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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
David Hume's philosophy is notoriously naturalistic. It is an attempt to give an account of man and his world relying only on evidence which can be gleaned from sense observation and introspection. Whatever can be inferred from this evidence is a proper philosophical conclusion.
1 Hume, David, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, ed. Smith, Norman Kemp (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1947), pp. 141–2.Google Scholar
2 Dialogues, p. 215;Google Scholar cf. also pp. 202, 214.
3 All quotations in the preceding three paragraphs, are from Dialogues, p. 227.Google Scholar That Hume has in mind moral qualities in the passage just cited is indicated by Smith in his analysis of the Dialogues (see p. 122).
4 Hume also develops what I would call an a priori argument, and a probability argument. For his a priori argument, see Dialogues, pp. 203–5.Google Scholar For the probability argument, see pp. 205–11.
5 For the remainder of this paper, I will ignore, for purposes of simplicity, the issue of animal happiness.
6 Hume's argument is less formal and less explicit than I have presented it. Premise (6) is only implied by Hume and the conclusion is not stated so forthrightly. However, I think the argument I have presented is quite faithful to Hume (see Dialogues, p. 198).Google Scholar
7 Dialogues, p. 199.Google Scholar
8 This principle is spelled out in greater detail in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1977), pp. 93 f.Google Scholar
9 Dialogues, p. 212.Google Scholar
10 cf. Dialogues, p. 205.Google Scholar
11 An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals [Hereafter, Morals] (Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company, 1983), p. 87; my emphasis.Google Scholar
12 Morals, p. 83.Google Scholar
13 Morals, p. 88.Google Scholar
14 ‘Moral Arguments for Theistic Belief’, in Rationality and Religious Belief, ed. Delaney, Cornelius F. (Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), p. 135.Google Scholar It should be noted that Adams' argument is directed against the notion that God is amoral as well as the notion that He might be evil. It is, I think, particularly forceful against the latter claim.
15 I am grateful to Philip Quinn for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.