of moral philosophy both for its originality and for its influence on
later moral theories. Hume introduced the term "utility" into our
moral vocabulary, and his theory is the immediate forerunner to the
classic utilitarian views of Bentham and Mill. Hume is famous for the
position that we cannot derive ought from is — that is, the view that
statements of moral obligation cannot simply be deduced from
statements of fact. Some contemporary moral philosophers see Hume as
an early proponent of the metaethical view that moral judgments
principally express our feelings. What is perhaps less well-known is
that Hume's moral theory is the first in modern philosophy to be
completely secular, without reference to God's will, a divine creative
plan, or an afterlife. Hume also directly argues that key moral values
are matters of social convention. These views spawned both praise and
indignation in writings of commentators over the years.
1. Agent, Receiver, and Spectator in Moral Sense Theories
The details of Hume's moral theory hinge on a distinction between
three psychologically distinct players: the moral agent, the receiver,
and the moral spectator. The moral agent is the person who performs an
action, such as stealing a car; the receiver is the person affected by
the conduct, such as the owner of the stolen car; and the moral
spectator is the person who observes and, in this case, disapproves of
the agent's action. This agent-receiver-spectator distinction is the
product of earlier moral sense theories championed by Anthony Ashley
Cooper, better known as the Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), Joseph
Butler (1692-1752), and Francis Hutcheson (1694-1747). Most generally,
moral sense theories maintained that humans have a faculty of moral
perception, similar to our faculties of sensory perception. Just as
our external senses detect qualities in external objects, such as
colours and shapes, so too does our moral faculty detect good and bad
moral qualities in people and actions. The parallel with sense
perception is important since it presupposes two distinct players: an
external thing, such as an apple, and a spectator who perceives a
quality in that thing, such as the colour red. In the case of moral
perception, the two distinct players are the agent who performs an
action, and the spectator who perceives the virtuous conduct within
the agent.
Shaftesbury clearly compares moral judgments with sense perception,
and specifically uses the term "spectator" in reference to the role of
the perceiver: "The Mind, which is Spectator or Auditor of other
Minds, cannot be without its Eye and Ear…" (Inquiry, 1699). In his
second Sermon, Butler also compares a spectator's moral approval to
sense perception. Butler argues further, though, that the
psychological factors that motivate an agent's conduct are not
identical with the psychological factors of the spectator's approval:
"These principles, propensions, or instincts which lead people to do
good [as agents], are approved of by a certain faculty within [as
spectators], quite distinct from these propensions [of the agent]
themselves"(Fifteen Sermons, 1726, 2).
Hutcheson pushes the parallel between sense perception and moral
judgment even further. For Hutcheson, our external senses involve an
object that we perceive, such as an apple, and a mental perception
that we form in response, such as the visual image of the apple.
Similarly, our moral sense involves an object that we perceive,
specifically and agent's benevolent action, and a mental perception in
response, specifically a feeling of pleasure. Like Butler, Hutcheson
drives a wedge between the psychological factors behind an agent's
benevolent motivation and the spectator's sense of approval. We see
this distinction in the following, particularly in items two and
three; we also see in the following that Hutcheson uses the term
"agent" in contrast with the role of the moral observer:
These three Things are to be distinguished, 1. The Idea of the
external Motion, known first by Sense, and its tendency to the
Happiness or Misery of some sensitive Nature, often inferred by
Argument or Reason, which on these Subjects, suggests as invariable
eternal or necessary Truths as any whatsoever. 2. Apprehension or
Opinion of the Affections in the Agent, inferred by our Reason: So far
the Idea of an Action represents something external to the Observer,
really existing whether he had perceived it or not, and having a real
Tendency to certain Ends. 3. The Perception of Approbation or
Disapprobation arising in the Observer, according as the Affections of
the Agent are apprehended kind in their just Degree, or deficient, or
malicious. [Illustrations Upon the Moral Sense, Sect. 4]In addition to
articulating the differing roles of the agent and spectator, Hutcheson
also focuses on the people affected by the agent's conduct. For
convenience, the term "receiver" may be used to pick out the affected
parties. For Hutcheson, our moral sense focuses on how many receivers
are beneficially affected by an agent's conduct. This comes across
clearly in a famous passage in which Hutcheson speaks of "the greatest
Happiness for the Greatest Numbers":
In comparing the moral Qualitys of Actions, in order to regulate our
Election among various Actions propos'd, or to find which of them has
the greatest moral Excellency, we are led by our moral Sense of Virtue
to judge thus; that in equal Degrees of Happiness, expected to proceed
from the Action, the Virtue is in proportion to the Number of Persons
to whom the Happiness shall extend; … so that, that Action is best,
which procures the greatest Happiness for the greatest numbers; and
that, worst, which, in like manner, occasions Misery. [An Inquiry
Concerning Moral Good and Evil, 1725, Sect. 3.8]Hutcheson continues
noting that, when making moral judgments as a spectator, we should
compute the consequences of an agent's conduct upon others.
