Francis Hutcheson 1694 – 1746

Francis Hutcheson was an Irish-born philosopher and the leading figure of the early Scottish Enlightenment. As professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow, he taught the young Adam Smith and shaped the moral-sense tradition that runs through Hume, Smith, and Reid. His Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue developed Shaftesbury's moral sense into a more systematic theory, while his System of Moral Philosophy anticipated the utilitarian formula of the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers. His political philosophy defended a right of resistance against tyrannical government.

Francis Hutcheson was born in 1694 at Drumalig in County Down, Ulster, the son and grandson of Presbyterian ministers of Scottish origin. He took his degree at Glasgow in 1716, returned to Ulster as a licensed preacher, and from around 1719 ran a private dissenting academy in Dublin. In 1729 he was elected to the chair of moral philosophy at Glasgow, the position he held until his death.

His major works are the Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725), the Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with Illustrations on the Moral Sense (1728), the Latin Synopsis Metaphysicae (1742), and the posthumously published System of Moral Philosophy (1755). He lectured in English rather than Latin, an innovation that drew students from across Britain and Ireland and shaped the rhetorical culture of the Scottish Enlightenment.

Hutcheson developed Shaftesbury's hint of an internal moral sense into a systematic theory of benevolence as the foundation of virtue, formulated the felicific principle that 'the action is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers' anticipating later utilitarianism, and decisively shaped the moral philosophies of his pupil Adam Smith and of David Hume. He died at Glasgow in August 1746 on a visit to Dublin.