Hume on Motivation and Virtue

"Contemporary ethical thought owes a great deal to David Hume whose work has inspired non-cognitivists, naturalists and error-theorists and stimulated the rival theories of Kant and contemporary Kantians. This timely volume assembles an distinguished cast of international scholars to discuss three themes from Hume. First, Hume's infamous claim that 'Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions', which seems to suggest that reason can choose between means but not ends; second, the Motivation Argument which purports to prove that 'the rules of morality . . . are not conclusions of our reason'; and third, Hume's treatment of the virtues, which is now the focus of renewed philosophical interest. The contributors discuss these issues and other matters arising from the Humean agenda"--OCLC