Within the context of these moral sense theories, Hume developed his
own moral theory, relying on the previously established distinction
between the agent, receiver, and spectator. This distinction continued
after Hume, as we see in Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments
(1759). In describing the process of sympathy in the spectator, Smith
makes the following statement, which implicitly distinguishes between
the roles of the agent, receiver, and spectator:
It is to be observed, however, that, how beneficial soever on the one
hand, or how hurtful soever on the other, the actions or intentions of
the person who acts may have been to the person who is, if I may say
so, acted upon, yet if in the one case there appears to have been no
propriety in the motives of the agent, if we cannot enter into the
affections which influenced his conduct, we have little sympathy with
the gratitude of the person who receives the benefit: or if, in the
other case, there appears to have been no impropriety in the motives
of the agent, if, on the contrary, the affections which influenced his
conduct are such as we must necessarily enter into, we can have no
sort of sympathy with the resentment of the person who suffers.
[Theory of Moral Sentiments, 2.1.3]Adam Smith was perhaps the last of
the great moral theorists directly influenced by the moral sense
tradition. However, later 18th and 19th century commentators on moral
sense theory clearly understood the differing psychological roles of
the agent, receiver, and spectator. For example, John Bruce notes the
agent-spectator distinction with respect to Hutcheson's theory of
morality. According to Bruce, Hutcheson "observed, that virtuous
actions not only afford complacency to the actor, but excite love and
esteem in the spectator, and that vicious actions have opposite
tendencies and effects" (Elements of the Science of Ethics, 1786, pp.
68-69). Reid, in summarising Hume's view of the moral sentiments, also
recognises this division:
As beauty is not a quality of the object, but a certain feeling of the
spectator, so virtue and vice are not qualities in the persons to whom
language ascribes them [i.e., agents], but feelings of the spectator.
[Essays on the Active Powers of Man, 1788, Essay 5.7]In his discussion
of Hume's moral theory, Thomas Brown gives perhaps the clearest
account of the differing roles of the agent and the spectator:
In every moral action that can be estimated by us, these two sets of
feelings may be taken into account; the feelings of the agent when he
meditated and willed the action; and the feelings of the spectator, or
of him who calmly contemplates the action at any distance of space or
time. [Lectures, 1820, Lect. 77]With the distinctions between the
agent, receiver and spectator as background, we can turn to a summary
of Hume's moral theory.
2. Summary of Hume's Moral Theory
Hume's moral theory appears in Book 3 of the Treatise of Human Nature
(1740) and in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751).
In both of these works, his theory involves a chain of events that
begins with the agent's action, which impacts the receiver, which in
turn is observed by the spectator. To begin with the agent, for Hume,
all actions of a moral agent are motivated by character traits,
specifically either virtuous or vicious character traits. For example,
if you donate money to a charity, then your action is motivated by a
virtuous character trait. Hume argues that some virtuous character
traits are instinctive or natural, such as benevolence, and others are
acquired or artificial, such as justice. As an agent, your action will
have an effect on a receiver. For example, if you as the agent give
food to a starving person, then the receiver will experience an
immediately agreeable feeling from your act. Also, the receiver may
see the usefulness of your food donation, insofar as eating food will
improve his health. When considering the usefulness of your food
donation, then, the receiver will receive another agreeable feeling
from your act. Finally, I, as a spectator, observe these agreeable
feelings that the receiver experiences. I, then, will sympathetically
experience agreeable feelings along with the receiver. These
sympathetic feelings of pleasure constitute my moral approval of the
original act of charity that you, the agent, perform. By
sympathetically experiencing this pleasure, I thereby pronounce your
motivating character trait to be a virtue, as opposed to a vice.
