‘Common-sense ethics' refers to the pre-theoretical moral judgments of ordinary people. Moral philosophers have
taken different attitudes towards the pre-theoretical judgments of ordinary people. For some they are the ‘facts'
which any successful moral theory must explain and justify, while for others the point of moral theory is to refine
and improve them. ‘Common Sense ethics' as a specific kind of moral theory was developed in Scotland during the
latter part of the eighteenth century to counter what its proponents saw as the moral scepticism of David Hume.
Thomas Reid, the main figure in this school, and his followers argued that moral knowledge and the motives to
abide by it are within the reach of everyone. They believed that a plurality of basic self-evident moral principles is
revealed by conscience to all mature moral agents. Conscience is an original and natural power of the human
mind and this shows that God meant it to guide our will. A deeply Christian outlook underwrites their theory.
‘Common-sense ethics' refers to the pre-theoretical moral judgments of ordinary people.
Moral philosophers have taken different positions on the significance of such pre-theoretical judgments with
respect to moral theory. Some see our pre-theoretical judgments as the ‘facts' which any successful moral theory
must systematize, explain and/or justify. Others claim that moral theory should improve our common-sense moral
judgments which without theory may be distorted by local prejudices and biases. ‘Common Sense ethics',
however, is a specific type of moral theory, which originated in Scotland during the latter part of the eighteenth
century and the early nineteenth century. Thomas Reid (1785; 1788) originally developed the Common Sense
moral theory in response to what he perceived as David Hume's sceptical attacks on morality. There are two
central features of Hume's moral theory which Reid took to be sceptical. The first is Hume's claim that moral
approval is a matter of sentiment. According to Hume (1739/40), moral approval is a sentiment, a calm form of
love: when we consider persons' characters impartially, sympathy with the persons themselves and those with
whom they usually associate causes us to feel love for their good qualities, and this love is moral approval. Reid
interpreted Hume's claim that approval is a matter of sentiment in a way which anticipated the emotivist analysis
of moral ‘judgments' (see Emotivism; Hume, D. §4). According to Reid, for Hume moral approval and disapproval
are merely expressions of agreeable or disagreeable feelings which are neither true nor false. When I condemn a
person, I am not making a judgment about the person, but am only expressing some uneasy feeling I have.
The second point which Reid found to be sceptical concerns Hume's notorious claim that ‘reason is and ought
only to be the slave of the passions'. Hume argued that, strictly speaking, the idea of rational action makes no sense. Reason helps us to
discern the means to our ends, but it neither selects nor ranks ends. It does not provide us with motives of either
prudence or duty. Reid interpreted this as implying that reason has no say in determining our ends. Reason does
not even help us to form a conception of our ends. Our ends are supplied by brute feelings.
Reid addressed both of these points in his theory of conscience: conscience is an original and natural power of the
mind, common to all human beings. Reid thought this showed that God meant it to guide our wills. It is both an
intellectual and active power. As an intellectual power, it enables us to intuit directly the first principles of
morality. Reid thought that moral reasoning, and indeed all reasoning, must start from self-evident first principles
which we perceive immediately. If we had to figure out the basic principles of morality by a process of
ratiocination, as Locke maintained, morality would not be within the reach of everyone. Since morality is required
of everyone, ‘the knowledge that is necessary for all, must be attainable by all' (1785: 481). But only mature
moral agents, those of ‘ripe understanding', and free of interest, passion and prejudice, are in a position to see the
self-evident moral principles. Moral education is therefore necessary.
Reid did not object to calling conscience a moral sense since he believed that a correct analysis of sensing shows
that it involves judgment and so reason. Hume's mistake, according to Reid, was that he failed to see that approval
is a complex act of the mind with feeling as only one component. Reid insisted that we all know the difference
between feeling and judging. He granted that when I approve of someone, I experience an agreeable feeling, but
claimed that this feeling is different from and dependent upon the prior judgment that the person's conduct merits
esteem. Persuade me that the agent was bribed and both my esteem and agreeable feeling vanish.
Conscience is also an active power. Reid followed Joseph Butler in arguing that there are several distinct sources
of motivation. Reid called the motives which do not presuppose judgment or reason ‘animal' principles of action;
these include our appetites, desires and affections. Those which require the use of reason are, in contrast, rational
principles of action. One rational principle is our overall good. Reid argued that without reasoning we could not
even form a conception of our overall good and, once we arrive at a conception of it, we necessarily seek it. It is a
governing principle, to which our animal principles ought to be subordinated. The other rational principle is duty,
which conscience reveals to us and which motivates us to do our duty for duty's sake. Reid thought that the
concept of duty is simple and refers to a relation between an agent and an action. Conscience's authority, its right
to govern us, is self-evident and superior to that of interest. God's wisdom and benevolence guarantees that no
agent will be a ‘loser' by doing his duty.
Reid believed that there is a plurality of equally fundamental moral truths. Some of these concern the
preconditions and range of moral judgments, for example, that only voluntary acts deserve praise. Others are
substantive self-evident principles and concern our basic duties to ourselves, others and God. Reid's list of
self-evident axioms includes such principles as that we ought to act benevolently towards others, that we should
treat others as we would judge it right for them to treat us, and that we owe God veneration and submission. Reid
addressed an important problem which the earlier rationalists failed to see and his own followers ignored: if there
is a plurality of substantive self-evident moral principles, they may come into conflict. According to Reid, the
virtues, as dispositions to act according to moral principles, support and strengthen one another. But in concrete
instances one principle may direct us to perform an action, while another principle forbids its performance. To use
Reid's example, ‘what generosity solicits, justice may forbid' (1788: 639). Reid thought that in such cases we rely
on self-evident priority rules, for instance, that ‘unmerited generosity should yield to generosity and both to
justice'.
Reid's followers, such as James Beattie and Dugald Stewart (1793; 1828) accepted the main elements of his moral
theory. They agreed that the first principles of morality are self-evident and that there is a plurality of them (see
Stewart, D.). They distinguished among animal and rational principles of action. They shared Reid's belief that
God meant conscience to be our guide and that it is an intellectual and active power of the human mind. On the
whole they were noncritical proponents of the Common Sense moral theory, adding little to it.
Kant's famous reaction to the philosophers of the Common Sense school was a characteristic one. Instead of
answering Hume's sceptical challenge, according to Kant (1783), they merely appealed to the common sense of
humankind, without any proper insight into the question. While this may be true of Reid in his more unguarded
moments and of his disciples more generally, the Common Sense moral theory was influential not only in France
and England but also in the US. By the mid-nineteenth century, William Whewell's version of rational
intuitionism became dominant (1845), overshadowing the Common Sense moral theory.
There is a relation between common-sense ethics and the Common Sense moral philosophers: the Common Sense
moral philosophers trusted the conscience of ordinary people. Philosophical ethics, although useful in bringing
self-evident moral truths to light and systematizing them, has a limited role to play in revising them. If there is a
conflict between ‘the practical rules of morality, which have been received in all ages' and those advanced by
theorists, as Reid says, ‘the practical rules ought to be the standard by which the theory is corrected' (1788: 646).
But the Common Sense moral philosophers' confidence in the judgments of ordinary people sprang from their
conviction that conscience is ‘the candle of the Lord set up within us'. It is grounded in the
belief that God gave us the capacity not only to know what we ought to do but also to do it.
