How did Francis Hutcheson anticipate the utilitarian idea of the greatest happiness for the greatest number?

Francis Hutcheson, a significant figure in moral philosophy, anticipated the core tenets of utilitarianism through his ethical theory, which posited that the morality of an action is determined by its tendency to promote the general welfare of mankind.1

Hutcheson argued that humans possess an innate "moral sense" that instinctively approves of actions based on their positive impact on the collective good. By establishing this standard—where the rightness of an act is measured by its contribution to the well-being of the many—he directly foreshadowed the greatest happiness principle later formalized by Jeremy Bentham. Notably, Hutcheson even utilized the specific phrase "the greatest happiness for the greatest number" to describe this moral criterion, laying the conceptual groundwork for what would later be defined as universalistic hedonism.123