•  227
    How does the Humean sense of duty motivate?
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 34 (3): 383-407. 1996.
    On Hume's account, when we lack virtues that would typically prompt moral action, we can instead be motivated by the "sense of duty." Surprisingly, Hume seems to maintain that, in such cases, we are motivated by a desire to avoid the unpleasantness of "self-hatred" evoked in us when we realize we lack certain traits others possess. This account has led commentators to argue that Hume is not a moral internalist, since motivation by duty is motivation by a self-interested desire. This paper conclu…Read more
  •  212
    Strength of Mind and the Calm and Violent Passions
    Res Philosophica 92 (3): 1-21. 2015.
    Hume’s distinction between the calm and violent passions is one whose boundaries are not entirely clear. However, it is crucial to understanding his motivational theory and to identifying an unusual virtue he calls “strength of mind,” the motivational prevalence of the calm passions over the violent. In this paper, I investigate the boundaries of the calm passions and consider the constitution of strength of mind and why Hume regards it as an admirable trait. These are provocative issues for two…Read more
  •  404
    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 th…Read more
  •  157
    Hume’s Psychology of the Passions: The Literature and Future Directions
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 53 (4): 565-605. 2015.
    in a recent article entitled “Hume on the Passions,” Stephen Buckle opens with the claim that Hume’s theory of the passions has largely been neglected. “Apart from a couple of famous sections in the Treatise concerning the sources of action,” he writes, “the subject matter has rarely excited interest.”1 His analysis of why the subject of the passions in Hume has been uninspiring points to the fact that readers have largely misunderstood the point of Hume’s theory. They usually regard the account…Read more
  •  47
    Carol Jean White, 1946-2000
    Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 74 (5). 2001.
  •  105
    The British Moralists and the Internal 'Ought': 1640-1740 (review)
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 35 (3): 470-472. 1997.
  •  125
    Reasons From The Humean Perspective
    Philosophical Quarterly 62 (249): 777-796. 2012.
    Humeans about practical reasoning have tried to explain how some of our desires are reason‐giving and some are not. On one account, we act from reasons only when we act on desires that cohere in a consistent set. On another account, we act on reasons only when we act on desires that do not undermine our values. Both accounts are problematic. First, the notion of a consistent set of desires is vague and introduces a criterion not necessarily rooted in the agent's own motivations. Second, valuing …Read more