Suppose, on the other hand, that you as an agent did something to hurt
the receiver, such as steal his car. I as the spectator would then
sympathetically experience the receiver's pain and thereby pronounce
your motivating character trait to be a vice, as opposed to a virtue.
That, in a nutshell, is Hume's theory. There are, though, some
important details that we should also mention. First, it is tricky to
determine whether an agent's motivating character trait is natural or
artificial, and Hume decides this one virtue at a time. For Hume, the
natural virtues include benevolence, meekness, charity, and
generosity. By contrast, the artificial virtues include justice,
keeping promises, allegiance and chastity. Contrary to what one might
expect, Hume classes the key virtues that are necessary for a
well-ordered state as artificial, and he classes only the more
supererogatory virtues as natural. Hume's critics were quick to point
out this paradox. Second, to spark a feeling of moral approval, the
spectator does not have to actually witness the effect of an agent's
action upon a receiver. The spectator might simply hear about it, or
the spectator might even simply invent an entire scenario and think
about the possible effects of hypothetical actions.
Third, although the agent, receiver, and spectator have
psychologically distinct roles, in some situations a single person may
perform more than one of these roles. For example, if I as an agent
donate to charity, as a spectator to my own action I can also
sympathise with the effect of my donation on the receiver. Finally,
given various combinations of spectators and recipients, Hume
concludes that there are four irreducible categories of qualities that
exhaustively constitute moral virtue: (1) qualities useful to others,
which include benevolence, meekness, charity, justice, fidelity and
veracity; (2) qualities useful to oneself, which include industry,
perseverance, and patience; (3) qualities immediately agreeable to
others, which include wit, eloquence and cleanliness; and (4)
qualities immediately agreeable to oneself, which include good humour,
self-esteem and pride. For Hume, most morally significant actions seem
to fall into more than one of these categories.
3. Hume's Moral Theory in the Treatise
The first and most detailed account of Hume's moral theory is in Book
3 of the Treatise, titled "Of Morals." This Book itself is in three
parts, the first of which wrestles with the nature of a spectator's
moral approval. Hume begins Part 1 considering whether moral
distinctions are derived from reason. Specifically the question
concerns whether our moral approval is (a) a rational judgment about
conceptual relations and facts, or (b) an emotional response. Hume
believes that it is an emotional response. To make his case he
criticises Samuel Clarke's rationalistic account of morality, which is
that we rationally judge the fitness or unfitness of our actions in
reference to eternal moral relations. Hume presents several arguments
against Clarke's view, the most famous of which is an argument from
arboreal parricide: a young tree that overgrows and kills its parent
exhibits the same alleged relations as a human child killing his
parent; if morality is a question of relations, then the young tree is
immoral, which is absurd. Hume also argues that moral assessments are
not judgments about empirical facts; for any immoral action that we
examine, we will never find a fact that we call "vice". In this
context Hume makes his point that we cannot deduce statements of
obligation from statements of fact. Since moral approval is not a
judgment of reason, Hume concludes that it must be an emotional
response. Specifically, a spectator's moral approval is a type of
pleasure that we experience when considering an agent's qualities.
Based on his theory of the passions in Book 2 of the Treatise, Hume
explains that this pleasure produces additional feelings of love or
pride within the spectator.
In Part 2, Hume examines the nature of justice and injustice. He
begins arguing that justice is an artificial virtue. For Hume, virtues
are the motives that lead to an agent's action. By examining what
motivates us to act in certain ways, we can thereby determine the
nature of a virtue, specifically whether it is natural or artificial.
As to the nature of justice — particularly justice relating to
property ownership — Hume considers some possible natural motivations
for justice, such as self-love, public interest, and private
benevolence. For various reasons these all fail as explanations and
Hume concludes that our sense of justice is not naturally grounded,
but artificially derived from education and human convention. Like
Hobbes and Pufendorf, Hume describes how our sense of justice emerges
within primitive societies and develops within more advanced
societies. Hume argues that we depend on society to survive and, being
motivated by self-love, we want to advance society. To this end, we
train ourselves to respect each other's acquired possessions and to
view the stability of possessions as a necessary means of keeping
society intact. Slowly, this gives us a sense of common interest, a
regard for rules, and a sense of confidence in the consistent
behaviour of others. This process, then, is the basis of justice as
well as the notions of property, right, and obligation. Hume notes
that single acts of justice are commonly contrary to public good;
however, our experiences tell us that the public good is served when
we follow justice as a rule.
