge of what might be useful; while a contrary Sense would set us on the search after particular Truths.34

We can distinguish four elements in the theory. First the aesthetic

sentiments, secondly a group of representations or concomitant ideas

that are the proximate causes of those sentiments, thirdly the proper ties the concomitant ideas represent, and finally the function of the

sentiments, to excite us to uncover those features that actually do

render the diverse uniform. So we can represent the structure thus:




1) Some object that is an instance of the uniform amid the various

(e.g., a square)

2) A concomitant idea that represents any object as instancing the uniform amid the various, which is the proximate cause of

3) The pleasure of aesthetic approval.

How can we construct a standard of correctness, an "is beautiful/ seems beautiful distinction"? We can do so by adverting to the function of the aesthetic sense. Its function is to excite us to knowl

edge, by making us approve, in a characteristically aesthetic mode, of those features that render apparently disparate phenomena more

tractable. These features are those in which there is uniformity among variety. Now, since our access to those features is mediated

by representations, or concomitant ideas, that are the proximate cause of the aesthetic sentiments, the function of aesthetic ap

praisal is frustrated when a sentiment is caused by a concomitant idea that is a misrepresentation of the uniform among the various. In other words, a sentiment that is caused by what is only an

apparent instance of the uniform among the various would be an

instance of "false relish." On this story the difference between a

"true" and "false" relish is grounded on whether the relevant con

comitant idea accurately represents uniformity among the various. All this is "grounded on objective matters of fact," and issues in a

standard of correctness for aesthetic appraisal that is not a matter or "convention or opinion."

V

There are, of course, a number of obvious and perhaps less obvious

objections to this reading. Some of these will be addressed below, but for the moment let us develop this line of thought by turning to

Hutcheson's moral theory.

One account of morality, associated with Hobbes and Mandeville, is an explanatory-cum-justificatory theory that appeals to the self interest of the members of its constituency. On (a plausible reading of) the Hobbes/Mandeville scheme, moral distinctions emerge when

agents can see that the practice of morality furthers particular agents' own interests. The foundation for the practice of morality is, on this view, ultimately self-interest.

It is manifest that Hutcheson strenuously resisted this view.35 The moral sense offers him two lines of attack. First, he argues that Hobbes and Mandeville lack the resources to account for moral

discrimination, and that moral distinctions simply would not be in




circulation without moral sentiments.36 The moral sense is an irre

ducible mode of moral approval, and moral discriminations are not

the result of "art, education, custom, [or] policy of subtle views of

interest."37 Secondly, it purports to show how, pace Hobbes and

Mandeville, moral distinctions can be disinterested, i.e., not consti tuted by appealing to the particular interest of each member of the

moral community. Moral distinctions, though involving approval, are not approvals based on a recognition that an action would ben efit the interest of the spectator but simply its beneficial properties

regardless of the particular persons they may benefit.

Here the comparison with bodily sensation comes into play. In

the case of bodily sensation, our "sense" or capacity to feel plea sure, Hutcheson claims, is "antecedent to our interests."38 By this he means that we do not derive pleasure from, say, particular foods, because it is in our interest to eat them, but simply because they are pleasurable experiences whatever other advantages they may bestow on us. Drinking coffee continues to be a pleasurable experi ence, even when I am fully aware of the disadvantages of immoderate

consumption, and thereby may desire not to drink it. Given my

sensory constitution, however, I still have a standing disposition to

drink coffee. Now the moral and the aesthetic senses are precisely like this: independent of our wills, and independent of any inter ests we may have, certain features cause in us distinct sentiments of approbation. Thus:

Our sense of Beauty from Objects, by which they are constituted

good to us, is very distinct from our Desire of them when they are thus constituted: Our Desire of Beauty may be counter-balanc'd by Rewards or Threatenings, but never our Sense of it; even as Fear of Death may make us desire a bitter Potion, or neglect those Meats which the Sense of Taste would recommend as pleasant.39

The pleasure and pains of the moral sense provide a subject with a standing disposition to approve (and elect) or disapprove (and

reject) whatever it is that causes those sentiments, something a

straightforward belief could never provide.40 This function is not a

matter of reasoning or cognition. Thus Hutcheson says

Notwithstanding the mighty Reason we boast of above other Ani

mals, its Processes are too slow, too full of doubt and hesitation, to serve us in every Exigency, either for our own Preservation, with

out the external Senses, or to direct our Actions for the Good of the Whole, without this moral Sense.41

Again we have a parallel with bodily pleasure and furthermore a parallel with the Malebranchian point that these sentiments




usefully guide our actions when we have no explicit understanding of the basis and function of this approval.

