H obbes, L ocke and the Consequences: S haftesbury's Moral Sense and Political Agitation in Early Eighteenth‐Century E ngland

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.