Inferência e sensualismo na filosofia moral de Hume

Abstract

Whereas Hume´s moral philosophy can be understood as a kind of "sensualism", one might object that this is inconsistent with Humean empiricism to the extent that sensualism seems to restrict the moral agent to the limits of the senses, while Humean empiricism extendsits conclusions beyond their reach. To reply to this possible objection we advocate an interpretation that intends to reconcile Hume´s moral sensualismto his empiricism. Accordingly, it is argued first that the former is the source of our moral knowledge, while the latter compels agents to extend the conclusions of their moral inferences to the future. So it is suggested that this kind of "projectionism" would not necessarily be incompatible with sensualism. Our main hypothesis is that the relationship between sensualism and empiricism is guaranteed by the relationship between "habit" and "imagination". In this sense, the dissertation is divided into three chapters. In the first we discuss the context within which the moral philosophy of Hume is inserted. The second chapter discusses recent interpretations of Hume´s moral philosophy and proposes another alternative. In the third chapter we explain how to make generalizations is essential to our moral inferences and how the relationship between habit and imagination plays a central role in this process by causally associating sense perceptions and extending our findings to the future.