Charles R. Pigden : Hume on Is and Ought: Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire, 2010, xiv + 352 pp, ISBN: 978-0-230-20520-8, GBP 74.00

Within a single paragraph in his Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume prompted what has become one of the most central orthodoxies in ethical theory: the thesis that one cannot derive what ought to be from what there is. In the aftermath of Hume’s seminal discussion, the No-Ought-From-Is-thesis has obtained approval among moral theorists to the point that it has been assigned the status of an undisputed ‘law’. As common with commonplaces in philosophy, alas, both the exact content and argument of ‘Hume’s Law’ have proven to be quite elusive. The present anthology aims to clarify and discuss several controversies surrounding the No-Ought-From-Is-thesis.