Like all theories that account for moral motivation, Francis Hutcheson's moral sense theory faces two related challenges. The skeptical challenge calls into question what reasons an agent has to be moral at all. The priority challenge asks why an agent's reasons to be moral tend to outweigh her non-moral reasons to act. I argue a defender of Hutcheson can respond to these challenges by building on unique features of his account. She can respond to skeptical challenge by drawing a direct (...) parallel between an agent's reasons to pursue natural, self-directed goods and her reasons to pursue moral goods. This parallel, however, makes establishing the significance of morality difficult. Given this difficulty, a separate aspect of Hutcheson's account, the additional weight given to benevolence in our assessment of mixed actions, can be used to respond to the priority challenge. (shrink)

This paper argues that Shaftesbury differs from other moral sentimentalists (Hutcheson, Hume, Smith) because he conceives of the moral sentiments as partial and first-personal, rather than impartial and spectatorial. This difference is grounded in Shaftesbury’s distinctive notion that moral self-governance consists in the self-examination of soliloquy. Breaking with his Stoic influences, Shaftesbury holds that the moral sentiments play the role of directing and guiding soliloquy. Because soliloquy is first-personal reflection that is directed to achieving happiness, claiming that the moral sentiments (...) direct soliloquy leads Shaftesbury to conceive of the moral sentiments as arising from the internal perspective of an agent focused on her own happiness. This provides Shaftesbury with a stronger framework for understanding moral sentiments, for it avoids the difficulty of explaining why the sentiments of others or those arising from an imagined spectator’s perspective are motivating or authoritative for us. (shrink)