Enquiry Concerning the Priniciples of Morals Essays

David Hume was a Scottish philosopher who was largely active in the eighteenth century. While Hume is largely remembered as being part of the empiricist movement that comprised of John Locke and George Berkeley, which largely focussed on the belief that knowledge came from our sensory experiences; this essay will focus on Hume’s work regarding the concept of free will and moral responsibility. It will do this by introducing Hume’s compatibilism and his term ‘the liberty of spontaneity’, in doing so this essay will also explain Hume’s argument against libertarianism. Next, this essay will evaluate Hume’s arguments to determine whether or not possessing the liberty of spontaneity leads to free will.

In this case Hume would argue that it is because it was event A’ and not event A, because if it were event A then event B would have happened, but because event B’ happened then it must be that it was event A’.

PHIL 233 Final Paper In Book II of the Republic, there is a discussion between Glaucon and Socrates on what the definition of justice is. In Book I, the definition of justice was discussed, but a conclusion was never achieved. Book II goes deeper into the meaning of justice, focusing on what category justice belongs to. Glaucon describes a tripartite division of goods: things we desire only for their consequences, things we desire only for their own sake, and things we desire for both their consequences and their own sake. Things we desire for their consequences could include medical treatment, since it is something one would use to avoid further negative consequences of health.

What is justice? In real life, we all look forward to fairness, and do things according to its fairness, but most of us do not have a profound understanding of justice. In the book Justices: What Is The Right Thing To Do? Michael J. Sandel searches and explores the meaning of justices, and he invites all the readers to discuss about many controversies that raised in today’s society. Sandel exams major approaches to define justices from utilitarianism, libertarianism to freedom, and he believes that thinking about justices will engage us to think about the best way to live. There are some topics that encourages the readers to think and develop. Although some choices are difficult, we are not willing to face this kind of dilemma. How are we deal with choices that we made and not regret the decision at the end? I will be analysis strengths and weaknesses of the arguments in the following paragraphs.

On the other hand , Hume does not believe in absolute truth. His principles are based on relative truth which comes

In David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature, he divides the virtues of human beings into two types: natural and artificial. He argues that laws are artificial and a human invention. Therefore, he makes the point that justice is an artificial virtue instead of a natural virtue. He believed that human beings are moral by nature – they were born with some sense of morality and that in order to understand our “moral conceptions,” studying human psychology is the key (Moehler). In this paper, I will argue for Hume’s distinction between the natural and artificial virtues.

The first are innate and arise naturally and are independent of obligation and opinions, whereas the latter are the result of obligation in order to support the necessities of a society. Hume further on explains that the inclinations of our natural duties are not enough to maintain peace and order in a society since everyone is directed by his/her passions, but that experience and observation have shown that an authoritative power is necessary in a society. Thus, the second type of moral duties that are based on obligation and power come into play with the establishment of the

Mill (2003) believes that justice is superior to ‘expediency’ and such moral rules help to foster the peace and preservation of mankind.

Hume’s belief was that there was a distinct difference between ideas and impressions. That impressions are derived from an immediate experiences, they are vivid and forceful. Ideas on the other hand come from these impressions, memories or imaginations. These ideas that were have because they are simply memories are less vivid and less

Hume being a skeptic philosopher doubted basic life aspects that people took for granted. Hume believed that we can never see cause. Hume argues that we only tie one event with another through experience, and we do not truly see the cause of an event. Hume denied the necessity of a cause and argued that it is not necessary for everything that exists in life to have cause and reason to exist in the first place. Hume backed up his argument by the idea of the unexplained objects, and phenomena’s in the universe and their reason of existence. Hume argued that there are many unexplained things in the universe that humans fail to explain how they came to being and their reason of existence, and since humans failed to explain those things then it is not necessary for everything that exists to have a cause. Hume believed that things we take for certain arises only from the comparison of events and the analysis of the relation between events, as one could never know that a ball thrown at a wall would bounce back without previous experience of such an event. In other words, to say that event 1 causes event 2 is to say that based on our experience event 1 always precedes and event 2 usually occurs after event 1. Hume’s argument about causation is very controversial as it disproves arguments about the existence of God, like the cosmological argument which is based on the idea that everything that exists

Hume argues that a miracle is a breach of a law of nature. As I said

Instead, Hume proposes sociological evolution of Natural Law. Since the world changes, and so too do the people and groups living on it, it is only fitting that one looks to history for an understanding of government’s authority. Thus, through sociology, which Hume helped to pioneer, one can more fully understand the right to govern where an incomplete understanding of God or incomprehensive survey of consent fall

In this essay, I will talk about the theory of classical utilitarianism. My objection will be about how classical utilitarianism ignores justice and moral rights, and I will argue how this can undermine the theory. I will then discuss how this theory cannot be saved from this objection.

Wand(1979) expounds on Hume ethical theory in relation to moral obligation is a theory of good and evil rather than one of duty and obligation- , according to Wand (1956:55):”this statement is quite erroneous’ for Hume does not merely wish to discover the foundation of our moral actions”. Hume account of how motives prompt men to moral actions is quite complex, but Wand (1979) also asserts that Hume distinguishes between two basic type of action to make it more understandable. The first type are those action which men will perform without the aid or influence of reason or custom; the second are those action which it can be expected men will normally perform with the aid or influence of reason or custom.

Sometimes it is hard to be sure what conclusion to draw from a Humean analysis, and he is easy to misrepresent. This is partly because one argument he is engaged in may raise a number of related issues that he has dealt with elsewhere, and some of his points seem contradictory. My wish is to consider some of the possible readings of David Hume’s critique of causation, as it appears in Section VII of the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, “On Necessary Connexion”, and their relation to the propositions of Section II, “Of the Origin of Ideas”, and Section X, “On Miracles”. I will offer criticisms and alternatives to Hume’s account(s) and conclude by picking which interpretation of Section