0:00

Hello

0:03

friends, I'm Jeffrey Rosen, President and CEO

0:05

of the National Constitution Center, and welcome

0:07

to We the People, the weekly show

0:09

of constitutional debate. The

0:12

National Constitution Center is a nonpartisan

0:14

nonprofit chartered by Congress to increase

0:16

awareness and understanding of the Constitution

0:18

among the American people. In

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this episode, we're sharing a

0:23

recent conversation about David Hume and

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his influence on the founders and

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on the Constitution. It was

0:31

so great to be joined by a Hume

0:33

dream team, three great Hume

0:35

scholars, Aaron Zubia, Angela Coventry,

0:37

and Dennis Rasmussen. We discussed

0:39

Hume's philosophical legacy and its

0:42

impact on America. Enjoy

0:44

the show. Hello

0:47

friends, welcome to the National Constitution

0:49

Center and to today's convening

0:51

of America's Town Hall. I'm

0:54

Jeffrey Rosen, the President and CEO of

0:56

this wonderful institution. Before we

0:58

start, let's inspire ourselves as always for

1:00

the light and learning ahead

1:02

by reciting together the National Constitution Center's

1:05

mission statement. Here we go. The

1:07

National Constitution Center is the only

1:09

institution in America chartered by Congress

1:11

to increase awareness and understanding of

1:13

the US Constitution among the American

1:15

people on a nonpartisan

1:18

basis. We have some great

1:20

programs coming up in February. This

1:22

Thursday, February 1st, we're going to

1:24

Phoenix and to Arizona

1:26

State University to reconvene the

1:28

Constitution drafting project. Remember

1:30

that wonderful project convening three teams, libertarian,

1:33

progressive, and conservative, who agreed on five

1:35

proposed amendments to the Constitution. Well we're

1:37

taking the show on the road and

1:39

we'll be in Phoenix on

1:41

Thursday. On February 15th,

1:43

we'll celebrate Black History Month with historians

1:46

Ed of Fields Black and James

1:48

Oaks. And then on President's

1:50

Day, February 19th, I'm so excited

1:53

that we're launching my new book, The

1:55

Pursuit of Happiness, How Classical Writers on

1:57

Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders

1:59

and Defined America. It'll be live

2:01

at the NCC. Jeffrey Goldberg from The

2:03

Atlantic is coming to Philly for conversation

2:05

about the book. I'm so excited. If

2:07

you can make it live, come and

2:09

I'll say hi

2:11

in person. And if not, please tune in

2:13

online. It is now

2:15

a great honor to

2:18

introduce the dream team

2:20

of Hume Scholars. The great

2:22

David Hume, who had such an influence

2:24

on the founding, is a

2:27

central character in my happiness book, and

2:29

I can't wait to learn from

2:32

America's experts on Hume about who he was

2:34

and how he influenced the founding. Angela

2:37

Coventry is a professor of philosophy at Portland

2:39

State University. She's the

2:41

author of Hume's Theory of Causation, a

2:44

quasi-realist interpretation. Hume, a guide

2:46

for the perplexed, co-editor of

2:48

David Hume, Morals, Politics and

2:51

Society, and the Humean

2:53

Mind, and co-author of the historical

2:55

dictionary of Hume's philosophy, and she's

2:57

published a special edition of Hume's

3:00

Treatise of Human Nature. Can't

3:02

wait to learn from her. Dennis

3:04

Rasmussen is professor of political

3:06

science and the Haggerty Family

3:08

Fellow at Syracuse University's Maxwell

3:10

School of Citizenship and Public

3:13

Affairs. He's the author of

3:15

five magnificent books, including The

3:18

Infidel and the Professor, David Hume, Adam

3:20

Smith, and The Friendship That Shaped Modern

3:22

Thought, Fears of a Setting Son,

3:24

The Disillusionment of America's Founders, which I

3:26

rely on and learn so much from,

3:28

and most recently, The Constitution's

3:31

Penman, Gouverneur Morris, and the

3:34

Creation of America's Basic Charter.

3:36

And Aaron Alexander Zubia is assistant professor

3:38

of humanities at the University of Florida.

