Hume on Evil：Unpleasant Feeling and the Idea of Evil
Date Issued
2015
Date
2015
Author(s)
Ku, Chang-Yun
Abstract
Hume claims that evil is nothing but our unpleasant feeling, with additional support by his theory of impression and idea, he thinks that unpleasant feeling is the impression of the idea of evil; in short, we need our inner unpleasant feeling to tell the quality of an action is evil. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation is to elaborate the relation between evil and unpleasant feeling by Hume’s theory. And in my point of view, the concept of evil is more than our experience of unpleasant feeling. In order to prove my point, I try to discuss Hume’s claim from two different aspects. First, from the aspect of evil, I try to discuss “Do we need the unpleasant feeling in order to know the quality of an action is evil”? And this question, according to Hume’s theory, is the discussion of “Can we have idea without impression”? In this part, I try to point out that we can have idea without corresponding impression by association of ideas: causation and similarity; and Kant’s theory can support of my point of view. Second, from the aspect of unpleasant feeling, I try to discuss that “Can we know the quality of an action is evil only by our unpleasant feeling”? And I discuss this question by Hume’s theory of “the common point of view”. In this part, I prove that unpleasant feeling is not enough for us to know or to judge the quality of an action is evil, even in Hume’s own theory; and Piaget’s theory will be the supporting material in this section. With those researches mentioned above, my conclusion is that the concept of evil is more than our experience of unpleasant feeling; thus, Hume’s claim of evil is not a complete one to explain evil.
Subjects
Hume
evil
unpleasant feeling
theory of impression and idea
theory of common point of view
Type
thesis
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