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Papers by Rachel Cohon

The Philosophical Review, Jul 1, 1993

Synthese, 2020

Why do we have a moral duty to fulfill promises? Hume offers what today is called a practice theo... more Why do we have a moral duty to fulfill promises? Hume offers what today is called a practice theory of the obligation of promises: he explains it by appeal to a social convention. His view has inspired more recent practice theories. All practice theories, including Hume’s, are assumed by contemporary philosophers to have a certain normative structure, in which the obligation to fulfill a promise is warranted or justified by a more fundamental moral purpose that is served by the social practice of promising or adherence to it. Recent practice theories do have this structure, but, I argue, Hume’s own does not. Hume’s account, while it does trace the origin of promises to convention, is instead a causal explanation of the moral sentiments we have toward fulfillment and violation of promises, sentiments he regards as normative in themselves and not susceptible of further warrant. He explains how a collectively-invented social practice becomes (itself) morally obligatory for us to conform to, without deriving its moral authority from a more basic principle. I discuss one objection often made to practice theories that, in its application to Hume, presupposes the incorrect interpretation, and show that while it is telling for Hume’s descendants, for Hume it misses the mark. Instead I make a different challenge to Hume, and suggest how he might meet it.

The Blackwell Guide to Hume's Treatise

Page 1. 14 Hume's Artificial and Natural Virtues Rachel Cohon Hume's analysis of the vi... more Page 1. 14 Hume's Artificial and Natural Virtues Rachel Cohon Hume's analysis of the virtues and vices, which occupies most of Book 3 ... Hobbes and Mandeville see morals as conventional, while Hutcheson, Locke, and others see them as natural. ...

A Companion to Hume

... Here we take up only two of them: why Hume divides the passions into those two groups, direct... more ... Here we take up only two of them: why Hume divides the passions into those two groups, direct and indirect, and (much more briefly) what connection there might be between his treatment of the indirect passions, particularly in the Treatise, and his theory of the moral sentiments ...

This book interprets the moral philosophy of David Hume, focusing on two areas: his metaethics an... more This book interprets the moral philosophy of David Hume, focusing on two areas: his metaethics and the artificial virtues. The book first reinterprets Hume's claim that moral distinctions are not derived from reason and explains why he makes it. It finds that Hume did not actually hold three ‘Humean’ claims: firstly that beliefs alone cannot move us to act, secondly that evaluative propositions cannot be validly inferred from purely factual propositions, or thirdly that moral judgments lack truth value. According to Hume, human beings discern moral virtues and vices by means of feeling or emotion in a way rather like sensing; but this also gives the moral judge a truth-apt idea of a virtue or vice as a felt property. The book then turns to looking at the artificial virtues. Hume says that although many virtues are refinements of natural human tendencies, others (such as honesty) are constructed by social convention to make cooperation possible; and some of these generate paradox...

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2009

... ISBN 978-0-19-926844-3. Rachel Cohon spends the first half of her very fine book carefully co... more ... ISBN 978-0-19-926844-3. Rachel Cohon spends the first half of her very fine book carefully correcting an interpretation of ... only way they can be properly understood, after serious engagement with the moral philosophies of Hobbes and Malebranche, Hutcheson and Mandeville ...

The Philosophical Review, 2021

The Oxford Handbook of Moral Psychology

A sentimentalist theory of morality explains all moral evaluations as manifestations of certain e... more A sentimentalist theory of morality explains all moral evaluations as manifestations of certain emotions, ones that David Hume and Adam Smith, in their related but divergent accounts, call moral sentiments. The two theories have complementary successes and failures in capturing familiar features of the experience of making moral evaluations. Thinking someone courageous or dishonest need not involve having goals or feelings of desire, and Hume’s theory captures that well; but its account of how our moral evaluations are about or directed toward people or actions is deficient. Smith’s theory readily explains how moral sentiments can be about things (and which things they are about), but at the cost of construing some central moral evaluations as goal-directed desires that are simply not like that. Present-day sentimentalists also face the challenge of combining these two desiderata.

British Philosophy and the Age of Enlightenment, 2012

CHAPTER 7 Hume: moral and political philosophy Rosalind Hursthouse *~» INTRODUCTION^^ Hume's... more CHAPTER 7 Hume: moral and political philosophy Rosalind Hursthouse *~» INTRODUCTION^^ Hume's moral and political philosophy, like his epistemology and meta- physics, originally appeared in A Treatise of Hitman Nature, (henceforth [7.1]), Book III of ...

