Xiao Qi

This paper examines Francis Hutcheson’s accounts of moral obligation and its relations to virtue and right in his four works on moral philosophy. I argue that Hutcheson derives the "complex moral idea" of moral obligation from one’s reflection on the moral sense’s disposition to approve of certain actions and disapprove of their omission; this reflective origin and dual sensational basis – both approbation and disapprobation – enable him to differentiate moral sense-based judgements about moral obligation from those about virtues. Hutcheson’s early works are ambiguous on the correspondence between moral obligations and rights. I argue that this can be explained by two difficulties confronted by these works: the ambiguity concerning which sensation primarily determines the strength of moral obligation, and the tension between how moral obligation and right are respectively evaluated, namely, one by considering agents’ particular motives and the other by assessing actions’ universalized consequences on the public good. Hutcheson’s later works address these difficulties by acknowledging moral disapprobation as the principal basis of moral obligation and revising his accounts of rights. Moral obligation, on these new accounts, works as a bridge between Hutcheson’s theories of virtue and natural law under the guarantee provided by divine providence.

Hume’s account of obligation has been widely discussed in the literature, but many aspects of his conception of obligation, including its definition, taxonomy, and scope, are still subjects of interpretative controversy. Some scholars read his concept of moral obligation as denoting a determining motive in regard to moral values, while some read it as identical to the approbation of virtue which cannot motivate by itself. I argue against both views in this thesis. The primary concern of Hume’s account of obligation, in my reading, is not with motivation but with accommodating moral obligation in a virtue-centred moral theory. For him, the sentiment of moral obligation is a specific form of disapprobation, and it has different features when felt about ‘natural virtues’ like benevolence and ‘artificial virtues’ like justice. Noteworthily, for justice, considerations about law and obligation precede those about character, which makes justice an anomalous case for Hume’s virtue-centred theory, and he develops an account of the conventional origin of justice to explain its law-regulated features. The idea of obligation, on this account, arises from principles in human nature in a social and historical process but has features in tension with such principles’ natural inclinations. In Chapter 1, I delineate the basic features of Hume’s conception of obligation from both positive and negative perspectives. Chapter 2 discusses his taxonomy of obligation in the light of its relationship to natural law theories. Chapter 3 examines the nature, origin, and scope of the sentiment of moral obligation. Chapter 4 explores how concerns about features of the obligation to justice motivate Hume to propose a distinction between natural and artificial virtues. Then, Chapter 5 discusses how Hume constructs a genealogical account to explain the anomalous features of justice, and Chapter 6 explores whether and how this account can do its job.

Hume claims in the _Treatise_ that all virtuous actions derive their moral merit only from virtuous motives. Many scholars regard this statement as a universal axiom in Hume's moral theory, and others read it as applying to all natural or non-artificial virtues. This paper challenges both of these readings. It argues that Hume does not endorse this statement universally since many virtuous qualities in his catalogue are not characterized by motives, and that he does not need to endorse it given his conception of character and theory of moral sentiment. Moreover, many qualities not characterized by motives can also be classified as natural, according to the distinction between natural and artificial virtues offered in part 3, Book 3 of the _Treatise_. Finally, I propose some alternative interpretations of the proper scope and function of this principle of virtuous motives.