Ethik und Politik bei Francis Hutcheson, and: Eine Untersuchung über den Ursprung unserer Ideen von Schönheit und Tugend: Über moralisch Gutes und Schlechtes (review)

626 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 27:4 OCTOBER X989 these confusions vitiate a study which in other respects certainly merits the attention of scientists and philosophers. Also, although the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are the center of attention, it is odd that Naturphilosophie does not appear in the index, nor is it accorded much attention in the body of the book. There is no collected bibliography, and it is not clear from the footnote references that Leclerc has fully explored recent literature on some of the topics he discusses. ALAN GABBEY Upper Ballinderry, Lisburn, Northern Ireland Wolfgang Leidhold. Ethik und Politik bei Francis Hutcheson. Reihe: Praktische Philosophie, Vol. 21. Freiburg/Munich: Verlag Karl Alber, 1985. Pp. 325 . Paper, NP. Francis Hutcheson, Eine Untersuchung i2berden Ursprung unserer Ideen von Sch6nheit und Tugend. Obermoralisch Gutes und Schlechtes. Translation and introduction by Wolfgang Leidhold. Phiiosophische Bibliothek, Vol. 364 . Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag , x986. Pp. lxxxiv + 198. NP. The common image of Francis Hutcheson used to be that of an incoherent eclectic who, by jumping from one line of argument to another, managed to be an "interesting " forefather of all manner of ideas--Hume's "sympathy," Smith's "impartial spectator ," Reid's "common sense," utilitarianism, etc. On top of these ethical ideas was heaped what appeared to be a jumble of Pufendorfian natural law, a mishmash of Harringtonian and Lockean politics and some Enlightenment postures in education and religion. All this at least gave the man's work a scope which allowed the more charitable to see him as the "father" of the Scottish Enlightenment. In recent years there have been several signs of a will to overcome this scholarly licentiousness. Wolfgang Leidhold's fine monograph and accompanying German translation of Hutcheson 's Inquiry show the strongest will so far. For a start Leidhold's coverage is broad; as indicated by the title of his book, he covers both the ethical and the political theory. Secondly, although he eventually concludes that there is little systematic coherence between these two parts of Hutcheson 's work, he sees it as a real problem and offers one of the most thorough examinations of it. The most substantial contribution of the book is the interpretation of Hutcheson's ethics. Leidhold rejects the notions that Hutcheson's fundamental doctrine is either a moral-sense theory or a utilitarian theory, or a more or less unprincipled switching from one to the other, suggestions deriving their modern currency from Leslie Stephen . Instead Leidhold offers a reading according to which love (or benevolence) is Hutcheson's central concept. In the book's most important analyses Leidhold tries to show that Hutcheson adopted the New Testament's agape, which is summarized as follows in its difference from "the infidel, classical concept" of love, philia: "the departure from mutuality; the strict concentration on the other person, instead of any selfcentering and self-love; not a feeling--e.g, of sympathy--but a cool will to do good; a BOOK REVIEWS 627 radical universality; the stress on inwardness or intentionality, on 'the heart' as source of good will; the supremacy of love over merely external respect for law, and the unity of love and obedience" (96). Once it is admitted that this is the origin of Hutcheson's concept of love or benevolence, it is not hard to dismiss anachronistic interpretations in terms of hedonism. Furthermore, this concept of love can be a constituent of the moral sense interpreted as a cognitive power. Leidhold here basically adopts the reading of David Fate Norton. Finally, this concept of love can be seen to organize its objects into a hierarchy of goods, "the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers" being the highest . That is, "love" is "as intention an act of will directed to the good of the other person; as approbation a perception of the morally good in a reflexive act of consciousness "; and a principle of organization (191-9~). Around this skeleton of ideas Leidhold builds a fulsome and attractive body of interpretation. The difficulty of relating Hutcheson's ethics to his politics is that in the former "the intentionality of action is central, while in political behaviour the good or bad intention...