biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1694–1746)
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| biography:
| Philosopher, probably born in Drumalig, Co Down, SE Northern Ireland, UK. He studied for the Church at Glasgow (1710–16), but then started a successful private academy in Dublin. In 1729 he became professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow. His main work was published posthumously, A System of Moral Philosophy (1755), in which he argues that moral distinctions are intuited, rather than arrived at by reasoning. His view of ‘the greatest happiness for the greatest number’ in judging an action anticipated utilitarianism. |
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