Overview

Description

COURSE DETAILS:

Selected Topics: Hume’s System of Ethics

[Note: this course is to be taught concurrently with PHIL 451W E100.]

Important note regarding enrollment: All seats are reserved for Philosophy Graduate students. Enrollments from other departments will be considered only upon submission of the Graduate Course Add Form, and with instructor's permission. All such enrollments will be done in or after the first week of classes.

 

David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) is widely thought to be the most significant English-language text in the philosophical canon. He embraces there a kind of naturalism by which he investigates the mind using the same experimental methods that had had such success in the science of nature. He thus eschews appeals to the divine and instead grounds all of our fundamental attitudes and beliefs in a human nature that is continuous with animal nature. He covers a wide swath of topics in the Treatise: epistemology and metaphysics in its first Book; the theory of emotions and motivation in its second; and morality and politics in the third. Hume intends to present a unified philosophy, which he says “will acquire new force as it advances,” even if “[m]orality is a subject that interests us above all others” (T 3.1.1.1).

This seminar will be an exploration of Hume’s “system of ethics” (T 3.3.4.1, 3.3.6.1) in the Treatise. In particular, we will focus on Book 2’s account of the passions and its link to Book 3’s treatment of morals, though we will connect both to his rejection of a self-conscious subject in his discussion of personal identity in Book 1 (T 1.4.6).

 

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

Successful completion of this course will satisfy the “History of Philosophy” distribution requirement toward the MA degree for Philosophy graduate students.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: