Abstract

The views of three prominent eighteenth-century moral philosophers, Francis Hutcheson, Bishop Butler, and David Hume, are critically examined in this book. Professor Roberts believes that a careful analysis of these empiricist philosophers’ views can serve as a prolegomenon to an adequate understanding of benevolence. The nature of benevolence and its role in motivating moral actions was a crucial issue in eighteenth-century moral philosophy. Some philosophers who preceded Hutcheson denied that only feelings motivated actions; and others, who defended the efficacy of feelings, claimed that, since benevolent actions ultimately derived from self-interested motives, morality rested on self-interest. Though differing on important points, Hutcheson and Hume both held that feelings motivate actions and that benevolence, not self-interest, is the source of morality. Because Butler’s position on these issues is unclear, Roberts presents the conflicting presentations of Butler’s major expositors along with his own interpretation. He argues that Butler, unlike Hutcheson and Hume, believed that the mere recognition of one’s duty could motivate one to do it. In discussing Hume, Roberts asserts that despite the oft-quoted statement that "reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions," Hume emphasizes the use of reason in the role that imagination plays in the operation of sympathy. In the concluding section, Roberts points out the similarities, weaknesses and metaphysical presuppositions of the three philosophers. This book is clearly written and presents a valuable analysis of both the difficulties and strengths in the eighteenth-century accounts of benevolence.—M.G.