Abstract

How can it be that John Locke and David Hume, two of the greatest advocates of modern political, economic, and social arrangements, disagree about so many fundamental things? Whereas Locke provides a rights-based account of modern society, Hume is famous for criticizing Locke's social contract theory and Locke's doctrine of the right to revolution. Much like many contemporary critics who see problems in the "atomistic" individualism of contemporary rights-based liberalism, Hume is dissatisfied with the account of liberty, reason, and the person underlying Locke's defense of modern society. On more purely philosophic matters, Hume worries that Locke has failed to provide an adequate account of human perception and causation. ;This project attempts to come to grips with the deep significance of these political and philosophic differences. Locke, in Hume's judgment, misconceives the relationship between human reason and common sense. Hume argues that Locke's political and philosophic teaching is the product of the poetic imagination, that it is based on creativity rather than sound reasoning. As a replacement for Locke's rights-based way of thinking about modern life, Hume offers a moral defense of modern commercial society. The Moral Sciences of John Locke and David Hume attempts to deepen contemporary worries about the liberal self-understanding, while offering a different way of conceiving of modern commercial society. Its primary contribution lies in seeing Hume's positive account of our "mixed kind of life" as the key to offering a moderate account of human reason and of modern society