Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Hume defends his sympathy-based moral sentimentalism by claiming that, contrary to moral rationalism, we can never make moral judgments based on reason alone.Reason deals with facts and draws conclusions from them, but, all else being equal, it could not lead us to choose one option over the other; only our sentiments can do this, according to Hume.
Hume discusses the problem in book III, part I, section I of his book, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739): In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that ...
In the first section of the Enquiry, Hume provides a rough introduction to philosophy as a whole. For Hume, philosophy can be split into two general parts: natural philosophy and the philosophy of human nature (or, as he calls it, "moral philosophy"). The latter investigates both actions and thoughts.
However, Hume argues that there is a common mechanism in human nature that gives rise to, and often even provides justification for, such judgments. He takes this aesthetic sense to be quite similar to the moral sense for which he argues in his Book 3 of A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740) and in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of ...
Hume's introduction presents the idea of placing all science and philosophy on a novel foundation: namely, an empirical investigation into human psychology.He begins by acknowledging "that common prejudice against metaphysical reasonings [i.e., any complicated and difficult argumentation]", a prejudice formed in reaction to "the present imperfect condition of the sciences" (including the ...
Moral sense theorists (or sentimentalists), such as David Hume, are the key opponents of moral rationalism.In Book 3 of A Treatise of Human Nature and in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (EPM), Hume argues (among other things) that reason and emotions (or the "passions" as he often calls them) are quite distinct faculties and that the foundations of morality lie in sentiment, not ...
Central to Hume's position in metaethics is the is-ought distinction. It states that is-statements, which concern facts about the natural world, do not imply ought-statements, which are moral or evaluative claims about what should be done or what has value. In philosophy of mind, Hume is well known for his development of the bundle theory of ...
Hume was born on 26 April 1711, as David Home, in a tenement on the north side of Edinburgh's Lawnmarket.He was the second of two sons born to Catherine Home (née Falconer), daughter of Sir David Falconer of Newton, Midlothian and his wife Mary Falconer (née Norvell), [14] and Joseph Home of Chirnside in the County of Berwick, an advocate of Ninewells.