Reason, Grace, and Sentiment: Volume 2, Shaftesbury to Hume
A Study of the Language of Religion and Ethics in England, 1660–1780

Second volume of widely praised study of religion and ethics in the eighteenth century.

Isabel Rivers (Author)

9780521021357, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 October 2005

404 pages
22.8 x 15.1 x 2.4 cm, 0.598 kg

'Will remain essential reading for students of history, theology and literature for many years.' Literature and History

This volume completes Isabel Rivers' widely acclaimed exploration of the relationship between religion and ethics from the mid-seventeenth to the later eighteenth centuries. She investigates the effect of attempts to separate ethics from religion, and to locate the foundation of morals in the constitution of human nature. Focusing on moral philosophy and the educational institutions in which (or in spite of which) these ideas were developed, the book pays close attention to the movement of ideas through the British Isles, in particular the spread of Shaftesbury's thought from England to Ireland and Scotland, and the varied reception of Hume's scepticism north and south of the border. It also demonstrates the enormous influence of Shaftesbury's moral thought and the ultimate triumph of the English interpretation of Shaftesbury with the rise of Butler. Meticulously researched and accessibly written, this volume makes a vital contribution to our understanding of eighteenth-century thought.

Introduction
1. The true religion of nature: the freethinkers and their opponents
2. Shaftesbury and the defence of natural affection
3. Defining the moral faculty: Hutcheson, Butler, and Price
4. The ethics of sentiment and the religious hypothesis: Hume and his critics
5. The conflict of languages in the later eighteenth century.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD]