My hope is that an understanding of platos rejection of the humean story will illuminate the role platos account of the mind plays in his moral theory. Had plato accepted the humean psychology, his account of the relationship between morality and rationality would have been much like the following. Aug 25, 2018 joshua mays new book regard for reason in the moral mind oxford university press argues, on the contrary, that the scientific research in moral psychology that i cite actually does not sustain humes sentimentalist ethics, because it supports an antihumean rationalism in moral philosophy. Presents novel theories of desire, moral judgment, action, willpower, and the self. Chapter 3 how moral psychology changes moral theory core. The basic phenomenon of moral motivation might be given a more systematic depiction as follows, using p to stand for some person or individual and.
Murdoch argued for an important and distinctive position, in opposition to the mid. Pragmatism in ethics indiana university press, 2003 was the winner of a 2005 choice outstanding academic title award, and focused on developing an adequate philosophical psychology of wise deliberation. Moral skeptics have not found a single case of moral diversity that is resistant to the humean strategy. This chapter argues in favour of the humean theory of motivation as the best account of moral motivation. A contemporary introduction, she covers a wide range of topics, including moral motivation, virtue, wellbeing and responsibility, and she manages both to present competing views fairly and to take a stand on which views she favors.
Mar 30, 2018 in this way, sinhababus book makes significant contributions to the contemporary debate about an impressive range of questions within moral psychology. Moral motivation stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Science a remarkable and original synthesis of social psychology, political analysis, and moral reasoning. I argue that platos psychological theories are motivated by concerns he had about moral theory. Humes moral philosophy stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Humean nature how desire explains action, thought, and feeling neil sinhababu. This book offers a detailed introduction to iris murdochs philosophical work, especially the moral philosophy of the sovereignty of good 1970. An enquiry concerning the principles of morals epm is a book by scottish enlightenment philosopher david hume. Humes moral philosophy and contemporary psychology. I hadnt had extensive reading in ethics other than mills utilitarianism before this book, and reading ruling passions really helped understanding a lot of issues and theories constructed by more recent philosophers as well as the older ones like hume he discusses hume a lot and i began to appreciate humean moral psychology a lot.
Much of her work is centered at the junction of practical philosophy and practical psychology, examining how both disciplines can meaningfully improve lives. A neohumean theory holds that rationality is basically a matter of efficiency in serving ones intrinsic ends or goals, where a persons intrinsic goals are taken as givenor as they would be if the person had more accurate information. Beginning with a treatise of human nature 173940, hume strove to create a naturalistic science of man. Texts cited above and our abbreviations for them are as follows. Terence penelhum, selfidentity and selfregard, the self of book i and the selves of book ii and hume, identity and selfhood, all collected in themes in hume. Wherein the chief argument of that book is farther illustrated and explained 1740. Although david hume 17111776 is commonly known for his philosophical skepticism, and empiricist theory of knowledge, he also made many important contributions to moral philosophy. Sep 24, 1998 i think he raises some convincing thoughts about ethics. This chapter concludes the discussion of book ii as the theoretical foundation for the treatise as a whole. Character education postdoctoral fellow department of engineering. This article explores humean and neohumean theories of practical reason and their relation to morality. These nine original essays examine the moral and philosophical implications of developments in the science of ethics, the growing movement that seeks to use recent empirical findings to answer. A contemporary introduction presents research by philosophers and psychologists on these topics, and addresses the overarching question of how empirical research is or is not relevant to philosophical inquiry.
Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading humean moral pluralism. But then, by the end of the campaign of 2008, obama seemed to pull back to the more narrow moral psychology of the liberal democrat who sees the. In addition, it is an assumption of the humean moral psychology that the explanation of action is in terms of beliefs and desires so understood. Humes ethical thought grapples with questions about the relationship between morality and reason, the role of human emotion in thought and action, the nature of moral. A standard argument in favor of humean externalism appeals to the possibility of amoral or morally cynical agentsagents for whom moral considerations gain no motivational.
But, at the same time, i think it is fair to say that how convincing one finds sinhababus treatment of many of these issues will depend a great deal on ones background philosophical. Tiberiuss work has focused on ethics and moral psychology, with a special interest in applying humean principles to modern philosophical questions. Hume and the ancients uvia guimaraes humes philosophy and its modern british debts stephen buckle the french context of humes philosophy todd ryan humes system of the sciences don garrett ideas and association in humes philosophy saul traiger hume on space and time. Humean article about humean by the free dictionary. Moral pluralism is the view that there are different ultimate moral reasons for action, that those different reasons can sometimes come into conflict with each other, and that there exist no invariable ordering principles that tell us how to resolve such conflicts. Moreover, we have the characteristically humean conception of practical reason as concerned only with the means to antecedently established ends. Download it once and read it on your kindle device, pc, phones or tablets. An enquiry concerning the principles of morals wikipedia. This is the first philosophy textbook in moral psychology, introducing students to a range of philosophical topics and debates such as.
Beautifully written, haidts book shines a new and creative light on moral psychology and presents a provocative message. This book interprets the moral philosophy of david hume, focusing on two areas. David hume 17111776 is widely acknowledged as one of the most important philosophers in the english language, with his work continuing to exert major influence on philosophy today. Abstract an abstract of a treatise of human nature, 1740, reprinted with an introduction by j.