If we are to extend this parallel, we should seek an overarching function of the moral sentiments akin to that of bodily pleasures and pains. The moral sense approves of benevolent characters and

actions, which in turn promote the well-being and perfection of humankind. The function of the moral sense is to promote this end. This is made clear in Hutcheson's discussion of the "supposi tion of a contrary sense," one whereby we approve of something other than that of which we normally approve, namely benevolence:

For if the DEITY be really benevolent, and desires the Happiness of

others, he could not rationally [give us a contrary sense] without coun

teracting his own benevolent Intentions. For even upon the Supposition of a contrary Sense, every rational Being must still have been solici tous to some degree about his own external Happiness: Reflection on the Circumstances of Mankind in this World would have suggested, that universal Benevolence, and a social Temper, would most effectu

ally promote the external Good of every one.42

The position may be summed up thus: the pleasures of the moral sense provide a standing disposition to approve of benevolence, a

character trait that has a tendency to promote the good of all

humans. This suggests that the "is good/seems good" distinction

has, as its central core, the distinction between what is benevolent and what seems benevolent; whether someone is benevolent or not

is (at least in the relevant sense) not a matter of taste or conven

tion. The "is good/seems good" distinction is not, therefore, a matter

of taste or convention. Moral distinctions occur without any con

vention, and we cannot alter them. Furthermore, they have the function of promoting human flourishing and are answerable to

that function, and the notion of an incorrect or correct sentiment

gets going by appeal to what the function of the sentiments is. Sentiments elicited by a character that is not benevolent are failing in their function to promote the well-being of mankind, since they constitute approval of something that does not promote that end.

On the present reading, then, moral sentiments are responsive to benevolence features of agents (character dispositions, inten

tions), and are felt by spectators when they believe that the agent is benevolent. This sentiment is "antecedent to interest," which is to say that it is felt by the spectator independently of whether he or she has anything to lose or to gain from the actions of the agent

issuing from benevolence. Correction of the moral sentiment (mak

ing the is good/seems good distinction) is correction of belief. One




can believe falsely that some agent is benevolent and thereby feel the moral sentiment of approval, but reason can correct this false relish. Given the function of the senses (to promote human well

being), moral distinctions are neither arbitrary nor not founded on

objective facts.

VI

So far we have sketched a non-realism that does not make morality simply a matter or taste or a matter of convention. We represent perfectly natural properties (the benevolence of agents) that elicit sentimental reactions in us. Nevertheless, there is a standard of

correctness, an "is good/seems good" distinction, that is drawn in terms of the correctness of the representation of the benevolence of the agent and the function of the moral sentiments.

This reading goes against a trend in Hutcheson scholarship whereby moral and aesthetic value is taken to be interestingly analo

gous with secondary qualities.43 Now, I do not deny that Hutcheson draws an analogy between vice and virtue44 and perceptions that are associated with the catch-all title of "secondary quality," and he does so in order to emphasize that moral perceptions are not "re semblances" of "external properties." What I do deny, however, is that this implies that he identifies vice and virtue with "powers" or

dispositions to elicit the relevant sentiments. This is what I take to be an "interesting" analogy with secondary qualities. On my view, if there is any candidate for the title of "moral quality," then it is the natural property of benevolence.45 What we shall see is that there are two senses of "power" that are apt to get confused. One is

uninteresting as Hutcheson's conception of morality is concerned, the other is far more problematic?but certainly not his view.

