The Elements of Social Order: Hutcheson, Ferguson and Millar

This paper aims to integrate themes taken from Francis Hutcheson, Adam Ferguson and John Millar into a unified normative/explanatory conception of the essential elements of social order. Hutcheson invokes the phenomenon of natural sociability to counter Hobbesian egoism. Ferguson’s Essay on the History of Civil Society identifies the role that natural animosity plays in determining political identity. Taken together, these contrasting natural inclinations provide an interesting and plausible account of the basis and identity of a society. They offer little illumination on the distribution of power and authority within a society, however. This is a topic John Millar addresses in The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks, a work that has not received much attention. It can be drawn on to good effect in supplementing the Scottish philosophical alternative to Hobbes, even if, in the end, the question of political authority remains unanswered.