of clear observations. Nevertheless moral feeling does not therefore proceed entirely from experience. But under the guidance of reason and experience it ascribes the highest value to such actions as produce the highest degree of happiness to the greatest number of men. (The importance of the personages may however supplant the number.) Thus Hutcheson was the first to propound (in his Inquiry into the Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, 1725) the famous principle of "the greatest happiness for the greatest number." Like Shaftesbury, Hutcheson was strongly influenced by the ethics of the Greeks, especially as it appears in the later Stoics. This whole trend in modern ethics is, on the whole, an interesting form of the renaissance movement. W. R. Scott’s recent monograph on Hutcheson contains a suggestive treatment of the whole movement.
According to Hutcheson, moral feeling is divinely implanted. But its operation is not limited to those who believe in God. Ethics therefore is wholly independent of theology.—The sense of duty arises when moral feeling is momentarily in abeyance but we are at the same time conscious that a proposed act would bring us into conflict with human love and thus rob us of inner peace (serenity) of mind.—Hutcheson's System of Moral Philosophy contains a comprehensive elaboration of his ethical theories.
Bishop Joseph Butler (1692–1752), in deliberate opposition to the optimism and theory of harmony advocated by Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, emphasizes the distinction between moral feeling, which he prefers to call conscience, and the other human elements and impulses. Conscience, as a matter of course, acts directly and is combined with a sense of inner satisfaction, as in the case of obedience
