Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746)
Born 1694 CE, died 1746 CE.
Francis Hutcheson (; 8 August 1694 – 8 August 1746) was an Irish philosopher widely regarded as one of the key figures of the early Scottish Enlightenment. He served as Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow and was a major advocate of moral sense theory, which holds that humans possess an innate sense that guides moral judgments. Hutcheson is best known for his ethical writings, in which he defends benevolence as the primary source of moral virtue and anticipates later utilitarian theories with his formulation of "the greatest happiness for the greatest number". Beyond ethics, Hutcheson made significant contributions to aesthetics, epistemology, logic, and metaphysics. He was among the first modern thinkers to explore beauty as a product of an internal sense, helping to establish aesthetics as a distinct branch of philosophy. In epistemology, he engaged critically with John Locke's empiricism while defending the role of innate dispositions.
Text from the Wikipedia article Francis_Hutcheson_(philosopher), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.