休謨是契約論者嗎？對高提也的＂David Hume, Contractarian＂之批判性反思

Abstract

There is a trend that forms lately in the study of David Hume's political thought, namely an increasing number of scholars now regard Hume's theory of justice as founded on the idea of social contract. This view deviates from Hume's conventional image which proposed significant criticism of social contract theory. To evaluate this interpretive perspective, this article focuses on David Gauthier's ＂David Hume, Contractarian＂. Gauthier's essay has two implications. First, Gauthier argues that whereas Hume's theory of justice is founded on a principle of utility, utility for Hume does not reveal the general welfare of society as what utilitarianism defends, but mutual advantage compatible with a contractarian account of morality. Second, Gauthier emphasizes the conservative tendency of Hume's political thought, and he rejects that there is a concern for distributive justice in it. This article argues that, unlike Gauthier's view, Hume thinks that human nature may not be reduced to the psychology of selfishness. On the contrary, men's natural sociability and sympathy are crucial to Hume's theory of justice. Moreover, if Gauthier took Hume's economic essays more seriously, he would have found Hume's criticism of slavery and oppressions. On that account, it seems not fair to depict Hume as a conservative indifferent to social inequality.