POLS 250 Final: secret slides part 5 final fall lecture.docx

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Political Studies
• Course: POLS 250
• Professor: Colin Farrelly

Document Summary

Pols 250 fall term notes: secret slide part 5 (david hume) Scottish philosopher (influenced utilitarianism (bentham and mill) and conservatism (burke) Doesn"t believe morality is premised on religion. Rejects: claims of natural law, natural rights, social contract (especially locke) Morality and political institutions are premised on the passions (not reason or faith) His account of knowledge is based on sense-experience. Put philosophy on a solid foundation (experience and observation) Example: child falls off her bike, you are moved to help comfort the child. : because laws of nature or a social contract dictates that you help. (hume says no) Sympathy and the passions move us, we feel the childs pain/discomfort. Person who does not help is not being irrational; they just lack the ability to sympathize with the childs suffering. Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions. (treatise of human. Passion supplies the goal (reason directs us by suggesting means for the satisfaction of desires=instrumental.