 But, more interestingly, Hutcheson suggests that the “Dignity, or moral Importance of Persons, may compensate Numbers”. How to understand this passage? One might interpret it as a proto version of a view according to which the moral virtue of individuals is intrinsically significant, the happiness of two people, one of whom is virtuous, the other vicious, are not of equal value. (One might compare this to a form of “luckism” as advocated by, e.g., Richard Arneson [2004].) But Hutcheson explicitly denies this reading one paragraph earlier. He writes: