Human relationships and observations in the development of humanity and moral sentiments in Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith

The Scottish moral philosophers, Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, and Adam Smith, reframe and resolve the early modern period's standard conflict between individual self-interest and the interests of others or the common interest. The alienation of the individual from others was clearly articulated by Hobbes. How we understand ourselves individually and how we get along with others without authoritarian controls is a primary problem in the modern period. Kant's answer to the conflict was to see the individual as an autonomous agent who must if rational see others also as autonomous ends in themselves. Instead of thus isolating individual agency, Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith describe people as essentially interrelated, necessarily involved with each other in order to understand themselves and the world around them. Their claim is not a normative, but an observational one. Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith observe their experiences and the experiences of others and then describe how we come to know ourselves and make moral evaluations. Others, they observe, are not the enemy or the competition, something to overcome. All three of the Scots are clear that relating to others with the help of our instinctual benevolence or sympathy is necessary and basic to our developing humanity and the cultivation of our moral sentiments. They argue that the solitary life is isolating and wretched; that we learn about ourselves in the community of others and that our moral sentiments change and develop in response to our relationships with others.;In this dissertation I follow this theme as it is developed in these three empiricists. I begin with British philosopher, Lord Shaftesbury whose writings on this profound interdependency influenced the three Scots, Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith. I explore not only the theme of interrelatedness and its influence on even the possibility of understanding humanity and developing morality but also the mechanics of how that happens. I also respond to various possible objections to this approach that are subjectivism, relativism, and the possibility of moral stability.