Let us explore this issue by taking the considering the case of color. We might describe the vulgar, or pre-theoretical, view of colors as follows. Colors are phenomenally salient properties of

physical objects that are perceiver-independent, and explain our

perception of them. Now, according to the corpuscularian hypoth esis, no such properties are in fact required to explain our apparent perception of color. Instead, one need only advert to structural

properties of physical objects, together with ideas enjoyed by the

subject, to explain this belief. If you think, with Berkeley and

Malebranche, that we never thought of colors as such microphysi cal properties, then you would view the corpuscularian hypothesis as denying that there are any colors. However, for Locke and

Descartes, this is mistaken: our (phenomenal) ideas of color are




confused representations of the relevant microphysical structures, but nevertheless the reference of red is the relevant class of micro

physical structures. There are colors but they are not what the

vulgar think they are.

Now, supposing you side with Locke and Descartes, you then face a problem. How can one draw a distinction between "looks red/is red"? One way would be to allow physics to answer the ques tion by determining which microphysical property typically causes

red-type ideas and then declare some object to be red in virtue of

having that property. So something might look red, without really being red. On this view, broadly conceived, objects would still be red even if, because of changes in our perceptual make-up, they began systematically to appear another color. This is because the

property red is identical with the physical property. Call this view the Causal Power View (CPV).

This makes many uncomfortable for it severs the connection between something's being red and something's looking red. On this view, objects can look systematically green, but be really red, and that strikes many as absurd. So instead of determining what is

red by appeal to physical structure, one could instead treat red as a complex relation holding between objects and responses of a privi leged class of observers under certain conditions. Thus the "looks red/is red" distinction is to be drawn by appeal to the way an

object looks to "normal observers" under "normal conditions." Call this Conventionalism.

Conventionalism can be found in Gilbert Harman, who says:

For an object to be red is . . . for an object to be such that it would look red to normal observers in good light. Similarly, for Hutcheson and Hume, for an action to be wrong is for the action to be such that it would displease normal observers under conditions ideal for

reacting to actions.46

Thus, the predication "x is virtuous" is true in virtue of the fact that x is disposed to elicit the sentiment in a certain class of "nor

mal" observers under certain "normal" conditions.

There is a great difference between the CPV and Conventional

ism, which is this: the dispositionalism of Conventionalism is

semantic, whereas for the CPV it is ontological. The causally rel evant properties in the story can vary independently of the truth of something's being red in that what kind of microphysical prop

erty is causally operative is simply irrelevant to the question of whether it is true that some object is red. This independence is




secured simply by defining "red" as looking red to certain observ ers under certain conditions. The CPV is an ontological claim, not a semantic claim. It seeks out what property of an object is apt to cause certain experience types, and makes a substantive claim about

property identity.

The CPV seems to me to be incorrect for Hutcheson's moral

theory. In the case of color experience it is quite plausible47 that

there is some property that causally explains the experience, and

subjects (metonymically) take that to be the reference of (e.g.) "red." In the case of a moral property like benevolence, it is exceedingly

implausible to think that it has some property that causally affects our sensibilities. But more to the point, there simply is no need to

postulate such a property, since the moral sense, being a reflex

sense, is sensitive to representations of benevolence. It is the rep resentation that elicits, or causes, the sentiment, and so any property of the benevolent agent that is supposed to cause the sentiment is

causally redundant. This is not so in the color case, since these are

original, non-reflex sensations, and so another candidate for the

causally relevant property is required.

So we are left with Conventionalism. If this is on the right lines, we ought to see Hutcheson drawing the "is virtuous/seems virtu

ous" distinction by appealing to something analogous to normal

conditions and normal observers. Here is a passage where he con

siders the correction of our sentiments:

[M]ust we not own that we judge of all our senses by our reason and often correct their reports of magnitude, figure, color, taste of

objects, and pronounce them right or wrong as they agree or dis

agree with reason? . . . Just so a compassionate temper may rashly

imagine the correction of a child or the execution of a criminal to be cruel and inhuman; but by reason may discover the superior good arise from them in the whole; and then the same moral sense

may determine the observer to approve them.48

Nothing in this passage supports a "normal observer/normal condi

tions" account, and indeed the presence of primary quality judgments included in the list tells against it. However, there are other passages in the Illustrations that look more encouraging. At one point in the

Illustrations, he considers an objection that can be raised against his

theory of moral sense.49 Cannot a moral sensibility function abnor

mally, in the same way that a "sickly palate may dislike grateful food"?50 If so, what is the standard by which we must correct it? Here he comes

close to the sort of response we would expect from a Conventionalist

close, that is, rather than spot on:




To answer this [se. the objection], we must remember that of the sensible ideas, some are allowed to be only perceptions in our minds, and are not images of any external quality, as colors, sounds, tastes,

smells, pleasure, pain. Other ideas are images of something exter

nal, as duration, number, extension, motion, rest. These latter, we

may call concomitant ideas of sensation, and the former purely sensible. As to the purely sensible ideas, we know they are altered

by any disorder in our organs and made different from what arise in us from the same objects at other times. We do not denominate

objects from our perceptions during the disorder, but according to our ordinary perceptions, or those of others in good health. Yet

nobody imagines that therefore colors, sounds and tastes, are not

sensible ideas. In like manner many circumstances diversify the concomitant ideas, but we denominate objects from the appear ances they make to us in a uniform medium, when our organs are

in no disorder, and the object not very different from them. But none therefore imagines that it is reason and not sense which dis covers these concomitant ideas, or primary qualities.51

Being in "good health" sounds like a demand that the agent be

"normal," and that the medium should be "uniform" might be (once the details have been filled in) interpreted as "normal conditions." The passage continues:

Just so in our ideas of actions. These three things are to be distin

guished, (1) the idea of the external motion, known first by sense, and its tendency to the happiness or misery of some sensitive na

ture, often inferred by argument or reason, which on these subjects, suggests as invariable eternal or necessary truths as any whatso

ever, (2) apprehension or opinion of the affections in the agent, inferred by our reason. So far the idea of an action represents something external to the observer, really existing whether he per ceived it or not, and having a real tendency to certain ends. (3) The

perception of approbation or disapprobation arising in the observer, according as the affections of the agent are apprehended kind in their just degree, or deficient, or malicious. This approbation can not be supposed to be an image of any thing external, more than the pleasures of harmony, of taste, of smell. But let none imagine that calling the ideas of vice and virtue perceptions of a sense

apprehending the actions and affections of another, does diminish their reality, more than the like assertions concerning all pleasure and pain, happiness and misery.52

Now, the main thrust of this comparison is to show that the ideas of virtues and vice are not "images of anything external," but, as we said, it looks also to support Conventionalism. But a difference between Conventionalism and my view comes out when Hutcheson considers the possibility of two subjects having different moral sen

sibilities. It is, in effect, a moral analogue of the inverted-spectrum




thought experiment. You have normal vision, whereas I experience red objects as green and vice versa. Analogously, you enjoy a pleas

ing sentiment from kind acts, myself from cruel ones (the conditions

of appraisal are the same for both of us). The Conventionalist's move here would be to view my sensibility as statistically deviant

or, biting the bullet, embrace relativism. My sensibility would be

pernicious, according to the standards of the majority, but that of course just makes morality a matter of non-collusive convention. There

is nothing independent of the majority that makes their sensibility better than mine. Hutcheson, however, says something different:53

[T]he former sense would make those actions grateful to the agent which were useful to others . . . whereas the latter sense would

make all such actions . . . ungrateful to the agent. Thus one consti

tution of the moral sense might appear to be more advantageous . . . as we call that sense of tasting healthful which made wholesome

meat pleasant; and we would call a contrary taste pernicious.

In deciding between sensibilities, the better ones are those that are

sensitive to natural goods; they are those that dispose us to ap

prove of, and elect, the useful and reject the disutilitous. Crucially, the correctness of the deliverances of the moral sense does not

depend on what we take to be typical of the majority, but on what

the function of the sense is. Yet again, an "is good/seems good" distinction is drawn by making an appeal to the function of the

moral sense. The Conventionalist lacks the resources to makes this

move, for he takes the responses of the majority to constitute cor

rectness. If someone differs from the majority they are wrong simply because they differ. Instead we have an extension of the Cartesian

story that bodily sensations are given to us by God as a form of

animal sensitivity to natural goods and ills, and their phenomenol ogy prompting us to select those items without having to reason

that fruit, say, is good for us.

