- Moral claims are incomplete assertions
Therefore we should not eat too much sugar, and so we assert that "it is wrong to eat too much sugar." (Hypothetical imperative) 3. The only part that remains subjective is step 2, the preference. Everything else is open to evidence. 4. Th…
- Objective morality
David Hume, on the is–ought gap
- God
The classical attributes are also in tension with one another and with observation. The problem of evil (Epicurus; David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, 1779) remains unanswered: an omnipotent and omnibenevolent being would ne…
- Miracles
The philosophical case is made under Argument from Miracles: David Hume's point that it is always more likely that testimony is mistaken than that nature was suspended. This note is about the modern record, which is what the argument predi…
- Argument from Miracles
David Hume's argument in "Of Miracles" (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748, Section X) remains decisive: a miracle is by definition a violation of a law of nature established by uniform experience. The testimony for any miracl…
- Argument from the Laws of Nature
Helen Beebee's "non-governing" conception of laws (2000) sets out the position I hold: laws are the best systematisation of what happens, in the tradition of David Hume and David Lewis, and the question "what makes things obey them?" has a…
- Argument from the Principle of Sufficient Reason
David Hume made the essential point in 1779 (Dialogues, Part IX): if each member of a collection is explained, it is a further demand, and an unwarranted one, to ask for an explanation of the collection as a whole (Composition Fallacy). Le…
- Eyewitness Testimony Argument
Testimony to the extraordinary is testimony to the extraordinary, whoever gives it. David Hume's standard applies. Seventy thousand people at Fatima in 1917 testified that the Sun danced; living witnesses, on film, attest the materialisati…
- Historical evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus
A true resurrection is a miracle, and I hold that no miracle has ever been verified (see Argument from Miracles). David Hume's standard applies: the testimony would need to be such that its falsehood was more miraculous than the event. Fou…
- Teleological Argument - Argument from Design
David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), which anticipated most of these objections before Paley wrote
- Theodicy
David Hume put the evidential form in 1779: the world looks exactly as it would if its cause were indifferent to us, and nothing like what a benevolent omnipotence would produce. William Rowe's fawn, burning slowly in a forest fire that no…
- Compatibilism
The position has a long history (Hobbes, David Hume, Mill) and its best-known modern defender is Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room, 1984; Freedom Evolves, 2003). Its opponents are hard determinists, who hold that determinism is true and free w…
- Is–ought problem
"In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark'd, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning... when of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations…
- Problem of evil
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" - a…
- Adam Smith
Adam Smith (1723–1790), Scottish moral philosopher and the founder of modern economics. The Wealth of Nations (1776) described how self-interested exchange, coordinated by prices, produces outcomes no one intended; The Theory of Moral Sent…
- Empiricist principle
David Hume: All ideas come from impressions (sense experience).
- Sagan Standard
While Carl Sagan popularised the phrase—particularly in his book Cosmos (1980) and later in The Demon-Haunted World (1995)—the idea itself traces back to earlier thinkers, including David Hume, who argued in the 18th century that testimony…
