David Hume On Natural Sociability And Justice

This thesis argues that David Hume offered a unique solution to one of the central issues of British moral and political thought in the eighteenth century,the problem of natural sociability.Hume's argument involved a complete re-shaping of the pervasive but also evasive term “self-love”,broadening its theoretical contents to include enjoyments from spiritual sources.Through his central philosophical mechanism of self-formation expounded in Book II of Treatise,Hume dissolved the tension between the common “selfish” side and the “sociable” side of the sociability debate.I continue to argue that Hume's construction of justice should also be read in this light,and what seems to a purely Mandevillian story at face value turns out to be an ambitious undertaking to base political allegiance,and the working of government,on a new empirical foundation.The upshot of Hume's theory of natural sociability and justice,therefore,is a turning point in the history of early modern British political thought that moves politics away from the transcendental sacredness of natural law,towards the empirical foundations of politics as a “science”.This particular reading of Hume does not defy his historiographical figure as standing between Hutcheson and Mandeville,but offers an image of him that is much more complicated than a simple synthesis.The contribution is not only a Hume re-forged,but also a deepened understanding of the complexity of British moral and political thought in the eighteenth century.