On Mark Schroeder's Hypotheticalism: A Critical Notice of Slaves of the Passions

Abstract

In Slaves of the Passions Mark Schroeder puts forward Hypotheticalism, his version of a Humean theory of normative reasons that is capable, so he argues, of avoiding many of the difficulties Humeanism is traditionally vulnerable to. This critical notice first outlines the main argument of the book and then proceeds to highlight some difficulties and challenges. It argues that these challenges show that Schroeder's improvements on traditional Humeanism—while they do succeed in making the view more immune to some argumentative moves and somewhat more plausible—push rather strongly in non-Humean directions. This, together with the remaining failures of Schroeder's Hypotheticalism, should make us more rather than less suspicious of the prospects of Humeanism.