University of Kansas, Fall 2003
Philosophy 672: History of Ethics
Ben Eggleston—eggleston@ku.edu
Assignment—Hume
Your assignment is either to take the test on Hume’s A Treatise of Human
Nature or to write a paper on that book. Note that, by the
end of the semester, you must have taken tests on two of the four books in the
course, and written papers on the other two.
You are welcome, though, to complete both of these assignments: to take the
test and to write the paper. Then I’ll grade both of them and count whichever
grade will help your overall grade more. This would be a good thing to do if
you are nervous about either assignment and want a risk-free way of doing it and
seeing what grade you would get. Here are the two
options for Hume’s Treatise.
I. Test
The test will be given in class on Wednesday, October 15, and will consist
of 110 or 120 points’ worth of the following questions. You will be asked to
select 100 points’ worth of questions and to answer them. (Please bring a blue
book or some blank paper on which to write your answers.) I’ve numbered them in
the following way so that questions 1–12 correspond to the twelve questions
labeled “possible test questions” in my lecture notes.
- (20 points:) Why, according to Hume, is reason incapable of motivating?
(In answering this question, identify the two kinds of reasoning Hume
countenances and indicate what role, short of actual motivation, Hume allows
that reasoning of these two kinds can play in deliberation that leads to
action.)
- (10 points:) Hume is known for denying the irrationality of certain
preferences that are often thought to be paradigms of irrationality. What are
two of Hume’s three notorious claims about not-irrational preferences?
- (10 points:) What explanation does Hume give of the prevalence of the
belief that reason is capable of opposing the passions?
- (20 points:) How does Hume’s claim that reason cannot determine how we act
provide support for his claim that morality is not based on reason?
- (20 points:) What, according to Hume, makes something virtuous?
- (20 points:) Why, according to Hume, is justice an artificial virtue, not
a natural one?
- (10 points:) What are the circumstances that, according to Hume, make
justice useful?
- (10 points:) What point is Hume making in identifying five different rules
or criteria that are often used in order to decide how property rights are to
be distributed?
- (10 points:) What inconvenience does Hume say is remedied by the custom of
allowing property to be transferred by consent?
- (20 points:) What are Hume’s two arguments for the claim that promising is not
naturally intelligible, but is intelligible only as a matter of convention?
- (10 points:) What are two of the “contradictions” that “are easily accounted for, if
the obligation of promises be merely a human invention for the convenience of
society” (3.2.5.13)?
- (10 points:) What are two of Hume’s three “farther reflections concerning justice and
injustice” (3.2.6)? What conclusion are all three of these “farther
reflections” intended, by Hume, to prove?
- (10 points:) What feature of human nature does Hume say mainly creates the need for a
government? How does a government remedy this weakness in human nature?
- (20 points:) What widespread belief about the source of allegiance to government does
Hume aim to disprove?
- (10 points:) What reasoning does Hume say is the right explanation for the fact that
the duty of allegiance ceases when government becomes tyrannical?
- (10 points:) How, according to Hume, are the criteria for whom to obey partly logical,
and partly arbitrary?
- (20 points:) What, according to Hume, explains the fact that people are more tolerant
of violations of the laws of nations than they are of violations of rules
having to do with respecting property rights and keeping promises?
- (10 points:) What is Hume’s explanation for the fact that chastity and modesty are
valued in regard to women more than in regard to men?
- (20 points:) How, according to Hume, does sympathy enable certain character traits to
be virtues and vices?
- (20 points:) One of Hume’s claims is that sympathy enables certain character traits to
be virtues and vices. How does Hume’s invocation of the idea of a “steady
and general poin[t] of view” enable him to reply to two objections that
might be made to this claim?
- (10 points:) How, according to Hume, does his account of morality render not just
virtue, but also the sense of virtue, worthy of approval?
II. Paper
The paper option is to write a paper
of not more than 6 pages (double-spaced, 12-point type) on either (1) one of the
following topics or (2) some other topic that you would like to propose to me
(in which case, just let me know, and we can discuss it). Your paper will be due
in class on Friday, October 17.
-
Question 13, above, plus: Is Hume’s minimalist conception of the faculty of
reason defensible? What are the pros and cons of conceiving of the faculty
of reason in this minimalist way? Do the pros outweigh the cons?
-
Question 14, above, plus: What reasoning for these claims can be found,
explicitly or implicitly, in Hume’s text? Does this reasoning vindicate
these claims? Why or why not?
-
Question 18, above (to be answered in a more comprehensive, detailed, and
text-grounded way, of course)
-
Question 1, above, plus: Is Hume’s account correct? Or is promising
naturally intelligible even according to Hume’s own criteria for whether
something is naturally intelligible or not?
-
Question 4, above, plus: Is Hume’s account of the creation of government
coherent? That is, if humans are flawed enough to need government, how are
they not so flawed that they are incapable of instituting government?
-
Questions 10 and 11, above (to be answered in a more comprehensive,
detailed, and text-grounded way, of course, and in a unified way)
In writing your paper you are
welcome to use resources beyond those used in class, but you do not need to do so. For additional suggestions about writing philosophy papers generally, see my “Guidelines
for Writing a Philosophy Paper.”