David Hume is considered to be the founding father of metaethical non-cognitivism and his moral philosophy is often taken to be a classical example of motivational internalism. In this paper I discuss Hume’s view on the problem of moral motivation depending on natural and artificial virtues. I also analyze some recent interpretations of his moral philosophy. I conclude that Hume can indeed be treated as a non-cognitivist, but his theory is very different from present-day non-cognitivism. The main difference is that Hume did not consider moral emotions as necessarily motivating.
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