Optimism moral la David Hume
Moral optimism in David Hume

Summary/Abstract: Morality is a philosophical area in which David Hume was very much interested and in which he developed a distinctive but controversial vision. Unlike the traditional ethical paradigm, which postulates the hegemony of reason in the production of the moral act, the Humean view gives pre-eminence to sensibility in determining moral distinctions. Unlike the Christian ethical paradigm, which refers to the transcendent divine, the Humean vision substitutes divine providence for human sympathy. This study supports the hypothesis that Humean ethics is an optimistic one because it is based on the positive human nature and because the relation between sensibility and reason, like that between liberty and necessity, is mainly one of collaboration and reconciliation, not opposition.

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