It is important, in order to avoid possible confusion, to under

stand that the natural goods and ills may themselves be dispositional

properties and involve a class of subjects. Thus, being poisonous is a natural ill and a dispositional property?it has a tendency to cause

harm to a certain sort of organism, and may have no (or even a

beneficial) effect on another sort of organism. But that such prop erties are dispositions does not make them dispositions to elicit a

certain kind of sentimental response. This is why Hutcheson can

allow that the foundation of beauty for humans might be entirely different from the foundation of beauty for animals.54 Presumably, a dung beetle will find dung agreeable because it is useful to it,




whereas the very same item does not have the same attractions for

us. The difference is that the natural properties attaching to dung are useful to dung beetles, but not so to us.

To conclude, we can secure an "is good/seems good" distinction

in both aesthetics and morality in Hutcheson's thought without

imputing to him a recognizably realist theory. The next task is to

see how this story develops in Hume's hands; but that will have to

wait for another occasion.55

University of Cambridge

NOTES

1. See, inter alia, D. F. Norton, David Hume: Common-Sense Moralist,

Skeptical Metaphysician (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982); and D. F. Norton, "Hutcheson's Moral Realism," Journal of the History of

Philosophy 23 (1985): 397-418. For criticisms of the realist reading, see, e.g., Kenneth P. Winkler, "Hutcheson's Alleged Realism," Journal of the

History of Philosophy 23 (1985): 179-194; Kenneth P. Winkler, "Hutcheson and Hume on the Color of Virtue," Hume Studies 22 (1996): 3-22; J. M.

Stafford, "Hutcheson, Hume and the Ontology of Value," The Journal of Value Inquiry 19 (1985): 133-152; and Elisabeth Radcliffe, "Hutcheson's

Perceptual and Moral Subjectivism," History of Philosophy Quarterly 3

(1986): 407-421.

2. See, e.g., Winkler, "Hutcheson and Hume on the Color of Virtue"; G. Harman, Moral Agent and Impartial Spectator (Kansas, University of Kansas Press, 1986); Stafford, "Hutcheson, Hume and the Ontology of

Value"; V. Hope, Virtue by Consensus: The Moral Philosphy of Hutcheson, Hume and Adam Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989); and "Hutcheson's

Perceptual and Moral Subjectivism."

3. Norton, David Hume, p. 12, n. 25.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid., p. 36.

7. Ibid, p. 34 , n. 18. C/f pp.60-61, and p. 69. On p. 61 he has another

characterization, which he calls "subjectivism," whereby moral terms merely "report" feelings. I shall ignore this variant, as he does not exploit it much.

8. This should not be confused with the more sophisticated claim that one has no reason to be altruistic.

9. Norton, David Hume, p. 72, n. 29. See also p. 54.




10. Particularly the curious phrase "intersubjective (objectively real)."

11. J. L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977).

12. M. Smith, The Moral Problem (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), chap. 2.

13. The most sophisticated contemporary non-cognitivists are Simon Blackburn and Allan Gibbard.

14. This ambiguity runs through Norton's work and also in Stafford's

"Hutcheson, Hume and the Ontology of Value," and Radcliffe's "Hutcheson's

Perceptual and Moral Subjectivism," especially p. 414.

15. See e.g., Frankena, "Hutcheson's Moral Sense Theory," Journal of

the History of Ideas 16 (1955): 356-375, and J. L. Mackie, Hume's Moral

Theory (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980), pp. 32-35.

16. For two recent and useful discussions on this matter, see J. Barnouw, "Passion as 'Confused' Perception or Thought in Descartes, Malebranche, and Hutcheson," Journal of the History of Ideas 53 (1992): 397-424; and S. James, Passion and Action: The Emotions in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), chap. 5.

