Kant Opposed Hume's Skepticism

In this view, Hume argued that man's ideas, including morals, arise from hidden causes and that man is nonhing more than his ideas. In essence, Hume maintains that it remains out(predicate) to prove even the existence of the homo mind. All that shadower be proven is that ideas or impressions come one aft(prenominal) the another(prenominal). In Hume's philosophy, there is no material world and no mind, just a series of impressions. For unspoilt or bad, these impressions get to rise to moral fill or the lack of it, "If whatever man from a cold insensibility, or narrow selfishness of temper, is unimpressed with the images of merciful happiness or misery, he must be equally indifferent to the images of vice and virtue?on the other hand, a warm concern for the interests of our species is attended with a tenuous feeling of all moral distinctions," (Hume, 1983, p. 47).

Hume saw the person as represented by the ideas that he or she had which came to him or her in a series of impressions. The terms self or totality be meaningless unless they refer to something. Such terms bottom of the inning have meaning only if the ideas associated with them are culled from sensation, which is why theology is more feeling to Hume than Kant. Hume's theory of human meaning includes the judgment that the person does not exist in terms of substance, barely merely ideas derived from the senses. To Hume, man experiences the world through sensations generated by bodily existence. Hume believed there was

much that precedent could not do. Human nature was understood by Hume as the source of morals and as the locus for the development of someone character, "The accessible virtues of humanity and benevolence exert their influence immediately, by a direct tendency or instinct, which chiefly keeps in view the simple object, moving the affections, and comprehends not any dodge or system, nor the consequences proveing from the concurrence, imitation, or example of others," (Hume, 1983, p. 93).

In formulating the categorical imperative, Kant argued that what makes an action right is that the action treats people as ends in themselves and not just as a means.

As Kant (1964) maintains, "An absolute good pull up stakes, whose principle must be a categorical imperative, will therefore, being undetermined in notice of all objects, postulate only the form of willing, and that as autonomy," (p. 112). This is not based on impulse or impression, as in Hume's philosophy. Integral to Kant's expression of morality, then, is the innate and inherent dignity of the soul. Kant viewed this dignity as what separates human beings from all other animals. In fact, Kant views other animals as existent as a means to an end, and man is the end.

Hume defended the significance of individual character with respect to morality. He references good upbringing, cultivation of the virtues, and respect for tradition. In his philosophy of morality, reason was seen as having limits but human sentiments or feelings and common sense cultivated through social traditions have both power and virtue. In this vein, Hume was quite uniform to Aristotle. For Aristotle, moral virtue is acquired primarily through repetition of acts that are in and of themselves morally good and ethical, and is never a result of either excess or defect. Pleasure is a graphic result of doing such acts, and it is also a sign that the spotless disposition has been acquired through practice and repetition. Moral virtue impli
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