Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Hume's Sentimentalism: Not Non-Cognitivism
Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Philosophy.
2021 (English)In: Belgrade Philosophical Annual, ISSN 0353-3891, E-ISSN 2956-0357, Vol. 1, no 34, p. 95-111Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This paper considers and argues against old and recent readings of Hume according to which his account of moral judgement is non-cognitivist. In previous discussions of this topic, crucial metaethical distinctions—between sentimentalism and non-cognitivism and between psychological and semantic non-cognitivism—are often blurred. The paper aims to remedy this and argues that making the appropriate metaethical distinctions undermines alleged support for non-cognitivist interpretations of Hume. The paper focuses in particular on Hume’s so-called ‘motivation argument’ and argues that it is a poor basis for non-cognitivist interpretations. While there is textual support for attributing to Hume what may be called ‘modally weak’ motivational internalism, there is no solid textual support for attributing to him either psychological or semantic non-cognitivism. The paper also challenges briefly some further alleged support for non-cognitivist interpretations. It concludes by offering some positive evidence against such interpretations, namely that Hume appears to hold that there are moral beliefs and moral knowledge.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2021. Vol. 1, no 34, p. 95-111
Keywords [en]
cognitivism, Hume, internalism, motivation, non-cognitivism
National Category
Philosophy
Research subject
Practical Philosophy
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-195455DOI: 10.5937/BPA2134095OOAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-195455DiVA, id: diva2:1585850
Funder
Swedish Research Council, Swedish Research C2019–02828)Available from: 2021-08-18 Created: 2021-08-18 Last updated: 2026-04-20Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(226 kB)266 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 226 kBChecksum SHA-512
a231e748c16686d37727461dd596e1057518a6f7db1e11bfb06998eac69981a622f39350cbfcb7cf2dae08ddc95b4c5337670c330954852c9b65048e3580dc4f
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

Other links

Publisher's full text

Authority records

Olson, Jonas

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Olson, Jonas
By organisation
Department of Philosophy
In the same journal
Belgrade Philosophical Annual
Philosophy

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 267 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 601 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf