Hume’s best Book: Why Hume called his Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals ‘incomparably the best’ of everything he wrote

Abstract

In this article, I explore why Hume regarded his Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals “incomparably the best” of everything he wrote, while this judgement of his is not confirmed at all by the rankings in popularity of his works. Hume’s main reason for this judgment was the conviction that regarding the principles of morals he had reached the most satisfying, systematical and evidently true results of all his work. I argue that the general rejection of Hume’s own judgement is based on prejudices that fail to take into account the way Hume himself thought that his works should be read. Hume’s wish to explain his “new and distinct notion of moral philosophy” led him to introduce many changes to this Enquiry even until few days before his death. Hume’s intention were to guide the reader thus to an understanding of his system of ethics, for he had become aware of the fact that, instead of using exact definitions, he should rely on natural descriptions and good examples to make his main point come out more clearly. Hume’s appeal to the obvious as a key to understanding seems to suggest that the Scottish philosopher was indeed “very far away from most of contemporary analytic philosophy.”