3:41

His work has appeared in the Wall

3:44

Street Journal, National Review, Law and Liberty,

3:46

and Hume Studies, and his new book

3:48

is The Political Thought of David Hume,

3:50

The Origins of Liberalism, and the Modern

3:53

Political Imagination. Thank you so much for

3:55

joining Angela Coventry, Dennis Rasmussen, and

3:58

Aaron Alexander Zubia. kick

4:00

us off by saying that as I mentioned

4:02

Hume was a central

4:04

character for me in the happiness book

4:07

I sent out to read the books

4:09

on Thomas Jefferson's reading list that he

4:11

said were key to understanding The

4:14

pursuit of happiness and Hume's essays

4:16

are on the list along with

4:18

stoic An enlightenment

4:21

moral philosophers and when

4:23

I read Hume's essays I

4:25

was struck that he

4:28

twice uses the phrase The

4:30

pursuit of happiness he writes in

4:33

his essay about

4:36

The Stoics it's not true that every

4:38

man however dissolute and negligent proceeds unerringly

4:41

in the pursuit of happiness Even

4:43

the most polished citizen is inferior to the

4:46

man of virtue and the

4:48

true philosopher who governs his appetites

4:50

subdue his passions and has learned

4:52

from reason to set a just

4:54

value on every pursuit and enjoyment

4:57

and That phrase by whom sums

4:59

up the classical understanding of the pursuit of happiness

5:02

Not feeling good, but being good not the

5:04

pursuit of virtue But there's not the pursuit

5:06

of pleasure but the pursuit of virtue and

5:08

humans defines virtue as subduing

5:11

your passions governing your appetites

5:13

and learning from reason to

5:15

set a just value on

5:17

every pursuit and enjoyment

5:21

so with that introduction Dennis

5:23

Rasmussen I'll begin by asking

5:25

you to kick us off to tell us

5:27

a little more about who Hume was and

5:30

why he was so influential on the founders

5:33

Thanks, Jeff, and thanks for putting this discussion together. I'm

5:35

looking forward to it and Hume

5:37

is widely seen as Probably

5:41

the greatest philosopher to ever write in the English

5:43

language or maybe second to Thomas Hobbes depending on

5:45

who you ask He's

5:47

also I think is fair to say among the most

5:49

loved of philosophers. There's recently a survey of Thousands

5:52

of academic philosophers around the world that found

5:54

that more identified themselves with Hume than with

5:57

any other figure in the history of philosophy

6:00

But partly, I think, maybe as much due

6:02

to his personality as due to his thought,

6:04

he seems to have been one of the

6:06

best natured philosophers who ever lived. During

6:10

his time, he spent some time in Paris and he

6:12

was on Wilson University, known there as Le Bon David,

6:14

the good David. So he's this, you know, rotund,

6:17

affable guy. He's fond of food and

6:19

drink and games. His favorite game was

6:21

Wist. He loved good company. And

6:25

he's so kind of open and kindly

6:27

and cheerful that many people who

6:29

were sort of scandalized by his writings

6:31

were disarmed when they met him in person. So he

6:33

seems to be a very likable guy. In

6:36

terms of his philosophy or his outlook, it's very

6:39

hard to summarize. He wrote so much about so

6:41

many topics. He's

6:43

an interesting figure insofar as he's

6:46

quite highly critical of religion,

6:49

almost all forms of religion. But he's

6:51

also quite skeptical about the capacities of

6:53

human reason. Politically

6:55

speaking, he certainly welcomes what he sees

6:58

as the blessings of progress and civilization.

7:01

He's, I think, is fair to say

7:03

a liberal in the broadest sense of

7:05

the term, meaning that he stresses the

7:07

benefits of limited government and individual liberty,

7:10

religious toleration, private property, commerce, and

7:12

the like. But he's a sort of

7:14

skeptical liberal. He's a skeptical

7:16

not just in his epistemology, but also in

7:18

his politics, in the sense that he

7:20

distrusts big, sudden innovations in

7:23

politics. He thinks that given

7:25

the fallibility of human reason,

7:27

given the kind of complicated

7:29

variable nature of the political world,

7:32

we should be pretty wary

7:34

of grand schemes for reforming society.

7:37

So he's skeptical with regard to

7:39

the introduction of principle and ideology

7:41

into politics in a

7:44

way that a lot of his enlightenment colleagues

7:46

weren't. And so, yeah, he was

7:48

just an enormously important and influential

7:50

figure. And so it was not

7:52

surprising that he had a big impact on the founders.

