Abstract

This long paper (19 pages; about 7,000 words) is a trenchant critique of the first half of David Norton’s 1982 book David Hume: Common Sense Moralist, Sceptical Metaphysician. Norton claims that both Hutcheson and Hume were ‘moral realists’, and imputes to them an inflated moral ontology at sharp variance with what they actually wrote. Indeed, Norton’s interpretation is sustainable only when the texts are grossly misrepresented by paraphrases which say the opposite of what the authors actually wrote. The paper concludes: I agree that Hutcheson and Hume were opposed to nihilistic scepticism, but maintain that their conception of morality was essentially a psychological one, free from metaphysical postulates of any supra-sensory or non-natural moral reality. Therefore, to call them moral realists is misleading. In view of the misunderstandings, misrepresentations, ambiguities, and contradictions which pervade Norton’s arguments, his attempt to establish that there were moral realists must be counted unsuccessful.