In this essay, I offer a vindication of pride. I start by presenting the Christian condemnation of pride as the cardinal sin. I subsequently examine Mandeville’s line of argument whereby pride is beneficial to society, although remaining a vice for the individual. Finally, I focus on, and endorse, the analysis of pride formulated by Hume, for whom pride qualifies instead as a virtue. This is because pride not only contributes to making society flourish but also stabilizes the virtuous agent by (...) creating a virtuous circle between our desire for self-appraisal and our aspiration to act morally. I conclude by underscoring the (virtuous) connection between pride and modesty, concomitantly arguing that humility should be discarded as vicious. (shrink)

The Novohispanic nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz has not been traditionally considered as a philosopher within the Anglophone philosophical sphere because her writings are primarily poems and plays. In the last three decades, only a few philosophers have engaged with Sor Juana's works. However, their scholarship has focused only on a narrow range of issues, such as Sor Juana's defense of the right of women to be educated, and has neglected other dimensions of her thought, such as her (...) position on self-control. In this study, I argue that, in contraposition to traditional interpretations of Sor Juana's views on self-control offered by Octavio Paz and Anna More, it is better to read her as adopting a stance on self‐control that prefigures a position recently adopted by Al Mele (who distinguishes having self‐control from being self‐controlled). In particular, I show that the interpretation that I propose is better than the others I discuss because it fits better Sor Juana's apologetic goals. (shrink)

Hume’s theory of justice, intricately linked to his account of moral development, is at once simplistic and mysterious, combining familiar conventionalistelements with perplexing, complicated elements of his rich moral psychology. These dimensions of his theory make interpreting it no easy task, although many have tried. Emerging from these many different attempts is a picture of Hume as defending an account of justice according to which justice consists of expedient rules designed to advance one’s self-interest. The mistake of this view, I (...) argue, lies in its narrow focus on the material rather than psychological effects of the conventions of justice. My goal here is to isolate the psychological effects of the rules of justice by analyzing the psychological transformation of the parties who morally commit to justice. (shrink)

In including a well-regulated pride among the virtues that are both useful and agreeable to oneself, Hume challenges not only theological, but also secular accounts that view pride as a vice. I examine Hume's evolving views on pride in relation to the secular view that regards pride as vicious. I suggest Hume's account of pride in his later moral philosophy has a new emphasis on dignity, and reflects a distinctively modern outlook on the role of humanity in evaluating virtue and (...) vice. (shrink)

Among those sympathetic to Hume''smoral philosophy, a general consensus hasemerged that his first work on the topic,A Treatise of Human Nature, is his best. Hislater work, An Enquiry Concerning thePrinciples of Morals, is regarded as scaleddown in both scope and ambition. In contrastto this standard view, I argue that Hume''slater work offers a more sophisticated theoryof moral evaluation. I begin by reviewing theTreatise theory of moral evaluation tohighlight the reasons why commentators find socompelling Hume''s account of the corrections wemake to (...) our moral sentiments. The method isendorsed by philosophers such as Henry DavidAiken and Annette C. Baier because, theyallege, it shows that moral sentiments reflecta process of judgment that includes thepossibility of corrigibility and ofjustification. But Hume''s method of correctionfalls short and does not establish why thesentiments conforming to the standard of virtueshould count as moral judgments. In the secondEnquiry, Hume lays out a different set ofcriteria, including not only the need forcertain virtues of good judgment but attentionto the particular cultural and historicalorigins of the norms governing the virtues ofgood judgment. Hume''s attention to diversityin evaluative outlook in his more matureposition takes seriously the relation betweenmoral authority and public debate. (shrink)

In this essay I endeavour to discern a possible foundation for Hume's underlying assumption that human minds are similar to each other. The aim of this is to provide a new approach towards A Treatise of Human Nature that links Books II and III with Hume's epistemological discussion in Book I by providing a detailed analysis of the structural parallels and differences between sympathy and causal reasoning. Against this background, the belief in other minds will turn out to pertain to (...) the class of natural beliefs which draw their legitimacy from Hume's attack on the metaphysical notion of reason. (shrink)