Rachel Cohon offers an original interpretation of the ethical thinking of the 18th-century philosopher David Hume. She focuses on two claims: that human beings figure out what is good or evil by using our feelings or emotions, and that some of the good traits we recognize are produced by informal social agreement and teaching.

Covering an important theme in Humean studies, this book focuses on Hume's hugely influential attempt in book three of his Treatise of Human Nature to derive the conclusion that morality is a matter of feeling, not reason, from its link with action. Claiming that Hume's argument contains a fundamental contradiction that has gone unnoticed in modern debate, this fascinating volume contains a refreshing combination of historical-scholarly work and contemporary analysis that seeks to expose this contradiction and therefore provide a significant contribution to current scholarship in the area. Sophie Botros begins by pointing out that a contradiction concerning whether reason can influence action, or is wholly powerless, occurs in the intermediary premiss. She then moves on to draw out the consequences for recent meta-ethics of the failure to acknowledge this contradiction. Finally, highlighting the root of the argument's power in an article of naturalistic dogma, she suggests how it may be possible to restore to our moral concepts their traditional and integral link with both truth and motivation. A significant and thought-provoking addition to this popular field of study, Hume, Reason and Morality is undoubtedly an important resource for moral philosophers interested in meta-ethics and practical reason, as well as Humean scholars.

David Hume is widely recognised as the greatest philosopher to have written in the English language. His Treatise on Human Nature is one of the most important works of moral philosophy ever written. Hume on Morality introduces and assesses * Hume's life and the background of the Treatise * The ideas and text in the Treatise * Hume's continuing importance to philosophy

David Hume is traditionally seen as a devastating critic of religion. He is widely read as an infidel, a critic of the Christian faith, and an attacker of popular forms of worship. His reputation as irreligious is well forged among his readers, and his argument against miracles sits at the heart of the narrative overview of his work that perennially indoctrinates thousands of first-year philosophy students. In Toward a Humean True Religion, Andre Willis succeeds in complicating Hume’s split approach to religion, showing that Hume was not, in fact, dogmatically against religion in all times and places. Hume occupied a “watershed moment,” Willis contends, when old ideas of religion were being replaced by the modern idea of religion as a set of epistemically true but speculative claims. Thus, Willis repositions the relative weight of Hume’s antireligious sentiment, giving significance to the role of both historical and discursive forces instead of simply relying on Hume’s personal animus as its driving force. Willis muses about what a Humean “true religion” might look like and suggests that we think of this as a third way between the classical and modern notions of religion. He argues that the cumulative achievements of Hume’s mild philosophic theism, the aim of his moral rationalism, and the conclusion of his project on the passions provide the best content for this “true religion.”

First Published in 1980. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Recent work at the intersection of moral philosophy and the philosophy of psychology has dealt mostly with Aristotelian virtue ethics. The dearth of scholarship that engages with Hume’s moral philosophy, however, is both noticeable and peculiar. Hume's Moral Philosophy and Contemporary Psychology demonstrates how Hume’s moral philosophy comports with recent work from the empirical sciences and moral psychology. It shows how contemporary work in virtue ethics has much stronger similarities to the metaphysically thin conception of human nature that Hume developed, rather than the metaphysically thick conception of human nature that Aristotle espoused. It also reveals how contemporary work in moral motivation and moral epistemology has strong affinities with themes in Hume’s sympathetic sentimentalism.