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H obbes, L ocke and the Consequences: S haftesbury's Moral Sense and Political Agitation in Early Eighteenth‐Century E ngland
Author(s) -
MÜLLER PATRICK
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal for eighteenth‐century studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.129
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1754-0208
pISSN - 1754-0194
DOI - 10.1111/1754-0208.12075
Subject(s) - interpretation (philosophy) , politics , moral philosophy , reading (process) , philosophy , epistemology , political philosophy , context (archaeology) , moral reasoning , common sense , sociology , law , history , political science , linguistics , archaeology
This article examines the political (and W hig) agenda behind the earl of S haftesbury's moral and religious thought, offering a reading of the so‐called ‘moral sense’ that, based on T erry E agleton's M arxist interpretation of moral‐sense philosophy in general and S haftesbury's use of the concept in particular, illuminates how far the moral sense serves a propagandistic purpose in S haftesbury's writings. A close examination of this aspect, which has so far not been considered in the relevant literature on S haftesbury, illuminates the anti‐ H obbist and, by implication, anti‐ T ory (and H igh C hurch) tendency of his moral philosophy in the context of L ow C hurch Anglicanism.