Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-qdpjg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-17T12:15:06.347Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Berkeley's Criticisms of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2020

Samuel C. Rickless
Samuel C. Rickless*
Affiliation:
University of California San Diego
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, I attempt to clarify the nature and purpose of Berkeley's criticisms of Shaftesbury's and Hutcheson's ethical systems in the third chapter of Alciphron, explaining the extent to which those criticisms rely on the truth of idealism and considering whether Berkeley or his philosophical opponents have the better of the arguments. In the end, I conclude that some of Berkeley's criticisms are based on confusion and misunderstanding, others are likely contradicted by the empirical evidence, and yet others are unconvincing. At the same time, the criticisms reveal that Berkeley's metaphysical and ethical views are, perhaps surprisingly, significantly intertwined.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 88: Irish Philosophy in the Age of Berkeley , October 2020 , pp. 97 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aristotle, he Complete Works of Aristotle, edited by Jonathan Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).Google Scholar
Berkeley, George, The Works of George Berkeley, Volume 3, edited by Luce, A. A. and Jessop, T. E. (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1950).Google Scholar
Darwall, Stephen, ‘Berkeley's Moral and Political Philosophy’, in The Cambridge Companion to Berkeley, edited by Winkler, Kenneth P. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 311–3810.1017/CCOL0521450330.011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grzelinski, Adam, ‘George Berkeley's Understanding of Beauty and his Polemic with Shaftesbury’, in Berkeley Revisited: Moral, Social and Political Philosophy, edited by Charles, Sébastien (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2015), 209–226.Google Scholar
Kiley Hamlin, J., Wynn, Karen, and Bloom, Paul, ‘Social Evaluation by Preverbal Infants’, Nature 450 (2007), 557–59.10.1038/nature06288CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutcheson, Francis, An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, originally (1726), edited by Leidhold, Wolfgang (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004).Google Scholar
Jaffro, Laurent, ‘Berkeley's Criticism of Berkeley's Moral Theory in Alciphron III’, in Reexamining Berkeley's Philosophy, edited by Daniel, Stephen H. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), 199–213.Google Scholar
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Opera Omnia, vol. 5 (Geneva: de Tournes, 1768).Google Scholar
Olscamp, Paul, The Moral Philosophy of George Berkeley (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969).Google Scholar
Plato, Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997).Google Scholar
Rickless, Samuel C., Berkeley's Argument for Idealism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199669424.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flage, Daniel, ‘Ethics in Alciphron’, in Berkeley Revisited: Moral, Social and Political Philosophy, edited by Charles, Sébastien (Oxford: Voltaire Foundations, 2015), 53–68.Google Scholar
Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, edited by Klein, Lawrence E. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Tomasello, Michael and Vaish, Amrisha, ‘Origins of Human Cooperation and Morality’, Annual Review of Psychology 64 (2013), 231–55.10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143812CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Van de Vondervoort, Julia W. and Kiley Hamlin, J., ‘Evidence for Intuitive Morality: Preverbal Infants Make Sociomoral Evaluations’, Child Development Perspectives 10 (2016), 143–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar