The views on race expressed by Hume in a footnote appended to his essay ‘Of National Characters’ seem so egregiously misguided that the suspicion has developed among some commentators that his fundamental philosophical outlook may be inextricably intertwined with a host of deeply pejorative racist assumptions that serve to encourage a pervasive pattern of exploitative and oppressive actions directed against people of colour. This paper, in contrast, argues that predominant thrust of Hume’s account of human nature is towards emphasizing the (...) psychological similarities manifest by all healthy human beings, irrespective of biological sex or alleged racial affiliations: from Hume’s perspective, white Europeans and people of colour are separated by much less than they have in common. It is, moreover, Hume’s acknowledgement of the characteristics that all human beings have in common that motivates his forceful criticisms of the practice of chattel slavery. Basing his judgement on his appreciation of our shared humanity, Hume condemns slavery as a practice that cannot be reconciled with any legitimate set of moral sentiments. (shrink)

This article critically examines the different ways in which American Enlightenment thinkers confronted the future of being white in the early republic as political economists, natural historians, physicians, and anatomists of the mind. Just as philosophes experimented on the nature of blackness in Bordeaux's Royal Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society supported novel approaches to the racial classification of whiteness. An appeal to Scottish Enlightenment racial theories connected the diverging thought of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Stanhope Smith, and (...) Benjamin Rush as prominent members of this society between 1743 and 1826. In doing so, Franklin industrialised the political economy of a ‘purely white’ nation. Jefferson naturalised the language of whiteness. Smith universalised the intellectual and moral cultivation of whiteness. And Rush medicalised an architype of a healthy mind and body as white. This article argues that Scottish philosophy informed radically different ideas about how to become white in the early American republic. (shrink)

Elizabeth Hamilton (1758–1816) has a strikingly egalitarian account of gender in her novels and philosophical writings, where she professes to be offering an account of human nature in general. This paper examines whether she has a similarly egalitarian account of race, and shows that she does not. Hamilton distinguishes between what she calls ‘the Christian nations of Europe’ and non-Christian groups; she clearly assigns different character and mental traits to members of different groups; and she ranks these groups hierarchically. Yet (...) whether or not Hamilton’s views should be described as ‘racist’ requires some attention to the historical context in order to avoid presentism. The paper argues that, although Hamilton’s hierarchical distinctions are not based on a belief about inherent biological differences between groups of people, they nonetheless do fit conceptions of race that were found earlier in the eighteenth century. (shrink)

James Burnett, Lord Monboddo’s (1714–1799) contribution to Scottish Enlightenment thinking on race is regularly held to be twofold. As a Lord of Session, he supposedly defended slavery on Aristotelian grounds, infamously voting against Joseph Knight’s freedom in Knight v. Wedderburn (1778). In his philosophical writings, Monboddo is known for his arguments in favour of the humanity of orangutangs, which scholars have claimed informed both his own views on slavery and also wider apologetics for the trade. At the same time, Monboddo (...) is frequently cited as providing a fulsome defence of the achievements of black Africans against Hume’s footnote in ‘Of Natural Characters’ (added in 1753). The full significance of Monboddo’s counterexample to Hume’s claims, the civilization of black ancient Egypt, has not been adequately understood. In this article I undertake a deep dive into Monboddo’s views on race, slavery, and the black origins of civilization present in his largely ignored six-volume Antient Metaphysics (1779–1799). The arguments that emerge show that Monboddo was not quite the apologist for enslaving black Africans as he is sometimes presented as being, but also that his thought was far from the enlightened Scottish mainstream. (shrink)

Bernard Mandeville’s theory of morality – ‘private vices, public benefits’ – provides a frame for comparing Adam Smith and David Hume on utility. Mandeville held that vice, not virtue, is useful for society. For him, the private and public good do not align. What is bad for individuals is often beneficial for society and vice versa. To counter Mandeville’s rhetoric and show the attractiveness of virtue, Hume places the principle of utility at the center of his An Enquiry concerning the (...) Principles of Morals (1751). This placement directs the reader’s attention away from the lack of alignment between private and public advantage and enables Hume to ‘dress’ moral virtue in utility and pleasure. Smith, by contrast, places the principle of propriety at the center of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). This is because he is closer in spirit to Mandeville than is Hume in acknowledging a gap between the private and public good. By directing the reader’s attention to this gap in Part IV, Smith tries to show, contra Hume, that the principle of propriety, not utility, better explains and defends praiseworthy action and choice in an imperfect world. (shrink)

For Shepherd, how many things exist? On the one hand, it looks like the answer is going to be many. It is a central tent of Shepherd's philosophical system that causation is a relation whereby two or more objects combine to create a third. Since there are many instances of this causal relation, there must be many objects in the world. On the other hand, there are several moments throughout her writing where Shepherd indicates that the distinction between causes and (...) effects is in some sense unreal, and that while the world appears to us to consist of many distinct objects interacting causally, really there is just one thing and its merely nominally distinct parts. I argue that Shepherd is an ontological pluralist, and the texts that appear to express a commitment to ontological monism are best understood as expressing ontological holism instead. (shrink)

Central to the debate on the moral relevance of shame is whether we take others’ assessments of our moral shortcomings seriously. Some argue that viewing shame as a social emotion undermines the moral standing of shame; for a moral agent, what is authoritative are his own moral values, not the mere disapproval of others. Adam Smith's framework sheds some light on the contemporary debates in philosophy on the moral value of shame. Shame is mostly a social emotion but has moral (...) value for Smith. This is because we desire sympathy and share an ongoing social practice of morality with others. Smith developed the underpinnings of an account for a sympathetic basis of shame. An agent is evaluated through the sympathetic process to determine whether he/she has lived up to shared norms and morality. Shame emerges from the understanding that we ought not to be favorably thought of by others, the impartial spectator, or by our own conscience. We want to avoid shame for two reasons: first, we want to receive praise which gives pleasure, blame and blameworthiness operate by giving pain. Secondly, we are pleased with the sympathy of others. According to Smith, shame is a very painful emotion. Given our dread of pain and love of pleasure, we are motivated to be not blamed or blameworthy. We want to be favorably thought of so as not to be, or feel, shamed. Our dread of blameworthiness and our desire for sympathy motivates us to be a person who acts according to the norms and morality of society. Shame has a moral value both as a social emotion and when it arises from our conscience; however, Smith was also aware that there are limits to shame as a moral value, which arises from misjudgments of spectators. (shrink)