Hume Studies

Millican review of The Humean Mind

2025-04-11T15:13:09-04:00

Sheng review of Lenz

2025-04-11T15:13:09-04:00

Laursen review of Paganini

2025-04-11T15:13:09-04:00

Dromelet review of Russell

2025-04-11T15:13:09-04:00

Re-evaluating the Principle of Virtuous Motives: Abilities, Justice, and the Concept of Natural Virtue

2025-04-11T15:13:10-04:00

Hume claims in the Treatise that all virtuous actions derive their moral merit only from virtuous motives. Many scholars regard this statement as a universal axiom in Hume’s moral theory, and others read it as applying to all natural or non-artificial virtues. This paper challenges both of these readings. It argues that Hume does not endorse this statement universally since many virtuous qualities in his catalogue are not characterized by motives, and that he does not need to endorse it given his conception of character and theory of moral sentiment. Moreover, many qualities not characterized by motives can also be classified as natural, according to the distinction between natural and artificial virtues offered in part 3, Book 3 of the Treatise. Finally, I propose some alternative interpretations of the proper scope and function of this principle of virtuous motives.

Hume on Chance, Probability, and Necessity

2025-04-11T15:13:10-04:00

I examine Hume’s account of chance and his account of probabilistic judgment for the light they throw on his theory of causal necessity. A chance event, in Hume’s analysis, is the reciprocal inverse image of a caused event. And an ordinary, full-confidence judgment of causal necessitation is, for Hume, a kind of limit case of probabilistic judgment—a case where our distribution of confidence across the various possible outcomes coalesces into one unique expectation. I argue that both Hume’s treatment of chance and his treatment of probability help to cement the case for the expressivist interpretation of his theory of causal necessity.

Hume’s “New Scene of Thought”: God, Causality, and the Science of Human Nature

2025-04-11T15:13:10-04:00

Hume scholarship has rarely questioned the internal – not necessarily explicit – process of Hume’s thought that led him to “the most violent paradox” that it occurred to him to propose, i.e., the denial of any “objective” causal power. A reappraisal of Hume’s early writings and testimonies suggests that this revolutionary move must be placed at the core of what he later called “a new scene of thought” and that the latter originated in a theological reflection based on a reading of Bayle's works which entailed the reversal of Malebranche’s position on God and causality. Hume’s thesis marks the definitive breaking of the umbilical cord between man and God and opens the way towards an entirely immanent “science of human nature”. Hume’s so-called “empiricism” is thus the consequence, and not the source, of the thought process which would later lead him to write the Treatise.

Three Lingering Concerns for Hume's Bundle Theory of the Human Person

2025-04-11T15:13:10-04:00

Over the years, numerous concerns have been raised for Hume’s positive account of personal identity, his bundle theory of the human person. Some of these concerns are pitched as the very concerns that Hume has in mind when he later backs off from his earlier conclusions in the Appendix. Others are pitched as standalone concerns. In this paper, I focus on the latter. Setting aside the issue of what concerns Hume actually had in mind in the Appendix, I discuss three lingering concerns for his bundle theory of the human person. Many of these concerns have been discussed in the literature in some form or other, but I think each one bears revisiting. Here I package them as The Problem of Reference, The Problem of Persistence, and The Problem of Individuation. I argue that, despite recent attempts by various authors to address or dissolve these concerns for Hume’s account, Hume’s bundle theory of the human person remains, in at least three different ways, either inconsistent with his larger philosophical system or incapable of preserving some of our most important attitudes, expectations, and practices concerning the identity of human persons.