Virtue ethics is currently one of three major approaches in normative ethics. It may, initially, be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach that emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Suppose it is obvious that someone in need should be helped. A utilitarian will point to the fact that the consequences of doing so will maximize well-being, a deontologist to the fact that, in doing (...) so the agent will be acting in accordance with a moral rule such as “Do unto others as you would be done by” and a virtue ethicist to the fact that helping the person would be charitable or benevolent. (shrink)

This paper explores the common ground in the views on natural law, justice and sociopolitical development in Hume and Spinoza. Spinoza develops a radically revisionary position in the natural law debate, building upon the bold equation of right and power. Hume is best interpreted as offering a skeptical–empirical reworking of traditional natural law theories, which maintains much of the practical purport of these theories, while providing it with a new, metaphysically less firm, but also less problematic, foundation. What the two (...) philosophers have in common is that they formulate realist revisions of the natural law tradition in the light of their more general naturalistic, secular philosophical commitments. Both philosophers, moreover, point to the slow development of man’s insight in the laws of nature, arising through a gradual accumulation of experiential insights. These insights are never wholly ‘liberated’ from the historical and imaginative perspective in which they arise. Accordingly, although rational progress brings the systems of justice and politics of different groups of people closer to each other, they necessarily retain, sometimes fundamentally incompatible, divergences. In the tradition of Machiavellian political realism, therefore, both Spinoza and Hume plead for judging political orders according to their own merits: do they, in their own specific ways, bring about a sufficient degree of order and liberty? (shrink)

Hume's moral epistemology, focusing on the elevation of character tratis, requires what in contemporary terms is a narrative structure. The moral significance of an action can only be understood when considered in relation to an agent's past actions, beliefs, intentions, social environment and situation. Three features of Hume's writings support this claim: his accounts of moral evidence, of the object of moral evaluation, and of the value of history. Without recognizing the role of narrative, the standard view of Hume's moral (...) epistemology is incomplete. Recognizing this, Hume's History of England can be read as an exercise of moral evaluation. (shrink)

Hume's explanation of our tendency to confuse calm passions with reason due to lack of feeling appears to present a tension with his claim that we cannot be mistaken about our own impressions. I argue that the calm/violent distinction cannot be understood in terms of presence/absence of feeling. Rather, for Hume the presence or absence of disruption and disordering of natural and/or customary modes of thought is the key distinction between the calm and violent passions. This reading provides new explanations (...) of our confusion of calm passions with reason, and the potential for calm passions to prevail over violent. (shrink)

Contrary to the widespread view that Reid and Hume agree that reason, alone, is inert, I argue that they disagree on this point. Both accept that reason plays a role in forming moral sentiments, and that affections are components of moral evaluations. However, I show that for Reid moral evaluations (comprised of moral judgments and moral affections) are different from moral motives (which are not comprised of affections). Moral motives for Reid are mind‐independent states of affairs that are grasped by (...) reason and do not require affections to influence human beings. Reid hence holds a non‐Humean theory in which reason, alone, is not inert. (shrink)

Most twenty-first century ethicists conceive of character as a stable, enduring state that is internal to the agent who possesses it. This paper argues that writers in the 17th and 18th centuries did not share this conception: as they conceived it, character is fragile and has a social ontology. The paper goes on to show that Hume’s conception of character was more like his contemporaries than like ours. It concludes with a look at the significance of such a conception for (...) current debates about the place of character in ethics. (shrink)

The article analyses the reception of Hume’s moral philosophy in the lectures and manuscripts of Edmund Husserl and in the published lectures of Franz Brentano, on which Husserl originally based his views. I first present the reasons that led Brentano to appreciate Hume’s sentimentalist background in moral philosophy and to criticize Hume’s relativism. I then show how Husserl, following the critique of psychologism in his Logical Investigations, builds on this starting point and attempts to show a possible contradictory nature of (...) Hume’s moral relativism. Finally, I consider whether Hume’s doctrine contains phenomenological insights that Husserl overlooks. (shrink)

The discussion on the relationship between Hume and utilitarianism has been lively for many decades. To contribute to this discussion, I identify four main features of a utilitarian view: a) a consequentialist theory of the right, b) a hedonist theory of the good, c) some kind of impartiality in evaluating consequences, and d) an essentially prescriptive, rather than merely explicative, attitude. I then show that, first, although he borrowed the word ‘utility’ from Hume, Bentham did not consider Hume as a (...) utilitarian and, second, that Hume's ethics does not really endorse any of the four main tenets of utilitarianism, either in the Treatise or in the Enquiry. I thus conclude that, notwithstanding recent interpretations to the contrary, Hume was no utilitarian in any substantial sense. (shrink)