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The purpose of this paper is to explain Hume’s account of the way both the scope and the degree of benevolent motivation is limited. I argue (i) that Hume consistently affirms, both in the Treatise and in the second Enquiry, that the scope of benevolent motivation is very broad, such that it includes any creature that is conscious and capable of thought, and (ii) that the degree of benevolent motivation is limited, such that a person is naturally inclined to feel benevolence more strongly for one with whom he or she has a ‘connexion’—e.g., a family member or friend.

In this essay, I approach the final, posthumously published version of Hume's Essays, Volume 1, as an artfully shaped whole. While scholars have recognized the importance of the Essays to Hume's career and thought, and individual essays have been well explicated, less attention has been paid to the Essays as a unified work in a particular genre. Eugene Miller notes that the Essays occupied Hume throughout his life, and indeed Hume was adding to them right up to his death.1 And Hume's use of the essay was extensive. Whether or not we accept M. A. Box's argument that the Treatise itself should be understood as an essay, it is clear that Hume thought essays a proper vehicle for a variety of projects: he turned to ..

There are two major puzzles in Hume’s epistemology. The first involves Hume’s fall into despair in the conclusion of Book One of the Treatise. When Hume reflects back upon the results of his research, he becomes so alarmed that he nearly throws his books and papers into the fire. Why did his investigations push him towards such intense skeptical sentiments? What dark discoveries did he make? The second puzzle concerns the way in which Hume emerges from this skeptical crisis and proceeds with his investigations. Why the sudden change of heart? What accounts for the return of hope? Each of these puzzles represents a serious challenge to traditional approaches to Hume’s epistemology. A proper solution to them requires a careful examination of Hume’s claims about the untrustworthiness of our cognitive faculties as well as his strategy for improving their performance.

Most naturalists think that the belief/desire model from Hume is the best framework for making sense of motivation. As Smith has argued, given that the cognitive state (belief) and the conative state (desire) are separate on this model, if a moral judgment is cognitive, it could not also be motivating by itself. So, it looks as though Hume and Humeans cannot hold that moral judgments are states of belief (moral cognitivism) and internally motivating (moral internalism). My chief claim is that the details of Hume’s naturalistic philosophy of mind actually allow for a conjunction of these allegedly incompatible views. This thesis is significant, since readers typically have thought that Hume’s view that motivation is not produced by representations, coupled with his view that moral judgments motivate on their own, imply that moral judgments could never take the form of beliefs about, or representations of, the moral (virtue and vice).

Machine generated contents note: Preface and Acknowledgements * Series Editor's Preface * Notes on the Contributors * A Note on References to Hume and Locke * Introduction; C.Pigden * Expressivism, Motivation Internalism, and Hume; R.Joyce * Is Hume Inconsistent? -- Motivation and Morals; N.Lo * If Not Non-Cognitivism, Then What?; C.Pigden * The Motivation Argument for Non-cognitivism; M.Smith * Experiences of Value; G.Oddie * Hume and the Debate on Motivating Reasons; C.Sandis * Against all Reason: Scepticism about the Instrumental Norm; S.Finlay * Why Internalists about Reasons Should be Humeans about Motivation; K.Hurtig * Humean Sources of Normativity; H.Pauer-Studer * Two Kinds of Normativity; L.Russell * What Kind of Virtue-Theorist is Hume?; C.Swanton * Kinds of Virtue Theorist: A Response to Christine Swanton; A.Baier * Reply to Annette Baier; C.Swanton * Hume on Justice; R.Hursthouse * Consolidated Bibliography * Index Preface and Acknowledgements * Series Editor's Preface * Notes on the Contributors * A Note on References to Hume and Locke * Introduction; C.Pigden * Expressivism, Motivation Internalism, and Hume; R.Joyce * Is Hume Inconsistent? -- Motivation and Morals; N.Lo * If Not Non-Cognitivism, Then What?; C.Pigden * The Motivation Argument for Non-cognitivism; M.Smith * Experiences of Value; G.Oddie * Hume and the Debate on Motivating Reasons; C.Sandis * Against all Reason: Scepticism about the Instrumental Norm; S.Finlay * Why Internalists about Reasons Should be Humeans about Motivation; K.Hurtig * Humean Sources of Normativity; H.Pauer-Studer * Two Kinds of Normativity; L.Russell * What Kind of Virtue-Theorist is Hume?; C.Swanton * Kinds of Virtue Theorist: A Response to Christine Swanton; A.Baier * Reply to Annette Baier; C.Swanton * Hume on Justice; R.Hursthouse * Consolidated Bibliography * Index.

As a metaethicist, I am interested in whether expressivism is true, and thus interested in whether the argument that people think they find in Hume is a sound one. Not being a Hume scholar (but merely a devoted fan), I am less interested in whether Hume really was an expressivist or whether he really did present an argument in its favor. Hume’s metaethical views are very difficult to nail down, and by a careful selection of quotes one can present him as advocating expressivism, or cognitivist subjectivism, or moral skepticism, or a dispositional theory, or an ideal observer theory, or even utilitarianism. It is entirely possible that Hume’s position is indeterminate when considered against these terms of modern moral philosophy; it is also entirely possible that he was hopelessly confused (much as it pains me to admit it). However, I doubt very much that Hume should be interpreted as an expressivist in any straightforward manner, and therefore I am doubtful that he should be interpreted as arguing in its favor. Most of this paper does not discuss Hume directly at all: I critically discuss the motivation argument and I advocate a certain positive metaethical view—one that mixes elements of traditional expressivism with elements of cognitivism. This position is neutral between moral realism and radical moral skepticism. I close by wondering—very briefly— whether Hume might have held such a view. Given my reservations about the determinacy of Hume’s metaethical outlook, the case is not pressed with any vigor, but because it is an interpretation of Hume that has not, so far as I know, been articulated before, it may be of interest to note that it seems to be consistent with much of what he says—at least as much as any other precise interpretation.

This is a book about the continuing influence of Hume's ideas on moral and political philosophy. In part, it is a critical exegesis of Hume's most impressive and challenging doctrines in Book III of the Treatise of Human Nature on such topics as morals, motivation, justice, and social institutions. However, the main thrust of the argument is to throw into relief the importance of that discussion for contemporary philosophy. While the author subjects most contemporary defenses of Humean doctrines to intense criticism, he also seeks to discover what versions of Hume's theories might still be defensible and viable.

We can modify Hume’s Principle in the same manner that George Boolos suggested for modifying Frege’s Basic Law V. This leads to the principle Small Hume. Then, we can show that Small Hume is interderivable with Hume’s Principle.