Abstract

Sentimentalist doctrines of ethics denounce rationalism as not doing sentiments justice by linking the foundation of morality to intellectual abilities only. These doctrines pretend that moral opinions depend on sentiments only, and that reason, traditionally taken to be the source of morality, can only play a subordinate role in motivation and justification. ;David Hume seems to be the first modern philosopher to have clearly defended this kind of moral sentimentalism. Morality, for him, "is properly felt than judg'd of"; "reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions". The Humean account of morality is an antirationalism, which has provoked the question about how objectivity and impartiality characterising moral opinions is possible in sentimentalist thinking. The challenge becomes one of proving how sentiments , which seem to be the cause of difference and conflict among human beings, can come to be seen instead as the source of harmony and compromise. ;This dissertation gives a general survey of the weaknesses of moral sentimentalism and demonstrates that antirationalism as a characteristic of moral sentimentalism in A Treatise of Human Nature prevents Hume from providing a consistent account of the "general point of view". ;Reworkings of Humean sentimentalism by contemporary Humean theories are also examined here. The aim is to measure the gains of Humean theory from today's sentimentalist adjustments. It seems, unfortunately, that contemporary Humeans do not propose theories that accommodate Humean psychology of action and morality. ;Bernard Williams suggests that the redefinition of the Humean project is not doomed to failure. However, we attempt to demonstrate that the account of normativity suggested in Williams' Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is untenable, and that, therefore, it cannot constitute a viable rethinking of Humean theory. Moreover, contemporary redefinitions of the concept of "sentiment" do not support Humean theory. On the one hand, taken as pure appetite, sentiment is not sufficient to account for generality; on the other hand, a broad concept of sentiment is not in keeping with sentimentalism. ;Finally, evolutionary perspectives seem to conceive of moral judgments as the result of deliberative success, a consideration that clearly opposes sentimentalism. Contemporary requestioning on Hume by Humeans certainly brings to light weaknesses of A Treatise of Human Nature; they do not however succeed in offering viable new theoretical avenues for moral sentimentalism