Donald Ainslie

Revered for his contributions to empiricism, skepticism and ethics, David Hume remains one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy. His first and broadest work, A Treatise of Human Nature, comprises three volumes, concerning the understanding, the passions and morals. He develops a naturalist and empiricist program, illustrating that the mind operates through the association of impressions and ideas. This Companion features essays by leading scholars that evaluate the philosophical content of the arguments in Hume's Treatise while considering their historical context. The authors examine Hume's distinctive views on causation, motivation, free will, moral evaluation and the origins of justice, which continue to influence present-day philosophical debate. This collection will prove a valuable resource for students and scholars exploring Hume, British empiricism and modern philosophy.

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