History
The first prominent moral sense theory (especially using the term "sense") is found in Mencius (372-289BCE). The eponymous text deals with an innate moral sense possessed by all human beings. All orthodox interpretations of Confucianism accept this view, several unorthodox groups make a point of refuting it (see: Xunzi). This line of thinking reached its most extreme iteration in xinxue, a form of Neo-Confucianism associated with the Ming Dynasty and Wang Yangming.
In the west, the first prominent moral sense theory is found in Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713). His major work espousing a form of moral sense theory is An Inquiry Concerning Virtue, or Merit (first published in an unauthorized edition in 1699).
Subsequently, Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746) developed a version of moral sense theory. The chief statements of his theory occur in An Inquiry Concerning the Original of Our Ideas of Virtue or Moral Good (1725; Treatise II of An Inquiry Into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue) and An Essay On the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, With Illustrations Upon the Moral Sense (1728).
Arguably the most prominent defender of moral sense theory in the history of philosophy is David Hume (1711–1776). While he discusses morality in Book 3 of his Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), Hume's most mature, positive account of the moral sense is found in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751).
Adam Smith also advanced a form of moral sense theory in his The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). Smith focused less on a single faculty of the moral sense and more on the various sentiments that make up the moral feelings that ground moral judgments.
The introduction of Herbert Spencer's Social Statics argued on behalf of Moral Sense Theory.
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