Abstract

Francis Hutcheson proposes a normative theory which both depends upon and advances an empiricist epistemology. He characterizes moral judgments of virtue on an analogy to judgments of beauty. Moral qualities are a special case of aesthetic qualities, and both are perceived by means of feeling. I argue that if Hutcheson is right, the moral sense theory needs a theory of moral sensibility and an account of refined judgment, as well as a theory of moral taste. ;A theory of moral taste must account for the validity of any person's judgments of virtue, where that judgments rests on feeling. I find in Hutcheson's work the elements of a theory of the cultivation of moral sensibility, but no theory of the intersubjective validity of judgments from feeling. I therefore develop a moral sense theory of moral taste suitable for Hutcheson, using Kant's analysis of aesthetic judgment along with Kant's constraints on the validity of judgments of taste. ;Other positions of my work assess the strengths and weaknesses of Hutcheson's normative theory of right action and virtuous character against two significant alternatives: John Stuart Mill's hedonistic utilitarianism, and Immanual Kant's theory of practical reason and the Categorical Imperative. I place equal importance upon achieving an understanding of major developments in the history of ethical theory, and upon contributing to the continuing discussion of questions of ethics: questions of the moral worth of motives, the relation between moral judgment and other kinds of judgments, of justification and vindication in normative theories, and of objectivity and subjectivity in judgment and experience.