A little give-and-take from the Scottish renaissance
Adam Smith: People should be good to one another.
Hume: Why?
Smith: I'm a Christian - because God teaches us to.
Hume: There's no god. I won't accept any argument requiring the existence of an unverifiable Supreme Power.
Smith: Ok, how about this... A moral being is an accountable being who must give an account of its actions to some other, and that consequently must regulate them according to the good-liking of this other. You could call that God...but each of us must necessarily conceive himself as accountable to his fellow-creatures, before he can form any idea of the Deity.
Hume: There's no god.
Smith: So what are you going to call the idealized other that approves or disapproves of your actions?
Hume: I'll do what I like, bitch. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.
I'm with Smith on this one.
posted by The Front at 5:48 PM
4 Comments:
'm not with either of them.
Smith: So what are you going to call the idealized other that approves or disapproves of your actions?
Me: a psychological and cultural adaptation, based on false beliefs, that has a mixed record (to be generous in the extreme) of actually resulting in moral behavior among human beings.
Me: And I just want to add, Mr. Smith, that I consider it a great honor to speak with you. I very much admire your works, though I am disappointed that they have a history of being misappropriated by the powerful to the detriment of humanity. The same goes for you, Mr. Marx.
Me: However, this man is not David Hume, the famous moral philosopher. THIS MAN IS AN IMPOSTOR.
Wait a minute...that's Nietzsche!
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