Friday 5 November 2010

Morning Scepticism: Passion

It was the great sceptic David Hume who said "reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions". In the desire for rationality it's often forgotten that we aren't perfectly rational beings. And it's a good thing too, passions are what make life worth living. But it leaves the problem for the sceptic of neglecting that we are at the core all human. For a sceptic who fails to recognise this still argues from the passions, but the passions are then an unexamined bias that undermines what they set out to achieve by use of rationality to begin with.

1 comment:

entropy said...

An old friend once said his rational side informed his emotions, and his emotions warmed his rationality.

I dig your blog, even if I am just a bit of a lurk. Cheers!