ABSTRACT
Bentham represented Hutcheson as a moral-sense author opposed to the utilitarian principle. We show in fact that for Hutcheson (as for Hume) the moral sense was left with little to do once it was reduced to other-regarding sympathy. Motivation takes precedence over consequences in two respects: conduct properly motivated which, through no fault of the agent, does not yield socially advantageous results does not diminish ethical merit; and, conversely, where the intention of the agent does not entail the public good, their action must be considered morally defective even if social advantage happened to result from their action. Hutcheson’s allowance for disinterested benevolence would appear antithetical to Lockean doctrine involving prudential calculation of the prospective advantage to an individual of other-regarding conduct; but his attempt at proving the existence of a moral sense approving disinterested conduct does not extend beyond very general appeal to universal experience and introspection, while his recognition of weaknesses in the operation of the moral sense greatly reduces the contrast between the two writers. Hutcheson applies the greater-good principle to Distributive Justice, offering qualified support for Agrarian Laws designed to limit the concentration of (landed) wealth with an eye to the welfare of landless labour.
