Hutcheson: For And Against Utilitarianism

Abstract

Abstract After arguing that we approve moral goodness in its own right, and not as a means to our own advantage, Hutcheson asks what sorts of actions and characters we approve of from the moral point of view. The answer will tell us what moral goodness consists in. In the Inquiry he begins from the claims of Cumberland and Shaftesbury about the general good and the common good. He argues that moral principles are impartial: they are not concerned differentially with the good of some people rather than others, but with the good of all those affected. He takes a teleological view of morality, as both Cumberland and Shaftesbury do. Following Cumberland, but not Shaftesbury, he holds an instrumental version of a teleological view; moral rules and principles are to be observed not for their own sake, but for their causal consequences.