This chapter turns from France to Scotland and from natural philosophy to moral philosophy. Through an examination of a number of leading Scots moral philosophers, we examine the impact of experimental philosophy on the project of the science of man in the Scotland of the eighteenth century. While it is incorrect to speak a movement of experimental moral philosophy in eighteenth-century Scotland, the impact of this new approach to natural philosophy is evident in its critique of speculation and hypotheses, in the roles that moral philosophers accorded to experiment and observation, in the rudimentary philosophy of experiment found in the writings of David Hume, and in the attempts by Scottish moral philosophers, such as George Turnbull, to apply the method of natural history and to incorporate analogues of physical laws in their theories. This chapter provides us with ample evidence for the claim that experimental philosophy had a decisive impact on the development of Scottish moral philosophy of the eighteenth century.

Although an Anglican bishop, Joseph Butler was the first thinker in the liberal tradition to argue that resentment could be morally justifiable, specifically when it was deliberate and sympathetically experienced on behalf of another person. Contrary to his egoist predecessors and also unlike eighteenth century theorists who took human sociability to be the product of our benevolent natures, Butler believed the resentments we adopted on behalf of those familiar to us were morally good motives for action and indeed the clearest evidence of our common humanity. Butler believed our sympathetic resentment was based on our belief in the equal status of victims, too. And, finally, Butler advanced a limited view of the nature and scope of our political duties, grounded in his moral psychology.

Interest in what has been called a ‘moral sense’ originated in the late 17th century, as part of a philosophical debate about humans’ moral nature. Participants in the debate agreed on rejecting four views of human morality commonly held at the time. They found (1) the Cambridge Platonists’ moral rationalism and (2) Gershom Carmichael’s (and others’) natural law theories of morality too remote from actual processes of moral judgment and decision making; (3) they rejected Thomas Hobbes’ psychological egoism as excessively reductive; and (4) they found moral relativism objectionable on normative grounds, since they were committed to the defence of moral universalism. The article provides an overview over the history of moral sense theories. It briefly presents the versions developed by Thomas Burnet, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Francis Hutcheson, Joseph Butler, and Henry Home Lord Kames, and then provides a brief account of the moral theories by David Hume and Adam Smith who, while adherents of moral sentimentalism, rejected the assumption of a moral sense.