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The early reception of Hume’s theory of justice

James A. Harris

in Philosophy and Religion in Enlightenment Britain: New Case Studies

This chapter describes the earliest responses to Hume’s account of justice, and gives particular attention to the responses of Henry Home (Lord Kames), Adam Smith, and Thomas Reid. Their obvious ... More

This chapter describes the earliest responses to Hume’s account of justice, and gives particular attention to the responses of Henry Home (Lord Kames), Adam Smith, and Thomas Reid. Their obvious differences notwithstanding, these three philosophers share the belief that something important is missing from Hume’s account: the fact that we ordinarily take the demands of justice to be strict and unconditional. The chapter describes the different ways in which Kames, Smith, and Reid seek to capture this aspect of the obligations of justice. While none of them makes appeal to principles of religion in the course of the argument against Hume, the influence of Joseph Butler can be discerned in each of their critiques. This gives reason to doubt that Francis Hutcheson is ‘the father of the Scottish Enlightenment’, or that at this time Scottish philosophy can be clearly differentiated and distinguished from English. It also calls into question whether Smith as a moral philosopher has more in common with Hume than with any other philosopher of the period.Less

Newtonianism, Freethought, and Hume's Scottish Context

Paul Russell

in The Riddle of Hume's Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion

Hume's Treatise has its origins in the distinct climate and environment of Scottish intellectual life. The question arises, therefore, to what extent the main debate concerning religion and ... More

Hume's Treatise has its origins in the distinct climate and environment of Scottish intellectual life. The question arises, therefore, to what extent the main debate concerning religion and atheism—specifically as it concerns Clarke's (Newtonian) philosophy and the “atheism” of Hobbes, Spinoza and their followers—was of any particular significance in Scotland at this time. This chapter shows that these debates and controversies not only had a high profile in Scotland during this period, they were (hotly) debated and discussed in Hume's immediate context in the Borders area throughout the 1720s and 1730s—at the very time Hume was planning the Treatise and laying its foundations. A key figure throughout this period is Andrew Baxter, who was involved in a number of significant controversies with other influential Scottish philosophers at the time, including Kames (Home), Maclaurin, and Dudgeon.Less

Classical Education and the Early American Democratic Style

Joy Connolly

in Classics and National Cultures

This chapter examines classical rhetoric's central role in the formation of early American cultural identity. It surveys classical education in eighteenth‐ and early nineteenth‐century America, ... More

This chapter examines classical rhetoric's central role in the formation of early American cultural identity. It surveys classical education in eighteenth‐ and early nineteenth‐century America, focusing on the way claims about the universalist appeal of eloquence and certain habits of elocution transformed the exemplary tradition of civic republican virtue into a lived stylistics of democracy. Inculcating a personal style of classical ‘simplicity’ and ‘naturalness’, classical rhetoric both reinforced notions of white male superiority and (through its own universalist claims) opened a way for women and people of colour to claim roles in civic life. In concluding, it argues that, like the imperfect or suicidal heroes dear to colonial and revolutionary Americans, rhetoric's status as an ethically and epistemologically suspect discourse reveals the dissonances and compromises resting at the heart of republican culture.Less

“Atheism” and Hume's Early Critics

Paul Russell

in The Riddle of Hume's Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion

Although our own contemporaries are widely agreed that Hume's Treatise was largely unconcerned with problems and issues of religion (i.e. on the general assumption that he removed all such material ... More

Although our own contemporaries are widely agreed that Hume's Treatise was largely unconcerned with problems and issues of religion (i.e. on the general assumption that he removed all such material from the Treatise) his early critics took a very different view. This way of reading Hume's Treatise is especially apparent in A Letter from a Gentleman to his friend at Edinburgh, a pamphlet composed by Hume in 1745 in reply to several accusations made against him when he applied for the chair of moral philosophy at Edinburgh University. Among the most important and fundamental “charges” made against Hume are those of “skepticism” and “atheism.” The nature and character of these charges and Hume's replies reveal the particular relevance and role of the (dogmatic) philosophy of Samuel Clarke in this context—as well as the philosophy of Clarke's prominent Scottish disciple Andrew Baxter.Less

The Coarse and Dry Study of the Law: 1743 — 1774

Jeff Broadwater

in Jefferson, Madison, and the Making of the Constitution

The first chapter examines the early lives and education of Jefferson and Madison. Jefferson attended the College of William and Mary and studied law under George Wythe. He was also influenced by the ... More

The first chapter examines the early lives and education of Jefferson and Madison. Jefferson attended the College of William and Mary and studied law under George Wythe. He was also influenced by the writings of John Locke, Obidiah Hulme, Lord Bolingbroke, Lord Shaftesbury, Francis Hutcheson, and Lord Kames, and developed an essentially optimistic view of human nature. Madison studied under the Presbyterian theologian John Witherspoon at what is today Princeton University. Madison early on became a strong believer in freedom of religion. Meanwhile, Jefferson was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses and produced his first important public paper, A Summary View of the Rights of British America. A Summary View challenged the authority of Parliament in Britain’s American colonies and marked Jefferson’s emergence as a major political figure.Less

Love of Country

Carla J. Mulford

in Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of Empire

Chapter 7 takes up about 1769 to 1775, important years in the evolution of Franklin’s ideas about three matters: that agriculture rather than commerce was the foundation of a nation’s well-being; ... More

Chapter 7 takes up about 1769 to 1775, important years in the evolution of Franklin’s ideas about three matters: that agriculture rather than commerce was the foundation of a nation’s well-being; that constitutional reform was essential to the colonies’ political status as part of the British Empire; and that British North American defense and commerce needed to be free of intervention by Crown, ministry, and Parliament. Franklin’s ideas about the potential self-sufficiency of the colonies developed into a theory that embraced constitutional monarchy. Franklin’s turn against the British Empire reached clear articulation in 1771, after Franklin toured Ireland. In thinking about legal opinions being rendered about British India, Franklin groped toward an opinion regarding British Americans’ original sovereignty over their colonies—thus denying the British nation’s jurisdiction over American lands—and conceived that lands in North America acquired peacefully from the Native peoples there belonged to the new possessors alone.Less

Raising Children With Sensibility

in Abigail and John Adams: The Americanization of Sensibility

This chapter examines how John and Abigail Adams raised their children with sensibility. It describes John's fathering from a distance and Abigail's management of the household with aesthetic and ... More

This chapter examines how John and Abigail Adams raised their children with sensibility. It describes John's fathering from a distance and Abigail's management of the household with aesthetic and financial skills to make the best of consumption. The chapter explains that Abigail's parenting was influenced by the works of Reverend James Fordyce and Lord Kames, and describes her attempt to instill sensibility into her sons.Less

“The Truth of the Origination of the World and Mankind”

Tudor Parfitt

in Hybrid Hate: Jews, Blacks, and the Question of Race

The Judeo-Christian tradition maintains that humankind derives from the first couple in the Garden of Eden. St. Augustine even included the so-called monstrous races in the overall category of ... More

The Judeo-Christian tradition maintains that humankind derives from the first couple in the Garden of Eden. St. Augustine even included the so-called monstrous races in the overall category of humanity. This consensus started to fragment in the sixteenth century with the work of Paracelsus and later Giordano Bruno, when alternative theories were put forward to account for human diversity. Their work was followed by others, including Julius Caesar Vanini, Isaac La Peyrère, John Atkins, Voltaire, François Bernier, Carl Linnaeus, Georges Cuvier, Edward Long, and Lord Kames. For most of them, the black and the Jew were the great obstacles to the unity of mankind.Less