Hume continues in Part 2 by describing how more complex social rules
and institutions develop from our initial sense of justice. The three
main rules of justice that emerge are those of the stability of
possessions, transference by consent, and performances of promises.
Although these rules are inventions, Hume follows the vocabulary of
the natural law tradition and refers to these as laws of nature.
Governments emerge as tools to both protect us in our agreements and
to force us to make some agreements for our common end. Just as we
invent the rules of justice to help serve our desire to live in a
peaceful society, we also invent the civil duties that constitute
political allegiance as well as the international laws of diplomacy.
Paralleling the obligations of international law, Hume notes how
women's obligations of chastity emerged. To justify the labour
involved in supporting a family, men must believe that their children
are their own. To assure this, society imposes rules of chastity on
women, and, once established, we rigidly apply the rules even for
women past child-bearing age.
In Part 3, Hume discusses the components of natural virtues. Hume
implies that purely natural virtues are those that (a) are not
artificially instilled in the agent, and (b) are naturally approved of
by the spectator. However, he notes that all virtues have the second
of these natural components, including artificial virtues such as
justice. That is, a spectator is naturally predisposed to
sympathetically approve of any course of action that is useful or
agreeable to the receiver. From the spectator's standpoint, the only
difference between natural and artificial virtues is that every act
arising from natural virtues may bring about a spectator's sympathetic
pleasure. By contrast, acts arising from artificial virtues bring
about sympathetic pleasure only to the extent that they reflect a
general scheme of advantageous action. Hume continues by describing
how we sympathetically approve of all virtues because of either their
utility or their immediate agreeableness. He focuses particularly on
self-esteem, generosity, and love. He argues that natural abilities,
such as genius, wit, and cleanliness, are also virtues since they are
either useful or immediately agreeable.
4. Hume's Moral Theory in the Moral Enquiry
All three volumes of Hume's Treatise sold poorly. In his
autobiography, Hume writes that "I had always entertained a notion,
that my want of success in publishing the Treatise of Human Nature,
had proceeded more from the manner than the matter, and that I had
been guilty of a very usual indiscretion, in going to the press too
early." Hume began composing his moral Enquiry in 1749, with the
intention of presenting his theory of morality more informally. The
work was published shortly after in 1751 and, in his autobiography, he
gives his opinion of the work:
In the same year was published at London, my Enquiry concerning the
Principles of Morals; which, in my own opinion (who ought not to judge
on that subject), is of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or
literary, incomparably the best. It came unnoticed and unobserved into
the world.Keeping with the emphasis on informality, the work draws
heavily on classic literature for examples, and it minimises technical
psychological distinctions. Within the moral Enquiry itself, Hume
explains the reason for his non-technical approach:
Throughout this enquiry, we always consider in general, what qualities
are a subject of praise or of censure, without entering into all the
minute differences of sentiment, which they excite. … These sciences
are but too apt to appear abstract to common readers, even with all
the precautions which we can take to clear them from superfluous
speculations, and bring them down to every capacity. [Moral Enquiry,
Appendix 4, note]The lack of technical psychological distinctions is
perhaps the single feature of the moral Enquiry that differentiates it
from Book 3 of the Treatise. The detailed psychological discussions of
the Treatise focused on two themes: (1) the moral agent's
psychological motivations to act, and (2) the moral spectator's
sentiments of approval or disapproval. With these components
minimised, the unifying and dominating theme in the moral Enquiry is
that virtue consists of qualities useful and agreeable to oneself and
others.
Section One: Of the General Principles of Morals. Hume argues that a
spectator's moral approval is a feeling, similar to an aesthetic
feeling, and not an act of reason, like a mathematical inference.
Also, Hume says that he will draw is conclusions about moral virtue by
generalising from particular observations.Section Two: Of Benevolence.
Hume argues that (1) moral spectators approve of benevolence, and (2)
benevolence is approved of because it has utility.
Section Three: Of Justice. Hume argues that (1) justice is approved of
because it has utility, and, (2) justice is artificial and not
natural.
Section Four: Of Political Society. Hume argues that political
allegiance and chastity are approved of because of utility.
Section Five: Why Utility Pleases. Hume argues that a spectator
morally approves of useful actions, such as charitable ones, because
of the spectator's ability to sympathise.
