Pedro Faria | UFMG - The Federal University of Minas Gerais (original) (raw)
Book Reviews by Pedro Faria
Drafts by Pedro Faria
Esta comunicação, apresentada no V Encontro Hume em Florianópolis (2015), pretende expor parte da... more Esta comunicação, apresentada no V Encontro Hume em Florianópolis (2015), pretende expor parte da psicologia econômica que sustenta o argumento que Hume elabora sobre o desenvolvimento das manufaturas nas sociedades comerciais nos primeiros dois ensaios dos Discursos Políticos (1752). Para isso, tenho recurso a três seções do livro II do Tratado da Natureza Humana que versam sobre os efeitos do costume, a origem das paixões violentas e a curiosidade. O texto conclui mostrando o o surgimento de um hábito de trabalho industrioso, parte dos costumes característicos de sociedades comerciais, que e é fonte de prazer e felicidade.
In this paper, read at the West Coast Hume Workshop 2016 in San Francisco-CA, I try to discuss th... more In this paper, read at the West Coast Hume Workshop 2016 in San Francisco-CA, I try to discuss the import of the changes in Hume's moral philosophy between the Treatise of Human Nature to the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals to his political economy. I argue that in the second Enquiry, Hume adopts a more historical method of enquiry on the origin of morality. This emphasis means that he has to provide an account of the social settings that sustain the kind of moral sentiments he understands as the origin of morals. This is a task he does not undertake in the Enquiry, but which we can observe in a careful reading of the Political Discourses. [Manuscript, please do not quote]
Thesis Chapters by Pedro Faria
This thesis analyzes the relation between David Hume’s (1711-1776) Enquiry concerning the Princi... more This thesis analyzes the relation between David Hume’s (1711-1776) Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1751) and the Political Discourses (1752). In its three chapters, I argue that the relation between these works reflect a concern with the necessity of understanding the diversity of historical forms of social organization – their economic, political and social institutions and practices, understood as part of the “manners” or “spirit of the age” – and their consequences on moral practice. More precisely, this thesis provides an interpretation of the Enquiry as an “open-ended” work, that is, as a work that discovers the foundations of morality (i.e. what the moral sentiment is) through the study of historical moral practices, but that admits that different moral practices do not make this sentiment flourish equally; each society’s economic, political and social practices and institutions shape its moral practice, the sentiment that predominates in its moral distinctions, and the personal qualities that are approved or disapproved of. In this sense, the preference for one or another historical moral practice – or in terms of its present practical consequences, the decision to emulate a past moral practice or to defend one’s present practice – depends on the study of the practices and institutions that are part of the manners of each society, so that the moral philosopher can discover whether the moral sentiment can flourish or not under those circumstances. I argue that the Political Discourses provide the kind of historical approach to the relation between political, economic and social practices and institutions and the moral practices that the moral philosophy of the Enquiry calls for, discussing how that relation existed in agrarian (feudal and ancient) and modern commercial societies, thus answering in what historical circumstances the moral sentiment flourished. I conclude that the historical approach of the Enquiry and Political Discourses forms the basis for Hume’s defense of modern commercial societies against the critiques made by thinkers who wished to return to a classical form of moral, social, political and economic organization.
Conference Presentations by Pedro Faria
Esta comunicação, apresentada no V Encontro Hume em Florianópolis (2015), pretende expor parte da... more Esta comunicação, apresentada no V Encontro Hume em Florianópolis (2015), pretende expor parte da psicologia econômica que sustenta o argumento que Hume elabora sobre o desenvolvimento das manufaturas nas sociedades comerciais nos primeiros dois ensaios dos Discursos Políticos (1752). Para isso, tenho recurso a três seções do livro II do Tratado da Natureza Humana que versam sobre os efeitos do costume, a origem das paixões violentas e a curiosidade. O texto conclui mostrando o o surgimento de um hábito de trabalho industrioso, parte dos costumes característicos de sociedades comerciais, que e é fonte de prazer e felicidade.
In this paper, read at the West Coast Hume Workshop 2016 in San Francisco-CA, I try to discuss th... more In this paper, read at the West Coast Hume Workshop 2016 in San Francisco-CA, I try to discuss the import of the changes in Hume's moral philosophy between the Treatise of Human Nature to the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals to his political economy. I argue that in the second Enquiry, Hume adopts a more historical method of enquiry on the origin of morality. This emphasis means that he has to provide an account of the social settings that sustain the kind of moral sentiments he understands as the origin of morals. This is a task he does not undertake in the Enquiry, but which we can observe in a careful reading of the Political Discourses. [Manuscript, please do not quote]
This thesis analyzes the relation between David Hume’s (1711-1776) Enquiry concerning the Princi... more This thesis analyzes the relation between David Hume’s (1711-1776) Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1751) and the Political Discourses (1752). In its three chapters, I argue that the relation between these works reflect a concern with the necessity of understanding the diversity of historical forms of social organization – their economic, political and social institutions and practices, understood as part of the “manners” or “spirit of the age” – and their consequences on moral practice. More precisely, this thesis provides an interpretation of the Enquiry as an “open-ended” work, that is, as a work that discovers the foundations of morality (i.e. what the moral sentiment is) through the study of historical moral practices, but that admits that different moral practices do not make this sentiment flourish equally; each society’s economic, political and social practices and institutions shape its moral practice, the sentiment that predominates in its moral distinctions, and the personal qualities that are approved or disapproved of. In this sense, the preference for one or another historical moral practice – or in terms of its present practical consequences, the decision to emulate a past moral practice or to defend one’s present practice – depends on the study of the practices and institutions that are part of the manners of each society, so that the moral philosopher can discover whether the moral sentiment can flourish or not under those circumstances. I argue that the Political Discourses provide the kind of historical approach to the relation between political, economic and social practices and institutions and the moral practices that the moral philosophy of the Enquiry calls for, discussing how that relation existed in agrarian (feudal and ancient) and modern commercial societies, thus answering in what historical circumstances the moral sentiment flourished. I conclude that the historical approach of the Enquiry and Political Discourses forms the basis for Hume’s defense of modern commercial societies against the critiques made by thinkers who wished to return to a classical form of moral, social, political and economic organization.