Francis Hutcheson, a moral-sense theorist, was born at Drumalig in County Down, Ulster. His father and grandfather were Presbyterian ministers. In 1711 he entered the University of Glasgow, taking both the arts and theological courses and probably finishing in 1717. He was licensed as a probationer preacher by the Ulster Presbyterians in 1719. Not long after, he was invited by the Presbyterians of Dublin to found a dissenting academy for their youth, and he remained in Dublin for the next ten years as head of the academy. His stay there was a turning point in the development of his thought, for he came under the influence of admirers of the Earl of Shaftesbury's philosophy. Hutcheson's first two, and perhaps most important, books were published during this period. The University of Glasgow elected Hutcheson to its professorship of moral philosophy in 1730, a position that he held until his...