Abstract

Starting from David Hume's analysis on the notion of justice in his main work on the topic, his 'Treatise of Human Nature', the author sets out, firstly, to comment on Hume's explanation on the notion of justice as a nonarbitrary artifice resulting from men's conventions, and then to outline the value system which determines the theory of justice of the Scottish philosopher. Finally, a criticism is presented on Hume's supposedly "nonarbitrary" conception of justice and the existing link between his empirical deduction and the nominalist explanation of justice.