SOURCE: Voitle, Robert. “Lord Shaftesbury and Sentimental Morality.” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 263 (1989): 489-91.

In this essay, Voitle considers the factors that contributed to the rationally inclined Shaftesbury becoming an early leader in the movement towards sentimental morality.

How did Lord Shaftesbury, who was not at all pious in the ordinary sense of the word, who was remote and austere in his dealings with mankind, who strove all of his life to achieve a purely rational mode of behaviour, come to be regarded as one of the founders of sentimental morality?

Some modern critics have difficulty interpreting Shaftesbury because they do not realise that the whole nature of his moral statements changes as the audience he is addressing changes. By examining these audiences we can learn something about his real place in intellectual history.

One audience, which comprises most of mankind, is addressed chiefly in his...