Section Six: Of Qualities Useful to Ourselves. Hume lists various
actions (or virtues) of an agent that are useful to the agent himself,
such as industry, perseverance and patience. In the 1751 edition, Part
2 of this section contained a controversial passage describing the
qualities of "those we call good Women's Men."
Section Seven: Of Qualities Immediately Agreeable to Ourselves. Hume
lists various actions (or virtues) of an agent that are immediately
agreeable to the agent himself, such as self-esteem and pride.
Section Eight: Of Qualities Immediately Agreeable to Others. Hume
lists various actions (or virtues) of an agent that are immediately
agreeable to everyone, such as wit, eloquence and cleanliness.
Section Nine: Conclusion. Hume draws his conclusion that all actions
of an agent, which the spectator morally approves of, are useful or
agreeable. He also argues that his theory of utility and agreeableness
is an easy moral theory to follow.
Appendix One: Concerning Moral Sentiment. Hume argues more strongly
that a spectator's moral approval is a feeling of pleasure, and not a
rational judgment about relations of ideas or matters of fact. This
appendix was originally the first of only two appendices.
Appendix Two: Of Self-Love. Hume argues against Hobbes, showing that
we do not approve of benevolence because of self-interest. This
appendix was added in the 1777 edition, the material from that was
taken from Section 2, Part 1.
Appendix Three: Some Farther Considerations with regard to Justice.
Hume notes some differences between artificial virtues such as
justice, and natural virtues such as benevolence. This appendix was
originally the second of only two appendices.
Appendix Four: Of Some Verbal Disputes. Critics of Hume's theory have
argued that talents, such as wit, should not be included among virtues
such as charity. Hume responds that all virtues are on equal footing
since all produce the same type of pleasure (or moral approval) in the
spectator. This appendix was added in the 1764 edition, the material
from which came from Section 6, Part 1.
A Dialogue. In this fictitious dialogue between a narrator and his
cosmopolitan friend, Palamedes, Palamedes discusses moral customs of
foreign countries that run contrary to the narrator's moral customs.
Palamedes argues that "fashion, vogue, custom, and law [are] the chief
foundation of all moral determinations."
5. Overview of the Early Responses
The early responses to Hume's moral theory cover a wide range of
issues within his theory. Few if any commentators wrote on Hume's
theory merely for the sake of elucidating Hume's views in and of
themselves. Instead, they analysed and critiqued his theory with an
eye towards defending their own visions of morality. By and large, the
more interesting responses are those that boldly put forward their
vision, even when portraying Hume somewhat inaccurately. The early
responses to Hume's moral theory, then, mirror the history of British
moral theory during the 18th and 19th centuries. These theories
variously focus on moral concepts including eternal fitness, God's
will, moral sense, selfishness, common sense, utilitarianism,
intuition, and evolution.
The very first written response to Hume's moral theory was probably a
letter written to Hume by Francis Hutcheson in reaction to Hume's
manuscript draft of Book 3. Hutcheson's letter does not survive, but
from Hume's letter of reply, which does survive, we can make out three
distinct criticisms. First, Hutcheson argued that Hume's theory "wants
a certain Warmth in the Cause of Virtue"; that is, Hume's analysis was
too technical. Second, Hutcheson challenged Hume's position that
justice is artificial. Instead, Hutcheson suggested that justice is
natural in the sense that it serves a human purpose or end. Third,
Hutcheson criticised Hume for classifying many qualities of an agent
as virtues which, instead, should be classified as natural abilities,
such as wit.
