Reid's Non-Humean Theory of Moral Motives

2018 ◽  
Vol 99 ◽  
pp. 205-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther Engels Kroeker
Keyword(s):  
Humean Theory

Freeing Reason from Desire

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua May
Keyword(s):  
Neurological Disorders ◽  
Normative Beliefs ◽  
Humean Theory

The previous chapter showed that our beliefs about which actions we ought to perform frequently have an effect on what we do. But Humean theories, holding that all motivation has its source in desire, insist on connecting such beliefs with an antecedent motive. However, reason needn’t be a slave to the passions. We can allow moral (or normative) beliefs a more independent role to generate intrinsic desires by developing an anti-Humeanism (distinct from internalism) that is empirically sound. Since an anti-Humean theory provides perfectly ordinary and intelligible explanations of actions, Humeans have a burden to justify a more restrictive account. However, they cannot discharge this burden on empirical grounds, whether by appealing to research on neurological disorders (acquired sociopathy, Parkinson’s, and Tourette’s), the psychological properties of desire, or the scientific virtue of parsimony.

scholarly journals A DEFENSE OF HUMEAN PROPERTY THEORY

Legal Theory ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Ira K. Lindsay
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Social Cooperation ◽  
Scarce Resources ◽  
Moral Claims ◽  
Humean Theory

ABSTRACT Two rival approaches to property rights dominate contemporary political philosophy: Lockean natural rights and egalitarian theories of distributive justice. This article defends a third approach, which can be traced to the work of David Hume. Unlike Lockean rights, Humean property rights are not grounded in pre-institutional moral entitlements. In contrast to the egalitarian approach, which begins with highly abstract principles of distributive justice, Humean theory starts with simple property conventions and shows how more complex institutions can be justified against a background of settled property rights. Property rights allow people to coordinate their use of scarce resources. For property rules to serve this function effectively, certain questions must be considered settled. Treating existing property entitlements as having prima facie validity facilitates cooperation between people who disagree about distributive justice. Lockean and egalitarian theories endorse moral claims that threaten to unsettle property conventions and undermine social cooperation.

scholarly journals No Abiding City: Hume, Naturalism, and Toleration

Philosophy ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Clark
Keyword(s):  
Political Regime ◽  
Attractive Alternative ◽  
Natural Religion ◽  
Political Drama ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
Naturalistic Account ◽  
Humean Theory ◽  
Explicit Discussion

AbstractThis paper rereads David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion as dramatising a distinctive, naturalistic account of toleration. I have two purposes in mind: first, to complete and ground Hume's fragmentary explicit discussion of toleration; second, to unearth a potentially attractive alternative to more recent, Rawlsian approaches to toleration. To make my case, I connect Dialogues and the problem of toleration to the wider themes of naturalism, scepticism and their relation in Hume's thought, before developing a new interpretation of Dialogues part 12 as political drama. Finally, I develop the Humean theory of toleration I have discovered by comparison between Rawls's and Hume's strategies for justification of a tolerant political regime.

Cambridge Philosophers VI: Henry Sidgwick

Philosophy ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 71 (277) ◽  
pp. 423-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Philosophy Department ◽  
Henry Sidgwick ◽  
Local Opposition ◽  
Humean Theory

The philosophy department in Edinburgh is in David Hume tower; the philosophy faculty at Cambridge is in Sidgwick Avenue. In one way, no competition. Everybody (who's anybody) has heard of Hume, whereas even the anybody who's anybody may not have heard of Sidgwick. Yet in another way, Sidgwick wins this arcane contest. For if David Hume, contradicting the Humean theory of personal identity, were to return to Edinburgh, he would not recognize the tower. Whereas, if someone with more success in rearousing spirits than Sidgwick himself had could now produce him, Sidgwick would know the avenue. For he planned it; he partially paid for it; and he pushed it past the local opposition. He was its creator. And creator not just of the avenue: if Sidgwick is not quite the only begetter, it was he more than anyone who was responsible for building the school of philosophy in Cambridge which is being celebrated in this series of articles.

A Humean Theory of Distributive Justice for a New Century

1998 ◽  
pp. 266-272
Author(s):  
Sheldon Wein
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Market Economies ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activities ◽  
Humean Theory

This paper suggests a strategy for constructing a contemporary Humean theory of distributive justice which would serve to ground what I call an entrepreneurial welfare state. It is argued that blending David Hume's insights about the origins and purposes of justice with Ronald Dworkin's insurance-based reasoning supporting his equality of resources model of distributive justice will yield a state which, as a matter of justice, encourages its members to engage in entrepreneurial activities and which protects them from the worst extremes of market economies.

scholarly journals Blame and the Humean Theory of Motivation

Philosophia ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 1345-1364
Author(s):  
Adam R. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Humean Theory Of Motivation ◽  
Humean Theory ◽  
Theory Of Motivation
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