7:56

When I was kind of preparing for this discussion,

7:58

I reread a little bit of Mark Spence. Spencer's

8:00

book, a scholar named Mark Spencer, wrote a really

8:02

exhaustive book called David Hume in 18th Century America.

8:06

And looking through that again, it's remarkable

8:08

how widely known, how widely read Hume's

8:10

works were during the founding period,

8:12

especially his, he wrote a six-volume,

8:14

Hume wrote a six-volume history of England in his

8:16

essays, I think were the most read, most cited

8:19

pieces by people

8:21

on both sides of the political spectrum for

8:23

a whole host of reasons. It's

8:26

not that we had a discussion about Montesquieu,

8:28

the great French philosopher Montesquieu, a

8:31

few months ago. And there, you know, there are

8:33

certain themes like the separation of powers that you

8:35

can really point to and say, you know, everybody's

8:37

zeroed in on the separation of powers. Hume's

8:40

used for a bunch of different reasons by a bunch of

8:42

different folks. I

8:44

guess I'll turn it over to maybe Angela and

8:46

Erin to talk about what some of those influences

8:48

are. But that's hopefully a good general sense of

8:50

who Hume was. Superb, such

8:53

a great introduction to

8:55

Hume, noting his tremendous

8:57

influence. It's

9:00

quoted so often during the Constitutional Convention

9:02

that people said that his works had

9:05

been committed to memory. And as

9:07

you note, among the most cited with

9:09

Montesquieu, Montesquieu's first and Hume's fourth, according

9:11

to one scholar, and you so well

9:14

sum up his liberalism and skepticism. Angela,

9:17

what would you say about why Hume

9:20

was so influential to the founders? Well,

9:23

everything that Dennis said is absolutely

9:25

true and correct and beautiful point.

9:28

And definitely you get

9:30

that he was the fourth most cited

9:32

secular author in early America. So we

9:34

know that everyone is reading

9:36

Hume. But I guess

9:38

the thing I'd like to add on to Dennis's

9:41

theory is actually for the reason they

9:43

like Hume so much is that

9:45

Hume was very controversial during his

9:47

lifetime. And I do

9:49

think if you look at his influence

9:51

on early America, yes, some figures like

9:53

him, some didn't like Jefferson. And

9:57

so that's always kind of like an interest to me,

9:59

like why was he was so controversial.

10:01

Now obviously when he was writing

10:03

in Scotland he was nearly excommunicated

10:06

for his philosophy. We

10:09

know that he was denied academic jobs

10:12

as well because of

10:14

his philosophy. So we

10:16

know that he was a very controversial

10:19

figure and even though today as Dennis

10:21

said, he's generally regarded as one

10:23

of the greatest philosophers to write in English. I

10:26

mean there's still plenty of controversy surrounding him's

10:28

works but I take it that today

10:30

most of us scholars kind of disagree on

10:33

what he was actually up to. And

10:36

it spans pretty much everything that Hume

10:38

wrote. So this is a huge discussion

10:41

but people wonder is he just a

10:43

destructive skeptic or is he really trying

10:46

to build you know a science of

10:48

the mind that would extend to a

10:50

science of politics? Does

10:52

he think there's a self? Is there no self?

10:54

Is there a self? Is he a called a

10:57

realist, anti-realist, moral realist? And so all

10:59

of these kinds of disputes I think

11:01

kind of arise from

11:03

Hume's philosophy and he can be appropriated

11:05

from many many different angles. And

11:08

I take it that is one of the attractions

11:10

of Hume's view is that it is

11:12

open to so many interpretations and

11:14

we can see it being

11:16

influential in so many different

11:19

topics. So definitely

11:21

I think we can see that

11:23

Madison was influenced by Hume

11:26

and we can definitely say that Hamilton

11:28

definitely influenced by Hume, experimental politics and

11:30

so on. But if you

11:33

look at someone like Jefferson he was

11:35

not a fan of Hume at all

11:37

and had very harsh things to

11:39

say. Also some nice things too. He did say some

11:41

nice things about Hume's style but

11:44

he also called him some not

11:46

nice things and Adams seen her

11:48

agree with him. So basically one finds that

11:50

should be no surprise that

11:52

Hume's legacy in thinking about early

11:54

America is somewhat mixed as

11:56

well. So to get

11:59

to a Whig vs. talk. dispute

12:02

is going to happen pretty quickly with Jefferson

12:04

and Edmund Adams. Great.

