Hume II: Reason and Feeling in Moral Decision

Abstract

Hume’s difficulty with moral decisions arose out of the notion of decision in contrast with belief and, in part, overlaps with his difficulties about moral judgments as expressions of sentiment. How can reason engage the will? It seemed to him that there is nothing problematic about the idea of reasons engaging the understanding and guiding a man in his assessment of what interests him. By ‘the understanding’ he meant ‘the faculty of knowledge’. There was no doubt in his mind that the capacity to know anything is bound up with the capacity to consider reasons. His sceptical doubts were concerned with the extent and scope of this faculty or capacity. It was not the connection between the notions of reason, truth and knowledge that he found problematic.