Abstract

I MAKE NO APOLOGIES for writing about this well-worn topic. For, although there has been an enormous amount written about the account Hume gives of the nature of moral evaluation, commentators are as far from agreement as ever. My own contribution to the controversy has, if anything, not only added to the variety of opinions but also has increased the general confusion. For this I must accept some responsibility. I have certainly laid myself open to some misinterpretation, and the view I have so far expressed in print may also need some modification. I shall here attempt to clarify what precisely my view now is, and why I prefer it to some alternative views advanced by those who find my interpretation of this aspect of Hume's philosophy unacceptable. II. Since what I want to defend is in all important respects my earlier interpretation of the Treatise, 2 I shall for the most part, though not exclusively, be concerned with what Hume says in this, his early, but major, work.