12:06

Such a powerful reminder

12:08

of the fact that despite his wide

12:11

appeal, some like him and others didn't. And you

12:13

note that with Tory split, and

12:15

indeed as you suggest, Jefferson didn't like

12:18

him because he called him a honeyed

12:20

Tory and thought his history of England

12:22

was pro monarch

12:26

and by

12:29

contrast Hamilton and the

12:32

Federalists embraced him more as

12:34

a model because of his strong visions of

12:36

executive power. We'll dig

12:38

into those influences in

12:41

a moment, but before we do

12:43

Aaron, give

12:45

us your overview sense of why

12:48

and in what ways humus so influential

12:50

on the founding generation. Absolutely.

12:53

Thanks Jeff and it's an honor to be here

12:55

with Dennis and Angela. Hume, born 1711, died

12:57

1776, was after Montesquieu's

13:04

death the leading man of letters in

13:06

Britain and on the continent. So it's

13:08

very fitting Jeff that you've had two

13:10

sessions, one on Montesquieu and one

13:12

on Hume, this one here, very

13:15

fitting and in connection

13:17

with your book on happiness,

13:20

Hume was interested in the

13:22

happiness of mankind. That's what

13:25

the first reviewer of book three of

13:27

Hume's treatise of human nature said. So

13:29

Hume around the time he's 18 comes up

13:31

with an idea, it takes

13:33

him 10 years to execute his to write this

13:36

dense philosophical treatise called

13:39

the treatise of human nature. Book one

13:41

is called of the understanding,

13:43

book two of the passions and book

13:45

three of morals. So that came out

13:47

in 1740 and the first reviewer

13:49

said this author is interested

13:51

in the happiness of mankind and

13:54

wants, he intends to be heard

13:56

by everybody and he wants to

13:58

reach ordinary readers. And he

14:00

also wants to reform practically all the opinions

14:02

of mankind is what this reviewer said. But

14:05

this reviewer and Hume himself recognized that Hume

14:07

didn't succeed in doing that when he wrote

14:10

the treatise. It was a dense work,

14:12

a thick work that Hume in his

14:14

autobiography said fell dead-born from the

14:16

press. And so shortly

14:19

after the treatise, Hume started translating

14:22

his own philosophy into shorter

14:25

pieces, more digestible, pithier

14:29

essays. And so he

14:31

had two volumes of essays come out in

14:33

the 1740s on moral, literary, and political topics.

14:35

He had a best-selling collection of essays of

14:38

political discourses, which came out in 1752. And

14:40

as Dennis mentioned,

14:43

from 1754 to

14:45

1762, his sixth volume, History of

14:47

England, was released. So while Angela

14:49

mentioned all the controversy about Hume's

14:52

philosophy and so much contemporary work

14:55

on Hume deals with his

14:57

treatise, at the time in the 18th century,

14:59

he was known primarily as an essayist and

15:02

historian. And he was almost

15:05

impossible to ignore. Dennis

15:07

and Angela have mentioned his controversial

15:09

aspects. And as

15:12

an example of this, Timothy Dwight, who

15:14

was Jonathan Edwards' grandson, he was named

15:16

president of Yale College in 1795. And

15:20

one of his first addresses was essentially

15:23

a plea to save students

15:25

from falling for Hume's irreligious

15:27

and libertine views, which

15:29

testifies to the fact that Hume was

15:31

being read. He was being read

15:34

frequently. And it wasn't just in America.

15:36

There was an Italian priest who noted

15:38

that even though some

15:41

of Hume's more controversial works about

15:43

religion, especially, were on the index

15:45

of forbidden books, yet everybody in

15:47

Rome seemed to be reading

15:49

them. He said it's as if Hume cast

15:51

a magic spell on his readers, and he

15:54

managed to be read while his critics and

15:56

detractors were not read. And so it was

15:58

a very interesting question. In

16:00

these essays he was you miss speaking

16:02

to writing too. Polite society is also

16:04

run into statesman. To teach about

16:07

cause and effect in political affairs and

16:09

I to the station in that that

16:11

read I assume and apply them as

16:13

insights. Of course there are human Madison

16:16

and ah, what will get into that

16:18

soon I'm sure. Superb.

