Abstract

Hume's moral theory is utilitarian. Hume scholars have consistently neglected the significance of utility to understanding his moral theory. Even those who ponder the place of utility in Hume's practical philosophy quickly dismiss it as irrelevant to his overall project. Commentators have been unable to account for the moral obligation to justice precisely because they have ignored the connection between Humean utility and the moral point of view. My central aim in this dissertation is to explain this and other connections that become apparent once one understands the utilitarian character of Hume's theory of justice, the foundation of his moral theory. ;Hume appeals directly to utility in his defence of justice. His theory of justice is at the center of his moral and political philosophy. He argues that the convention of justice and its bindingness secure the basis for moral obligation. However, Hume's attempt to ground the principles of morality in the circumstances of justice is considered a paradoxical failure. Critics claim that his description of these circumstances defeats the possibility of arguing for the moral obligation to justice. What critics have neglected to address is the substantive connection between utility and justice. Utility is the untapped source of moral justification that completes Hume's account of justice. It explains the value of justice and how human beings become moral through the institution of justice. My account of Hume's utilitarianism rescues his theory of justice from charges of Hobbesianism and highlights the unity of Hume's moral theory. Specifically, understanding the utilitarian character of Hume's theory of justice allows one to explain how he can offer a conventional account of justice while avoiding the pitfalls of Hobbes's. This reading also rescues Hume from charges of incoherence against his practical philosophy. ;Finally, Humean utility is a social ideal. There is a dynamic to human society that binds the happiness of its members together and makes it impossible to speak of individual happiness without a reference to human relations in society. Utility defines the highest human good, happiness, and directs us to the practical principles that are to guide human conduct. Utility is the true measure of virtue and vice: it provides the crucial link between sympathy, the faculty that lets us enter into the feelings of others, and the general point of view, the moral perspective from which we universalize our judgments of praise and blame. Public utility, the happiness of society, is the end sought from the general point of view. Private utility, the personal interests of individuals, is protected by the framework of public institutions that public utility sets up