1 History of Ethics Section 2 Some Themes from Hobbes & Hume

2 Thomas Hobbes Defended psychological egoism, together with a contract theory of morality & society.

3 Psychological Egoism & Ethical Egoism Hobbes claimed that everyone pursues nothing but their own self-interest as they understand it (psychological egoism), & also that this is what they have every reason to pursue & thus ought to pursue (ethical egoism). Note that Hobbes’ conclusion about what people ought to pursue is based on his understanding of what they inevitably do pursue.

4 Objections to Psychological Egoism Problems arise from consideration of… problem cases the diversity of human desires the possibility that Hobbes was redefining ‘desire’ & ‘want’.

5 Counter-reply Psychological egoism really applies to the desires of pre-social people whose agreement formed society. But this raises problems, such as how pre-social people could discuss forming a social contract, language being essentially social itself, & how they could understand promises or their binding force before morality was (supposedly) instituted by that contract.

6 Hobbes Derives Oughts From Facts Hobbes reasoned from facts to ‘ought’ conclusions (long before David Hume suggested that this cannot be done). Hobbes’ factual premise is vulnerable, but his reasoning is valid, showing that moving from facts to ‘ought’ conclusions isn’t impossible.

7 David Hume Held that reason is the slave of the passions, & impotent in practical matters. Held that actions considered ‘reasonable’ actually issue from ‘calm passions’. Narrow view of the scope of reason.

8 Implications Hume’s view implies there’s no reasoning about what’s desirable, contrary to the claims of Aristotle about ‘practical reason’. But even the passions turn out to have a logic of their own, & this enables us to reason about when they are in place.

9 Hume on ‘Oughts’ Hume also held that ought-judgements cannot be influenced by reason, just as approval & disapproval cannot be.

10 But… Approval & disapproval also turn out to have their own logic; this means that we can reason about approvals, disapprovals & ‘oughts’. This is borne out by Hume’s own example of our disapproval of Nero’s killing his mother & our non- disapproval of the supposedly parallel case of a sapling killing its parent tree.

11 Consider… Hume’s twin example of Nero and of the sapling tree  Is our disapproval of Nero killing his mother just an emotion in us?

12 Hume & Justice Held that justice promotes the common interest, but only in circumstances of moderate scarcity & restricted trust. Elsewhere, the obligations of justice do not apply. Here Hume anticipates later theories of utilitarianism, but his account of the circumstances of justice is unconvincing.