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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Hume And His Critics: Reid And Kames, Noel B. Reynolds
Hume And His Critics: Reid And Kames, Noel B. Reynolds
Faculty Publications
This presentation was in response to Kenneth MacKinnon’s defense of Thomas Reid’s preference for natural virtue against David Hume’s conventionalism in his theory of law. It is argued that because Hume’s legal theory follows easily from his theory of human nature, Reid and Kames—and MacKinnon—need to refute Hume at that level to be successful in their rejection of his conventionalism.
Liberal Political Theory And The Rule Of Law, Noel B. Reynolds
Liberal Political Theory And The Rule Of Law, Noel B. Reynolds
Faculty Publications
The efforts of liberal political theorists like John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin to identify principles and rights based on moral truth as authoritative bases for law and politics ignore the insight of Hume and other conservative theorists that the moral possibilities of human nature generally are limited and are in turn limiting on what can be accomplished, from a moral point of view, through law and politics.