Abstract

David Hume's sentimentalist moral theory, especially as it appears in the Treatise, is often dismissed as a failure. First, his explanation of sympathy, the central principle of the theory, seems to be inconsistent. Second, his assumption that our moral assessments will coincide once the effects of bias are removed seems unsupported. My dissertation shows that these criticisms are unfounded. The Treatise should be read as Hume's attempt to give an explanation of human phenomena, especially morality, without appealing to theistic premises. I argue that the radical re-thinking of the self at the centre of this secularizing project allows Hume to avoid the standard criticisms. ;Hume divides his treatment of the self into two parts. In Chapter 1, I consider Hume's account of personal identity, focussing on his eventual rejection of this account in the "Appendix" to the Treatise; I argue that this rejection springs from his recognition that he has failed to account for the mental activity involved in introspective examination of the mind. In Chapter 2, I examine the second part of the Hume's treatment of the self, his account of the self of the passions. I argue that Hume views the "indirect" passions of pride, humility, love, and hatred, as mechanisms by which we conceive of ourselves as inhabiting distinctive places in the social world. Chapter 3 shows how Hume's two treatments of the self come together in his explanation of sympathy in such a way that the standard criticisms of this explanation no longer apply. ;Noting Hume's repeated claim that the indirect passions accompany the moral sentiments, I argue in Chapter 4 that agreement in our moral responses is presupposed in our ability to identify character traits. They are one of the kinds of features that, by means of the passions, we recognize as making a difference to who someone is. Moral agreement follows from Hume's building the social co-ordination of attitudes into his analysis of the passions. Chapter 5 examines the role of the passions in explaining the national sense that, I argue, is presupposed in Hume's treatment of "artificial" virtues such as justice