17. In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. Cottingham et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) V.II, pp. 58-59. For the Principles, see Part I, articles 66-72.

18. The Search After Truth, trans. T. Lennon and P. Olscamp (Cam bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 21 (henceforth: Search). In line with Barnouw ("Passion as 'Confused' Perception," p. 410), I trans late caract?re as "sign" rather than Lennon and Olscamp's "characteristic."

See also Bk. V, chap. 3, p. 348; Bk. V, chap. 4, p. 359; and Bk. V, chap. 5, p. 365. In Elucidation XIII of the Search, Malebranche defends this claim

against obvious counterexamples, e.g., items that taste pleasant but are

in fact harmful to our bodies.

19. Sixth Meditation, pp. 58-59. Malebranche, like Descartes, distin

guishes between a healthy and sick state of the animal machine. See

Search, p. 645.

20. See, e.g., the explicit references in An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections (London 1728: Scholars' Fac simile edition, 1972), pp. 28, 59, 62, 83 (henceforth: Essay). When possible, I shall also give the section number and volume from D. D. Raphael, ed., The British Moralists: 1650-1800, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969) (henceforth BM). The single reference to Malebranche is in BM I: 322. For a brief discussion of some other points relevant to the question of Malebranche's influence see Barnouw "Passion as 'Confused' Perception or Thought in Descartes, Malebranche, and Hutcheson."

21. Essay, ?11, p. 51 (italics original). Hutcheson discusses the topic at more length in this section, and at pp. 178ff.

22. An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, 4th ed. with corrections (London, 1738). This volume contains both An In




quiry Concerning Beauty, Order, Harmony, Design and An Inquiry Con

cerning Moral Good and Evil. Henceforth I shall refer to the complete volume as Inquiries.

23. Inquiries, p. 113 (BM I: 307). Here he is talking about the moral

sense, but the same holds true for the aesthetic sense?see the preface, pp. xii-xiii.

24. Cf. Essay, ?1.

25. See, e.g., Essay, ?1. The structure of the theory is actually a little more complex than this, but this simplification will do no harm. A good discussion, with reference to Norton, is in Winkler (1996).

26. Inquiries, p. 8.

27. Inquiries, pp. 6-7. This seems to me to soften a little Peter Kivy's claim that Hutcheson (and the early Hume's) aesthetic theory is "non

epistemic." Kivy is concerned with the analogy Hutcheson draws between the ideas of the inner sense and secondary qualities. Color ideas are of course caused by properties of which we (non-scientists) are ignorant. Kivy appears to think that aesthetic ideas are the same. What Kivy may have in mind is something stronger, epistemically speaking, than simply the presence of a representation of the state that is the proximate cause of the sentiment, e.g., some doxastic state like belief, but some of what he says suggests otherwise (in private correspondence, however, Kivy states that he has always believed that there is a serious disanalogy between aesthetic and color ideas). See Kivy, "The 'Sense' of Beauty and the Sense of 'Art': Hutcheson's Place in the History and Practice of Aes

thetics," Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 53 (1995): 349-357; and

Kivy, "Hume's Neighbour's Wife: An Essay on the Evolution of Hume's

Aesthetics," British Journal of Aesthetics 23 (1983): 195-208. An excel lent discussion of Kivy is to be found in E. Michael, "Francis Hutcheson on Aesthetic Perception and Aesthetic Pleasure," British Journal of Aes thetics 24 (1984): 241-255. See also M Strasser "Hutcheson on Aesthetic

Perception," Philosophia 21 (1991): 107-119.

28. See Michael, "Francis Hutcheson on Aesthetic Perception and Aes thetic Pleasure," p. 245.

29. Inquiries, p. 128 (BM I: 314). Addison says something similar in his articles "On the Pleasures of the Imagination" (see Bond, ed. The

Spectator, vol. 3, no. 413, p. 545 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965). The articles are cited by Hutcheson in the Essay, p. 5 (BM I: 356).

