An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue. Francis Hutcheson

      Liberty and Happiness

      The political dimension of liberty is at least twofold: civil liberties and independence. The former is a matter of the political order of a country; the latter, of freedom from foreign domination. Liberty and happiness can be related to each other as they were in the third section of the “Virginia Bill of Rights,” from 6 June 1776:

      That government is or ought to be instituted for the common benefit, protection and security of the people, nation or community; of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration; and that when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community has an indubitable, inalienable and indefeasible right to reform, alter or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.

      The preceding section puts forward a short argument: The right to reform, alter, or abolish government is founded on the judgment of whether such government is adequate or contrary to its main purpose, namely the greatest degree of happiness and safety of the community. The argument has a philosophical background. The criterion of “producing the greatest degree of happiness” is part of the principal maxim of utilitarian ethics. The right of resistance against inadequate government, on the other hand, is part of the liberal creed. In the eighteenth century the Scottish philosopher Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746), in his Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (London, 1725), linked the two sides of the argument for the first time.¹ There he even coined the phrase, “That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.”²

      Hutcheson’s philosophy became part of the ideas that formed the American polity. In the eighteenth century his books were imported to America and his philosophy was well known through his students and learned visitors to Scotland—among them was Benjamin Franklin in 1759. Hutcheson’s ideas even became part of the colonial curriculum.³ The Inquiry, which is published here in a new edition, was the book that established Hutcheson’s reputation as a philosopher.

      The Argument of the Inquiry

      Already in this early work, Hutcheson detailed some of his political ideas.⁴ However, his main task was examining the foundations of his aesthetic, moral, and political philosophy. This was done in two treatises, one dealing with the principles of aesthetics,⁵ the other with those of ethics and, to some extent, their political consequences.⁶ In both treatises the structure of the argument is similar: (1) Our ideas have their origin in our perceptions and are received by senses. (2) For different perceptions we have different senses. (3) Perceptions are founded in certain qualities of the objects perceived. (4) These qualities we can describe in a maxim or formula. Hutcheson’s theory in both treatises therefore is a complex of three related components: a subjective sense, an objective foundation, and an analytical formula. Hutcheson presents the outline of his theory of perception in the first treatise.

      The First Treatise

      Hutcheson’s theory of perception starts with the ideas of John Locke.⁷ For Locke all materials of reason and knowledge come “from experience” and our senses are “the first step and degree towards knowledge, and the inlet of all the materials of it.”⁸ Hutcheson accordingly defines different senses as the powers “of receiving . . . different Perceptions” (I. I. §§ I, II) and maintains that we also acquire the material for our aesthetic and ethical knowledge by some sort of perception. However, what is the specific quality we perceive in aesthetic perceptions? Here Hutcheson relies on Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury’s analysis of aesthetic perception is based on the Platonic concept of form (forma is the Latin version of the Greek Platonic term idea). Beauty then is the “outward form” of things, reflecting the “inward form” of some “forming power.”⁹ Accordingly Hutcheson defines beauty as a “form” or as “Figures . . . in which there is Uniformity amidst Variety” (I. II. § III).

      Hutcheson implies that form and uniformity cannot be perceived by the normal senses but by a special sense only. Therefore he expands the notion of experience beyond the confines of the ordinary five senses. Form or uniformity then is the particular quality in objects that is the “Foundation or Occasion of the Ideas of Beauty among Men” (I. II. §§ I, II). Beauty is our perception or knowledge of this objective quality, and in accord with his definition of “sense” as the power of perceiving these objective qualities, he assumes a special sense of beauty. This sense is but one of a group of “internal senses,” which include among others the “good Ear” or “sense of harmony” (I. VI. § IX). The formula by which the objective form in things themselves can be described is, as already noted, “uniformity amidst variety.” With these words Hutcheson paraphrases Shaftesbury’s