Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury

Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671 to 1713), was one of the most important philosophers of his day and a strong influence on European thought through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He believed that humans are designed to appreciate order and harmony, and that a proper appreciation of order and harmony is the basis of sound judgments about morality, beauty and religion. He was at the forefront of developing the idea of a moral sense, of explaining aesthetic experience, of defending political liberty and tolerance, and of arguing for religious belief on the basis of reason and observation. He drew less attention in the twentieth century, but scholarship on his work has grown markedly since.