30. Inquiries, ??2-3.

31. Inquiries, p. 17 (italics original).

32. Thus, directly after a discussion of the beauty of Euclidean geom etry, he says, "In the search of Nature there is the like Beauty in the

Knowledge of some great Principles, or universal Forces, from which innumerable Effects do flow. Such is Gravitation, in Sir ISAAC NEWTON's Scheme. What is the Aim of our ingenious Geometers? A continual




Inlargement of Theorems, or making them extensive, shewing how what was formally known of one Figure extends to many others, to Figures very unlike the former in Appearance." Inquiries, p. 34.

33. See section VIII of An Inquiry concerning Beauty, Order, Har

mony and Design. These kinds of considerations should help to remove the perplexity felt by George Dickie in The Century of Taste: The Philo

sophical Odyssey of Taste in the Eighteenth Century (New York: Oxford, 1996). Dickie complains that it just plain false that uniformity is a "beauty

making characteristic," and this "limits" Hutcheson (pp. 16-17). But Dickie

gets off on the wrong foot at the beginning of his study by announcing that Hutcheson's "excursion" into "theology" is "not essential to the un

derstanding of his theory of taste" (p. 6).

34. Inquiries, p. 101 (italics original).

35. See, e.g., Illustrations, ?1; Thoughts on Laughter and Observa tions on 'The Fable of the Bees' in Six Letter (Glasgow: 1758); and Essay, pp. 67-68.

36. On this point see the editor's introduction to the Illustrations on the Moral Sense, edited B. Peach (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1971). pp. 78ff.

37. Preface to the Essay, p. xviii.

38. Inquiries, pp.106-108 (BM I: 304-306).

39. Inquiries, pp. 12-13 (italics original). See also pp. 228-230 where Mandeville is alluded to.

40. Part of the whole point of introducing the moral sense is to pro vide the requisite motivational connection with moral discriminations. See particularly the first chapter of the Illustrations.

41. Inquiries, p. 272 (BM I: 348).

42. Inquiries, p. 302 (italics original). See also p. 100 for a comparable passage regarding the aesthetic sense.

43. For references see above n. 2.

44. See, e.g., Inquiries, pp. 15-16.

45. This is, if I read him correctly, Ken Winker's view, but he gets to the same conclusion from a careful consideration of three kinds of Lockean ideas of secondary qualities (see "Hutcheson's Alleged Realism" and "Hutcheson and Hume on the Color of Virtue"). What I say here is con sistent with, and I hope supplemental to, Winkler's reading.

46. Harman, Moral Agent and Impartial Spectator, p. 2. See also Hope, Virtue by Consensus. Radcliffe ("Hutcheson's Perceptual and Moral Sub

jectivism") distinguishes a "radical" and a "mitigated" version of what I call Conventionalism. She claims (p. 418) that Hutcheson has no discus




sion of normal conditions and normal observers, which seems to me difficult to square with some of the discussion in the Illustrations. See also the editor's introduction (p. 22) in D. H. Munro, ed., A Guide to the British Moralists (London: Fontana, 1972).

47. But ultimately incorrect.

48. Illustrations, p. 134 (BM I: 365).

49. Ibid, pp. 162-164 (BM I: 371).

50. Ibid, p. 162 (BM I: 371).

51. Ibid, p. 163 (BM I: 371).

52. Ibid, pp. 163-164 (BM I: 371).

53. Ibid, p. 134 (BM I: 365). See also p. 162 (BM I: 371), where he

says "we call a taste wrong when it makes that food at present grateful which shall occasion future pains or death."

54. Inquiries, p. 16.

55. This paper was written while I was in receipt of a British Academy Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship, for which I am extremely grateful. Thanks to Edward Craig, Paul McGoay, Arif Ahmed, and the anonymous referee for helpful comments on this paper, and to Peter Kivy who very kindly corresponded with me. Some of the material was presented in a

paper entitled "Values and Secondary Qualities in Hume" at the 24th Annual Hume Society Conference, Monterey, California, 1997, where my commentator Francis Dauer made some very useful comments. For a

different kind of help, thanks to S. M. S. Pearsall.



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Hutcheson's Moral Sense: Skepticism, Realism, and Secondary Qualities