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Project

Irreligion and common illusions in Hume's moral Enquiry and the Natural History of Religion.

Against the traditional lines of interpretation highlighting the naturalistic and skeptical aspects of Hume's work, recent literature has offered an alternative focus for reading the Treatise on Human Nature and the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (EHU) as an attempt to show that religious beliefs are deprived of epistemic and moral authority. Less attention has been paid from this angle to Hume's position in his Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (EPM), yet his irreligious attitude with respect to morality persists even after, as, at least in some interpretations, his Natural History of Religion (NHR) shows. The present project proposes to explore Hume's stance with respect to the role of irreligion in the EPM and NHR account of morality. The approach proposed here starts from the question left open in EHU 11.29. I defend the idea that in EPM Hume not only advocates a secular foundation of morality, but also gives a perspective to answer this open question in a positive way: religion can indeed support moral behavior under certain conditions. He could not reach this conclusion based on the normative epistemology developed in EHU. But from the natural-historical approach that he advocates in EPM and NHR, Hume develops a set of socio-anthropological concepts, thereby shifting the focus of the role played by psychological mechanisms in Treatise. If one reads EPM and NHR in this way, the irreligious attitude of Hume can receive a milder interpretation.
Date:1 Oct 2020 →  30 Sep 2023
Keywords:MORALITY, IRRELIGION, SCIENTIFIC METHOD
Disciplines:Historical theory and methodology not elsewhere classified, History of ideas, History of philosophy, Theory and methodology of philosophy not elsewhere classified, Other philosophy, ethics and religious studies not elsewhere classified