O Enquiry Concerning The Principles Of Morals example essay topic

David Hume (1711-1776). Edinburgh University: entered at 12; left at 14 or 15. Pressed to study law, but found it distasteful so spent time reading letters. Nervous breakdown in 1729: took several years to recover.

1734: reached turning point in his life, went to France for three years. Treatise of Human Nature (1739); three books. Objects of awareness o All objects are either "impressions", data of sensation or of internal consciousness, or "ideas", which are created by the combination of impressions... Theory of meaning o Word that does not stand directly for an impression has meaning only if it brings an object that can be gathered from an impression before the mind o There are two approaches to explaining meaning: Analytical one: relations of ideas; Empirical one: matters of fact o Only on this level of meanings is the idea of demonstrative knowledge possible.

Matters of fact, however, come before the mind as they are without any logical relations and must be accepted as given. Therefore the contradiction of every fact is possible make any demonstrative science of fact impossible... Was a candidate for the chair of moral philosophy at Edinburgh in 1744. Rumors of atheism caused defeat and forced him to leave Edinburgh. Began a period of wandering... During period of wandering wrote: Three Essays, Moral and Political (1748); Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding (1748); Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751).

Doctrine about causality (relation of cause and effect) o No casual relation among the data of the senses can be observed. When a person regards any events as causally connected, all he does is observe that they frequently and uniformly go together. o Habitual association is established. This association then felt as compulsion. o Claims he is the first to investigate the nature of belief SS Defines belief as more than an idea. It is a vivid or lively idea. SS Believed strongly in natural beliefs: events themselves are causally related, and that they will be related in the future in the same way as they are in the past...

Claimed to prove that natural beliefs are not obtained and cannot be demonstrated by reason... Morality o Views sympathy as the fact of human nature as the basis of all social life o Defines morality as qualities that can be proven in whomever they happen to be and by practically everybody. o Discovers the broadest grounds of approvals in "feelings" not in "knowings" o Moral system aims at the happiness of others and at the happiness of self o Altruism: the moral sentiments that he claims to find in humans, he traces to a sentiment for and a sympathy for one's peers. o Human nature to "laugh with the laughing, and to grieve with the grieved, and to seek the good of others as well as one's own" o Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals: considers major work o Skeptical not of morality but of much of the theorizing about it. Attempt to appoint him to chair of logic at Glasgow failed with rumors of atheism, too... Made keeper of the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh in 1762. o Allowed him to indulge passion for historical writing. SS Political Discourses (1752) SS History of England (1754-1762). Roman Catholic Church placed all his writings on list of forbidden books in 1761...

Became secretary to the British Embassy in Paris under the Earl of Hertford in 1763. Autobiography, The Life of David Hume, Esquire, Written by Himself (1777).