Philosophy Now Forum

In "A Treatise of Human Nature"
Book II Part III Section III
Of the influencing motives of the will.

Hume wrote:
in "[ ]" = mine for emphasis

• Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions,
  and [reason] can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them [passions].
  pg. 415

Hume provided various explanations to support his point.

Do you agree with Hume?
If yes or no, why?

Note the irony,
Hume claimed 'no ought from is'
but in the above he claimed 'ought only' from "is" [mental state of affair] in his point,
thus seemingly contradicting his "Hume Guillotine".

Yes? No?

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/maga ... sophy-hume

Is reason the slave of the passions?
Two contributors debate David Hume's bold challenge to the primacy of pure logical thinking
by Baggini and Jenkins

Has anyone any new perspectives to this old argument?

Hume wrote:
Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them

Why must logic serve emotion ? Why cannot they simply co exist ?
Humans are both emotional beings and logical beings and so why cannot there be a natural harmony between the two ?
Sometimes choices will be emotional and sometimes logical and so conflict between them may not always be avoidable
However compatibility should still be the default position simply because that makes for a more balanced state of mind

surreptitious57 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2020 6:24 am

Hume wrote:
Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them

Why must logic serve emotion ? Why cannot they simply co exist ?
Humans are both emotional beings and logical beings and so why cannot there be a natural harmony between the two ?
Sometimes choices will be emotional and sometimes logical and so conflict between them may not always be avoidable
However compatibility should still be the default position simply because that makes for a more balanced state of mind

Agree, basically both reason and emotions must work together in complementarity.

However I believe reason the later-emerge-faculty via evolution must have a slight edge over emotions.

I quoted this very often,

• Anybody can become angry - that is easy,
  but to be angry
  with the right person and
  to the right degree and
  at the right time and
  for the right purpose, and
  in the right way
  - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
  -Aristotle

The above is where impulse control comes into play and this necessitate the faculty of reason in interaction with other advance faculties to maintain an effective faculty of impulse control.

I believe during Hume's time there was a lack or absence of neurosciences and the more advance knowledge of the brain, mental faculties and others. This is why Hume had such a narrow view of reason.