PLEASE READ AND EVERYTHING IN THIS PROMPT AND ONLY USE THE SOURCES PROVIDED.
Consider the following scenario:
A friend just texted and wants you to go with him to a party. You really want to go, but you
know that you can’t and still finish your Hume paper by the due date. You know you ought
to stay home because your grade in 139 is important, but you are still tempted to go to the
party.
The average person would characterize this as a conflict between reason and desire/passion—i.e. between what we want to do (or are excited to do) and what our reason tells us we ought to do.
Hume, however, denies that such a conflict between reason and passion/desire can exist. Instead, he claims that “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” (T 2.3.3). If so, then how does Hume account for these seeming cases of conflict? I.e. why do we sometimes feel like reason can get us to do what we don’t really want to do? Or why do we tend to think that we’re acting irrationally when we cave into these sorts of temptations (by pursuing what appears to be the lesser good)? In answering, be sure to sketch the view Hume is arguing against, the reasons why he thinks it ultimately fails, the view he suggests should take its place, and how he thinks it accounts for these seeming cases of conflict. Finally, do you think his view is ultimately satisfying? One possible worry—if reason can’t help to guide and direct our actions (by helping to coordinate and prioritize our desires), then what explains why we still manage to have a relatively stable and unified psychology? Why aren’t we instead tossed to and fro by the constant flux of our passions and desires, where the strongest desire that we feel at the moment is what moves us, regardless of that desire’s impact on my happiness overall, only to have it change moments later?
