Hume on Practical Reason

Abstract

Hume’s views about practical reason are often characterized in terms of his “double Humeanism”— i.e. the conjunction of the Humean Theory of Motivation (HTM) and the Humean Theory of Reasons (HTR). But Hume actually endorsed neither the HTM nor the HTR. Instead, the purpose of his discussion of these issues was to attack certain claims about the role of the faculty of reason in the practical domain. As such, Hume’s discussion is part of a far more radical philosophical project than anything in contemporary “Humeanism”: a wholesale assault on the idea that the faculty of reason has any special normative authority in either the theoretical or practical sphere. In this way, it is only by resisting the attribution of the HTM and HTR to Hume that we can see just how deep Hume’s antirationalism extends.