In this book, russ shaferlandau demonstrates that the task remains possible. Kantian and humean moral psychology define terms kantian moral psychology morale flows from the peoples conviction about the righteousness or worth of their actions mad bomber an accident kants project focuses on reason reason is widely found in all human beings only reason. Very briefly, his line is that to make a moral judgment that an action is good is to judge that one would desire. 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. If moral pluralism is true, we will at times have to act on. This is a sixteen page pamphlet, published anonymously as an effort to bring attention to the treatise. New interpretations of historical figures have also contributed to conceptual advances in moral psychology, in a way unparalleled in any other area of philosophy. Department of philosophy university of minnesota 831 heller hall, 271 19th ave. Educated at edinburgh, he lived 173437 in france, where he finished his first philosophical work, a trea. Wilson, university research professor emeritus, harvard university. Humean moral pluralism kindle edition by michael b. Hume is often grouped with john locke, george berkeley, and a handful of others as a british empiricist.
It elucidates the historical origins of the humean pluralist position in the works of david hume, adam smith, and their eighteenthcentury contemporaries. Humes moral philosophy and contemporary psychologynook. I hadnt had extensive reading in ethics other than mills utilitarianism before this book, and reading ruling passions really helped understanding a lot of issues and theories constructed by more recent philosophers as well as the older ones like hume he discusses hume a lot and i began to appreciate humean moral psychology a lot more. The cambridge companion to hume edited by david fate norton october. David hume 7 may 1711 26 april 25 august 1776 was a scottish philosopher, economist, historian and an important figure in the history of western philosophy and the scottish enlightenment. John bricke, professor of philosophy emeritus, university of kansas. Humes moral philosophy and contemporary psychology demonstrates how humes moral philosophy comports with recent work from the empirical sciences and moral psychology.
In book two of the treatise, hume links benevolence to the passion of love and. Contemporary work on moral motivation and the rationality of moral action has broadened its focus to include a wide array of related issues. In a subsequent book the moral problem smith tried to reconcile the humean theory of motivation with moral internalism i. Is emotion or reason at the heart of moral judgment.
Ive also started to collaborate with psychologists on wellbeing in the workplace, wellbeing and personality psychology, wellbeing and genetics, epistemic virtue, and moral and epistemic agency. Humes moral philosophy and contemporary psychology 1st. Over 300 pages or so, he defends an unorthodox combination of claims, including antihumeanism about reasons for action, mindindependent moral realism, moral nonnaturalism, moral rationalism, and reliabilist moral epistemology. Humeanism is often called the beliefdesire model of action because it explains all intentional behaviour including moral behaviour by citing a combination of a desire for some end, and a belief that an action is a means to achieve that end. A humean account, history of philosophy quarterly 7 1990.
Moral psychology published on 01 jan 2007 by brill rodopi. This post is part of my series on humes moral philosophy. To do this, it will be necessary to dip into humes psychology of the passions. This book shows that the combination of these two views produces a more accurate account of our moral experiences than the monistic, rationalist, and nonnaturalist alternatives. In recent decades the central questions of moral psychology have attracted renewed interest. Humes moral philosophy is found primarily in book 3 of the treatise of human nature and his enquiry concerning the principles of morals, although further context and explanation of certain concepts discussed in those works can also be found in his essays moral, political, and literary. Humes moral philosophy and contemporary psychology is an exceptionally interesting and illuminating reflection on humes contributions to moral philosophy and in particular its relations, both methodological and doctrinal, to contemporary cognitive psychology. Kantian and humean moral psychology by tanya mukorera on prezi. Recent work at the intersection of moral philosophy and the philosophy of psychology has dealt mostly with aristotelian virtue ethics. Joshua mays new book regard for reason in the moral mind oxford university press argues, on the contrary, that the scientific research in moral psychology that i cite actually does not sustain humes sentimentalist ethics, because it supports an antihumean rationalism in. Humean reflections in the ethics of bernard williams. Section 4 explores more general considerations about moral motivation and metaethics, while section 5 considers alleged implications for philosophical theories about moral motivation from recent work in empirical psychology.
Elizabeth anscombe tangos with hume in the middle of her march toward the three theses of modern moral philosophy that we should abandon moral philosophy until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology. Humes moral philosophy and contemporary psychologynook book. The series works from the article the foundations of morality in humes treatise by. Valerie tiberius department of philosophy, university of.
Gill offers an original account of humean moral pluralism. In this way, sinhababus book makes significant contributions to the contemporary debate about an impressive range of questions within moral psychology. Humes moral psychology chapter 5 the cambridge companion. Humes moral philosophy is found primarily in book 3 of the treatise of human nature and his enquiry concerning the principles of morals, although further. The book first reinterprets humes claim that moral distinctions are not. Humes main ethical writings are book 3 of his treatise of human nature, of morals which builds on book 2, of the passions, his enquiry. An examination of humes moral psychology 9780198250111. Hare and stuart hampshire, and to existentialists like sartre. In it, hume argues among other things that the foundations of morals lie with.
In particular, plato rejects the modern account of rationality as the maximization of subjectively evaluated selfinterest because, had he adopted such an account, his. Sep 20, 2012 in his book the audacity of hope, obama seemed to have the broader moral palate of a liberal who understood conservative arguments about the need for order and the value of tradition 163. Moral philosophy internet encyclopedia of philosophy. In the first section, i comment on an expectation about handbooks, namely that handbooks contain works representative of a field, and raise concerns about the moral psychology handbook in this regard. Humean theory of practical rationality oxford handbooks. Some of those with humean leanings, for instance, will be untroubled by such a finding, and may indeed find considerable joy in it. His current work sweeps in the wider sphere of human interactions with complex natural and. I think he raises some convincing thoughts about ethics. Humean externalism is the view that moral motivation must be explained in terms of desires that are external to an agents motivationallyinert moral judgments. Moral motivation and the nature of moral properties. Humean nature neil sinhababu oxford university press.
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