Philosophiae Moralis Institutio Compendiaria, with A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy. Francis Hutcheson
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it is possible that an early manuscript version of the Institutio existed in the early thirties or even in the twenties, the first edition published in 1742 might differ at least as much from it as the two published editions differ from each other. In any case, a careful reading of the parallel chapters in the Institutio and the System does not allow us to establish a definite order of composition. In many cases the System seems to enlarge on subjects already treated in the Latin work, but there are chapters of the Institutio that present a more ordered and concise exposition than the corresponding chapters of the System.
The Institutio
Hutcheson found himself in the difficult position of having to instruct his students in the principles and subtleties of natural and civil law even though he was a keen critic and severe judge of one of the most important systems of such law, that of Pufendorf. In a letter to the London Journal of 1724, he had criticized Pufendorf for his “grand argument” that “the belief of a deity” “is true” “because it is necessary to support society.”3 In his inaugural lecture at Glasgow in November 1730, he castigated Pufendorf for his pessimistic account of the state of nature and for assuming that “men were driven in society only for the sake of external advantage, and for fear of external evils, but in opposition to their natural turn of mind and to all natural affections and appetites.”4
Pufendorf’s De officio hominis et civis (an abridgement of his De jure naturae et gentium) was a standard text in the teaching of natural law in Protestant universities, and Hutcheson keeps close to the order of Pufendorf’s exposition while modifying its moral foundations. In Book III of the Institutio Hutcheson accurately summarizes Pufendorf’s discussion in Book II of De officio (the duties of the citizen). The contents of Book I of Pufendorf’s De officio, on the duties of mankind or the law of nature, are dealt with in two different books of Hutcheson’s work: In Book II of the Institutio (Elements of the law of nature) Hutcheson refers to juridical notions he derives directly from Pufendorf (law of nature, classification of rights, acquisition and transferring of property, contracts, oaths, obligations, etc). In Book I he replaces Pufendorf’s legalistic ethics with the ethics of his own Inquiry. The two first chapters are devoted respectively to the description of human nature and its basic sociability, and to the summum bonum or happiness and virtue, according to the Stoic perspective, especially as set out in Cicero’s De finibus and Tusculanae Disputationes, Books 4 and 5.
The first chapter of Book I, the longest of the Institutio, is a careful description of the several powers of human nature. Hutcheson begins from the peculiarities of the human body as compared with the bodies of animals, and passes to the external senses and to the faculties of understanding and will, to concentrate his account on his preferred theme, the reflex or internal senses. Different sections are dedicated to the sense of beauty, sympathy, the moral sense, the sense of honor, and the sense of ridicule, as well as to the affections and the passions of the soul. It is by the sense of beauty that we receive pleasant perceptions in observing proportion, harmony or grandeur, and novelty in the objects of nature or the fine arts. Sympathy or sensus communis, as Hutcheson calls it following Shaftesbury, is the reflex sense by which we rejoice in the prosperity of others, or sorrow with them in their distress.
However, the most important sense is the moral sense or the “sensus decori or honesti,” as Hutcheson calls it following Cicero,5 by which we approve every action springing from benevolent affections or passions and disapprove any contrary disposition. To the moral sense is connected the sense of honor and shame which gives us pleasure or pain when others approve or condemn our conduct. Hutcheson stresses not only the innateness but also the supremacy of the moral sense over every other sense and its authority in regulating our conduct. With this thesis, absent in the first editions of the Inquiry, Hutcheson approaches the ethics of Butler, where conscience has a hegemonic role. However, he explicitly opposes Butler’s ethics when he considers benevolence to be as ultimate and basic a principle of human conduct as self-love. Hutcheson carefully distinguishes, in accordance with Stoic and Ciceronian doctrine, between the calm and rational desires and aversions inspired by these senses, and the turbulent motions of the passions. The multitude of these instinctive senses and desires is a proof “that man was destined by nature for action.” Further, the stress on human industry, another Ciceronian feature, is a novelty in the Institutio.6
In Book V of De finibus and in Tusculan Disputations Cicero discusses whether virtue is the only good (the Stoic thesis) or we need also some natural good, such as health or riches (the Aristotelian thesis). So the argument is about the relationship between virtue and happiness, and Cicero says that we need some external prosperity. In the second chapter of the first book of the Institutio, Hutcheson considers the relationship between virtue and happiness, or, more generally, between our senses and happiness. Happiness and misery are the sum of pleasures and pains that differ according to their dignity or quality and according to their duration. Considering in turn the external and internal senses and the pleasures we get from them, he reaches the conclusion that “happiness consists in the virtues of the soul, and in the continued exercise of them in good offices” together with “a moderate degree of external prosperity,”7 again a conclusion close to the Stoicism of Cicero, mitigated by the teaching of the Peripatetic school.
Three chapters are devoted to the duties of man toward God, other men, and himself. In this way Hutcheson follows a common division, present also in Pufendorf’s De officio but quite different in content from Pufendorf. For example, Pufendorf’s chapter on the duty to oneself focuses on the right to self-defense, but Hutcheson’s chapter is a warm invitation to the practice of virtues and to the control of the passions, a duty we owe to ourselves, if we want to be happy (cf. Chapter 2). The three chapters on duties are preceded by a chapter dedicated to the classification of virtues, according to the Platonic, Aristotelian, and Ciceronian division, into the four cardinal virtues.
How is the ethics of moral sense of the first book connected with the doctrine of rights in the second book? From the beginning, Hutcheson’s ethics has an antilegalistic feature that renders problematic its connection with the natural law legacy. The conception that moral behavior depends on the law of a superior who threatens sanctions debases morality, in Hutcheson’s eye. Moreover, the moral sense discovers moral excellence in those actions or characters that are inspired by benevolent intentions. Actions which spring from self-love or personal interest, as legal actions do, are indifferent from a moral point of view. In each of his three works—the “four treatises,” the Institutio, and the System—Hutcheson finds different ways to escape from his impasse.
In the Institutio, Hutcheson attaches a moral value to the common good of the system of human creatures. The moral sense makes us approve benevolent affections; in combination with natural religion it lets us discover a God provided with the same kind affections toward his creatures and, possibly, an analogous moral sense. In this way the common good of the system, as well as every action which contributes to it, acquires a moral value. Every action that is morally innocent, even if inspired by interest or self-love, and that contributes to the common good of the whole has the status of a right guaranteed by the law.8 So Hutcheson is able to arrive, independently, at the notion of a “divine law of nature” that commands us to worship God and promote “the common good of all and of particular men and societies,”9 as well as at the notion of right “as a faculty or claim” guaranteed by a law “to act, or possess, or obtain something from others.”10 An alternative way to arrive at the same conclusion is provided by Hutcheson’s moral calculus. This computation was first proposed in the Inquiry in order to ascertain the degree of benevolence or virtue implied in any action, moving from the idea that, ceteris paribus, there is a relation between the degree of benevolence and the amount of good produced. Since the aim of morally good affections is to maximize the common good, every action that contributes to this goal has a moral value and therefore has to be guaranteed by natural and civil laws.11 In this light, it makes sense that Hutcheson puts forward the discussion of the state of nature in the second book while Pufendorf treats it only in his book on government.
The natural condition of man is