The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, the SPG was established in 1701 in order to send the missionaries converting the American heathen. The Missionaries tried to instruct the black slaves in the plantations, however, their masters were against the SPG. The planters thought that the slaves were their property and feared that the baptism would make the slaves free. The SPG insisted that baptism did not make any alteration in civil property and that after being Christians, the slaves would be more obedient to their masters. Although the Church of England admitted the slavery, it is important that they promoted the instruction in the Christian faith for the slaves in the eighteenth century.

John Rawls is famous for his Kantian conception of justice, and also well known for reviving the significance of Henry Sidgwick's ethical thought in contemporary ethics. Rawls praises Sidgwick partly because Sidgwick attempted to justify a Method of Ethics by appealing to its ʻreflective equilibriumʼ with our considered judgments. However, this interpretation of Sidgwick by Rawls has been criticized by some utilitarians such as Peter Singer. I argue that, against his wish, Singer rather supports Rawlsʼs interpretation of Sidgwick as a reflective-equilibrium-theorist. Furthermore, I defend Rawlsʼs reflective-equilibrium methodology by pointing out his conception of justification behind it and by showing Singerʼs inappropriate conception of objectivity in ethics.

Adam Smithʼs concept of fellow-feeling can be divided into two types: sensibility for others and affective feeling with others. This paper focuses on the former and explores its characteristics. Fellow-feeling as sensibility for others is not only the kind of beneficence that is part of humanity but also the sense of what is owed to fellow-creatures. For Smith, this is the basis of public welfare. Although Smith thinks this sensibility is a universal feeling in principle, it could be felt strongly among those who share common sensibilities and inclinations, namely, by his definition, countrymen. This implies that Smithʼs concept of justice, which depends on countrymenʼs fellow-feeling, could be practically formed and maintained in each country.

It is well known that Bentham outlined his theory of private ethics in An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation（1789）and developed it in a more detailed way in a later work titled Deontology. However, both questions -----ʻWhy did he address the problem of private ethics again in the early 1810s?ʼ and ʻWhat brought about some conspicuous differences between the moral theory expounded in An Introduction and that expounded in Deontology?ʼ -----have so far received insufficient attention. This paper is an attempt to answer these questions by clarifying the impact of Benthamʼs discovery of ʻsinister interestʼ and ʻdelusionʼ on his theory of private ethics. It concludes that both Deontology and A Table of the Springs of Action are the works in which his developed theory of private ethics are embodied.

The aim of this paper is to present John Lockeʼs arguments in the Two Treatises of Government as a comprehensive response to Robert Filmerʼs vehement criticism of the contract theory. Filmer argues that contract theory neither works in theory nor in practice, and so is, as such, a theory of anarchy. Partly accepting these criticisms, Locke constructs a contract theory such that Filmerʼs attacks lose their theoretical sting, that is, an individualistic contract theory which rejects the stigmatization of anarchy. However, Lockeʼs reconstruction is based on the theological foundations which we cannot reasonably share today. Acknowledgement of this fact, in turn, enables us to appreciate the contemporary significance of both Locke and Filmer.

The aim of this article is to formulate the purely semantic structure of representation treated in Hobbesʼs Leviathan. While the political covenant developed in The Elements of Law and De Cive is characterized by several features as the consent and unity for the purpose of achieving peace and safety, the exercise of the right of nature by the sovereign, and the performance of covenant by subjects, the theory of representation in Leviathan introduces new aspects as authorization, the sovereignʼs right of representing each one of a multitude, the ownership of all the actions of the sovereign by subjects, and serves to strengthen Hobbesʼ s claim. The structure of representation is founded on semantic union of signifiant and signifié, or représentant and représenté, of which the ensemble of a chain of representations is composed.

In the end of the book 1 of Treatise of Human Nature, Hume confronts what he calls a 'very dangerous dilemma' concerning reason and imagination, which eventually leads him to deep philosophical melancholy and delirium. The aim of this paper is to elucidate the structure and implication of this dilemma by finding a clear connection between Humeʼs explanations of belief formations by means of two kinds of ʻgeneral rulesʼ on the one hand, and his sceptical arguments, namely with regard to reason and senses, which he presents in the final part of the book 1 on the other.