Hutcheson's Emotional Moral Philosophy Research

Francis Hutcheson is regarded by many scholars as Leaders of the Scottish Enlightenment.He studied moral philosophy with the core of exploring people’s moral emotion.He emphasized the important position of human nature in moral and aesthetic judgment,which represented a new starting point of Philosophy in that period.We have reason to believe that Hutcheson is the first philosopher to deal with aesthetic and moral problems in a perceptual way after Aristotle,and his thoughts have a great impact on the philosophy and economic thoughts of David Hume and Adam Smith.This paper traces the background of the formation of Hutcheson’s thought and the theoretical origin of the influence of Locke,Shaftesbury and others on Hutcheson by exploring the Scottish Enlightenment;By combing the structure of Hutcheson’s human nature,Hutcheson distinguishes the natural good from the moral good,and interprets Hutcheson’s moral emotionalism through the "benevolence" emotion in human nature,which makes Hutcheson find the basis of human nature for his moral philosophy,and also provides the basis for how human beings can obtain the greatest happiness;This paper traces the theoretical origin of Hutcheson’s emotionalism moral philosophy,determines that emotion is the root of morality,combines human emotion with sociality,regards benevolence as the essence of morality,and provides guarantee for human happiness.Hutcheson regards benevolence as the highest moral requirement,and derives "sympathy" emotion,which makes people pay more attention to moral education.They should learn to control desire and emotion,and promote human universal happiness.But it has its own inevitable theoretical dilemma,falling into the limitations of empiricism and ignoring the fuzziness between natural emotion and moral sense.However,his emotionalism moral philosophy attaches great importance to emotion,showing a way of moral philosophy research based on emotion,which is different from traditional moral research.It has a very important theoretical guidance and reference significance for modern ethics research.