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 1988

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 1993

In order to behave rationally, in one important sense of 'rationally', we must act for reasons; a... more In order to behave rationally, in one important sense of 'rationally', we must act for reasons; and we must not act in one way when there is a preponderance of reasons to act otherwise. Hence, the philosopher of action who is concerned with rational or intelligent action is interested in what general features a consideration must have in order to qualify as a reason. This also matters for important issues in ethics, including the question of what sorts of reasons there are, if any, for people to conform to morality. My topic is intemalism about reasons for action, currently a widely accepted view-perhaps an orthodoxy-about the nature of practical reasons. Internalists state it variously (and nonequivalently, as I shall show). Loosely, it is the view that all reasons for action have their basis in psychological features of the agent that do or can motivate her to do what the reason is a reason for doing. Externalists simply reject this general requirement that all reasons be based on such psychological features. Internalism is attractive because if it is true, then there is a necessary connection between reasons and motivation. Some internalists argue that externalism has a fatal weakness: it leaves room for reasons for action that cannot rationally motivate the person whose reasons they are. Since in order for anything to be a reason to act, it must be possible for someone actually to act for that reason on some occasion, it would seem that considerations that lack the power rationally to motivate the person whose reasons they allegedly are could not be reasons after all. Arguments in support of internalism about reasons for action have mainly taken the form of criticisms of extemalism which point out this supposed weakness. I shall analyze exactly what weakness internalists could plausibly

Questions of Character, 2016

Hume Studies, 1994

L'A. etudie l'interpretation originale de la psychologie morale de Hume developpee par A.... more L'A. etudie l'interpretation originale de la psychologie morale de Hume developpee par A. Baier dans son ouvrage intitule «A Progress of Sentiments». Comparee a l'interpretation classique de Hume, celle de A. Baier a le merite de reconsiderer une partie trop souvent negligee du «Traite de la nature humaine» qui expose la theorie des passions de Hume

Hume Studies, 1997

In Book 111, Part ii of the Treatise Hume makes the following claims about the virtue of equity, ... more In Book 111, Part ii of the Treatise Hume makes the following claims about the virtue of equity, or honesty with respect to property: ... it may be establish'd as an undoubted maxim, that no action can be virtuous, or morallygood, unless there be in human nature some motive to produce it, distinct from the sense of its morality. (T 479)' 'Tis requisite, then, to find some motive to acts of justice and honesty, distinct from our regard to the honesty; and in this lies the great difficulty. (T 480) ... we have no real or universal motive2 for observing the laws of equity, but the very equity and merit of that observance; and as no action can be equitable or meritorious, where it cannot arise from some separate motive, there is here an evident sophistry and reasoning in a circle. Unless, therefore, we will allow, that nature has establish'd a sophistry, and render'd it necessary and unavoidable, we must allow, that the sense of justice and injustice is not deriv'd from nature, but arises artificially, tho' necessarily from education, and human conventions. (T 483) Although our topic is honesty, we should note that later Hume offers an intentionally parallel claim about the virtue of fidelity to promises:

Hume's Morality, 2008

This chapter considers the artificial virtue of fidelity to promises and contracts. The problem w... more This chapter considers the artificial virtue of fidelity to promises and contracts. The problem with fidelity is that if we understand it as a natural rather than a conventionally created virtue, we have to pretend that the obligation of a promise is the result of some mysterious (and indeed impossible) mental act. It is argued that an analysis exactly parallel to the one that allows us to explain what Hume says about honesty explains his remarks about fidelity. It shows why the paradox arises about the ‘peculiar act of the mind’ in the case of fidelity to promises, and how Hume proposes to handle it. The solution emerges from understanding fidelity as another prosthetic virtue whose conventional status is covered up by our tendency to assimilate it to natural virtues.

Hume Studies, 2010

Do the moral sentiments move us to act, according to Hume? And if so, how? Hume famously deploys ... more Do the moral sentiments move us to act, according to Hume? And if so, how? Hume famously deploys the claim that moral evaluations move us to act to show that they are not derived from reason alone. Presumably, moral evaluations move us because (as Hume sees it) they are, or are the product of, moral sentiments. So, it would seem that moral approval and disapproval are or produce motives to action. This raises three interconnected interpretive questions. First, on Hume's account, we are moved to do many virtuous actions not by the sentiments of approval and disapproval, but by other sentiments, such as gratitude and parental love; so when and how do the moral sentiments themselves provide motives to act morally? The second question arises as a result of a position I defend here, that the moral sentiments are best understood as Humean indirect affections. Hume says that the four main indirect passions (pride, humility, love and hatred) do not directly move us to act. The second question, then, is whether their status as indirect affections nonetheless allows moral approval and disapproval to be or provide motives. Finally, if we make a natural assumption about how Hume thinks belief about future pleasure is connected to the desire to obtain it (I call it the signpost assumption), it turns out that the mechanisms for producing motives that most naturally come to mind are ones that are equally available to reason alone. This introduces the third question: given the constraints Hume imposes on the nature of the moral sentiments, is there a way in which they can move us to act that is not also a way in which reason alone does? I argue that, given the signpost assumption, while Hume has greatly constrained his options, his