After Book 3 of the Treatise appeared in 1740, few published responses
followed. The review from the French journal Bibliothèque Raisonnée
(1741) focused on comparing Hume's theory with earlier ones,
particularly with Hutcheson's moral sense theory and Hobbes's account
of justice. We also find a brief critique of Hume's moral theory in
"Specimen of the Principles concerning Religion and Morality,"
commonly thought to be written by clergyman William Wishart (d. 1752),
and included in Hume's pamphlet A Letter from a Gentleman to his
Friend in Edinburgh (1745). In this piece Wishart charges Hume
With sapping the Foundations of Morality, by denying the natural and
essential Difference betwixt Right and Wrong, Good and Evil, Justice
and Injustice; making the Difference only artificial, and to arise
from human Conventions and Compacts…Regular responses appeared to
Hume's moral theory after the publication of the moral Enquiry in
1751. The first of these was William Rose's review in the Monthly
Review. A key concern for Rose was whether Hume's moral theory
displayed the scepticism of his earlier writings. According to Rose,
it is "free from that sceptical turn which appears in his other
pieces." However, respondents shortly after took a different view and
argued that Hume's theory was dangerous and risked undermining
morality. A common criticism was that our perception of morality is
far more than simply a spectator's feelings of approval. Following
Clarke, critics commonly argued that morality involves rationally
grasping immutable and eternal moral laws. They argued further that,
contrary to Hume, we have a natural sense of justice, and that Hume
classifies too many qualities as virtues. These remained the principle
criticisms of Hume's moral theory for a half century.
Several early critics also linked Hume's theory with that of Henry
Home, Lord Kames, and discussed the two together. Critic George
Anderson, in particular, attempted to have Hume and Kames
excommunicated. Other notable critics were James Balfour, John Leland,
and James Beattie who all criticised Hume for the same reason, namely,
the wide scope of the virtues in Hume's theory. Amidst the negative
attacks, in A Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) Adam Smith praised
Hume's view of utility. In A Fragment on Government (1776), Jeremy
Bentham explains that, when reading Hume's account of utility in the
Treatise "I felt as if scales had fallen from my eyes." Hume's account
inspired Bentham's own conception of utility, which appeared in The
Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789).
The most significant turning point in the early reception of Hume's
moral theory came with the publication of William Paley's Principles
of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785). In this work Paley openly
endorses utility as the criterion of moral evaluation. Unlike
Bentham's endorsement of utility, which went virtually unnoticed for
decades, Paley's Principles was widely read and his conservative
theology made Hume's initial theory seem less dangerous. After Paley,
most early commentators on Hume's theory discussed Hume in the context
of Paley and other advocates of utility, including Samual Johnson,
William Godwin, and later Bentham and Mill. Criticisms against Hume's
theory were often criticisms about the utility approach in general. A
major exception to this new genera of critics is Thomas Reid who, in
his Essays on the Active Powers of Man (1788), presents the lengthiest
sustained criticism of Hume's moral theory that would appear for the
next 100 years.
After Paley, discussions of Hume regularly appeared in textbooks by
philosophy professors, typically based on their lecture notes. Some
nonprofessional philosophers published essays in moral philosophy in
which Hume figures prominently. And, during the second half of the
19th century, several lengthy books appeared on the history of
philosophy or ethics, which contain substantial entries on Hume.
Regardless of the format, the authors all felt strongly about Hume one
way or another. Some writers harshly criticised Hume for religious or
methodological reasons, such as John Bruce, Thomas Brown, Daniel
Dewar, Dugald Stewart, John Abercrombie, and James McCosh. Others
found some merit in Hume's views of utility, but argued that Hume
failed to acknowledge the importance of divine punishment, or
emphasised benevolence too much, or ignored the larger flow of social
development. Still some voiced strong support for Hume, such as Robert
Blakey, Thomas Belsham, and Ernest Albee, and Henry Sidgwick.
Other noteworthy 19th century discussions of Hume are these. James
Mackintosh's The Progress of Ethical Philosophy (1836) contains a
brief section on Hume, which is devoted to Hume's life and writings,
with a few unsystematic comments on parts of Hume's moral Enquiry.
William Whewell's Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy
(1852-1862) contains a two page tangential comment about Hume in the
context of two chapters on Paley and his critics. T.H. Green's 400
page introduction to Hume's Treatise in the edition of Hume's Works
(1874), edited by Green and Thomas Grose, contains a 70 page critical
discussion of Hume's moral theory. Green's discussion is the most
detailed and sustained analysis since Reid's Essays on the Active
Powers of Man (1788). Chapter 11 of Thomas Huxley's Hume (1879),
titled of "The Principles of Morals," contains excerpts from the moral
Enquiry with little commentary. William Knight's Hume (1886) includes
a chapter on Hume's moral theory with detailed discussions of each
section of the moral Enquiry. James Hylsop's Hume's Treatise of Morals
(1894), an edition of Treatise Book 3, contains a 50 page introduction
with little detailed analysis. It is worth noting that Henry
Calderwood's David Hume (1898) contains no discussion of Hume's moral
theory.
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