David Hume

Paper Summary:

This paper begins with a look at the differences between empiricist and rationalist philosophies and then launches into a summary and analysis of David Hume's "Treatise on Human Nature".

From the Paper:

"Hume argues that he cannot make the hypotheses of the moral rationalists intelligible. Reason, Hume argues, judges either of matters of fact or of relations. Morality never consists in any single matter of fact that can be immediately perceived, or understood by reason alone; morality for rationalists must thus involve the perception of relations. Inanimate objects and animals can bear the same relationship to one another that humans can. However, humans do not draw the same moral conclusions from what objects or animals do as when humans do the same. Even if humans could indeed determine a correct subject-matter for the moral rationalist, the situation would exist that the understanding has no more room to operate, so the praise or blame that follows cannot be the work of reason (Price, 1968, p. 73)."

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