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Hume, Reason and Morality: A Legacy of Contradiction (review)

Sophie Botros claims that there is a contradiction in one of Hume's famous arguments for the superiority of his sentimental conception of morality over moral rationalism. The argument, formulated in part 1 of Book 3 of the Treatise of Human Nature, and known in the recent secondary literature as the influence argument, is intended to show that "moral distinctions [are] not derived from reason" because reason is unable to account for the practicality of morality. Botros's main thesis is that the contradiction lies in the second premise of the argument. She claims that Hume gives different formulations of that premiseÂ—"no less than nine" (1) according to the authorÂ—revealing the presence of two contradictory lines in his thought on this topic. On the one hand, Hume holds that reason can, and does, influence action, though only alongside an independent desire; on the other, he holds that reason has no, and couldn't have, any motivational role: reason is a "wholly inactive" and "perfectly inert" (6) faculty. Botros aims to clarify this "universally ignored" (1) contradiction in a way which provides not only a better understanding of Hume's Treatise, but also an adequate schema to evaluate, and eventually solve, many recent meta-ethical debates on moral motivation that have the influence argument's contradiction as their main source of inspiration. I shall concentrate on those parts of the book directly dealing with Hume's work. Botros's strategy is to explore the supposed contradiction by considering the practicality argument "as if there were compressed within its apparent unitary structure" (1) two different arguments, depending on which of the contradictory readings of the second premise is assumed. She argues that locating Hume's discussion in its proper historical context, reveals that Hume had two different targets, the moral rationalists like Clarke and Cudworth and the moral sense theory defended by Francis Hutcheson. This supposedly explains the different formulations of the influence argument. Botros's hypothesis is fascinating, innovative, and she moves comfortably through history of philosophy, moral philosophy, and metaethics. But she starts from a questionable assumption, namely that there are radical differences among the formulations of the so-called second premise of the influence argument, differences so great that the only way to avoid contradiction in Hume's theory of motivation is to suppose that the influence argument is addressed to two different kinds of opponent, that is Francis Hutcheson and the moral rationalists, such as Cudworth and Clarke. However, despite all the arguments