16:21

He does cast a kind of magic spell

16:23

as you so well put it to. The

16:26

essays are so clear, and it's so interesting

16:28

to learn from you that they were intended

16:30

as popular distillation of the moral philosophy that

16:32

he set out a greater length in the

16:35

three volumes of a Treatise of Human Nature,

16:37

and also so interesting that those three volumes

16:39

were about the understanding the passenger emotions and.

16:42

Morals. Are. Great

16:45

will less now dig into.

16:48

His most famous influence on the

16:50

founders and that is. On.

16:52

Madison in Sonos Ten The

16:54

scholar Douglas Adair, Famously.

16:56

Noted. Decades

16:58

ago that Madison thinking about factions

17:01

were especially influenced by humans. Essay:

17:03

idea of a perfect Commonwealth Dennis

17:05

or Rasmussen tell us for civil

17:08

how Madison define factions and how

17:10

his ideas where it was. Are

17:12

you. Sort. Of so

17:15

we sometimes use the word faction

17:17

to be more or less parties

17:19

On Madison defines a Saxon is

17:21

a group that is pursuing some

17:23

and as detrimental either to the

17:25

rights of other citizens or to

17:27

decode the permanent in aggregate interests

17:29

of the community meeting between and

17:31

good. So Affection is by definition

17:33

a negative group for for medicines

17:35

and and of course the name

17:37

burden of federalist tennis to show

17:39

the only a large republic and

17:41

adequate big deal with the problem

17:43

of majority factions. and a think

17:45

the two main sources of fruit for

17:47

this idea for madison are david hume

17:50

and his best friend adam smith's i'm

17:52

so you kindly mention the the book

17:54

i wrote on on humans miss friendships

17:56

their best friends for their entire adult

17:59

life which This is an amazing thing, right? Hume

18:01

is, again, this great philosopher.

18:03

Smith is maybe the history's most famous

18:05

theorist of commercial society. Both

18:08

kind of pre-figured Madison's argument in

18:11

Federalist 10. Smith in The

18:15

Wealth of Nations makes a similar

18:17

argument about religious sects. But since

18:19

this discussion centers on Hume, let

18:21

me talk about how Hume prefigures

18:23

this argument of Madison's.

18:25

So Hume makes this argument

18:28

very briefly. It's an essay called Idea

18:30

of a Perfect Commonwealth, which

18:32

is a sort of curious

18:34

or unusual essay within Hume's corpus, insofar

18:37

as he's usually quite averse to the

18:39

idea of striving for perfection in politics.

18:42

But the key part for our purposes is just

18:45

really a very short part. The second to last

18:47

paragraph of the essay is

18:50

almost a precious, good summary of

18:53

Madison's argument in Federalist 10. So

18:55

in this paragraph, Hume argues in favor

18:57

of the feasibility of a large republic,

18:59

that is to say, a Republican government

19:01

that would work in a big country

19:04

like Britain or France in

19:06

his time, that had previously been

19:08

thought to be impossible, right? So

19:12

before Hume's essay, people had always

19:14

assumed that republics are only feasible

19:17

within small territories, small populations, something

19:19

on the level of a Swiss

19:21

canton or a Greek city state

19:23

or an Italian city state. The

19:25

idea being, well, if

19:27

the people are going to govern themselves or

19:29

even choose their representatives well, then there can't

19:31

be too many people. They can't be too

19:34

spread out. If

19:36

they are, then they won't form a

19:38

close-knit community. They'll have different interests, different

19:40

opinions. They'll split into groups, factions, tear

19:43

each other apart. And

19:45

Hume is maybe the first figure in the

19:47

whole Western tradition to argue that the

19:50

contrary is true, that republics could work even

19:52

better on a large scale than they would

19:54

on a small scale. Why?

19:57

He Said, well, small republics are. The

20:00

ball to the kinda seems and

20:02

whims of the people under susceptible

20:05

to what Madison Wi com majority

20:07

faction where the majority it's are

20:09

combined to oppress individuals to oppressed

20:12

minorities whereas in a big diverse

20:14

republic. Representatives. Ten,

20:16

as he puts it, refined Madison

20:18

with use the term seem to

20:20

refine people's views, their desires. That

20:23

is to say, it's correct. for

20:25

people's pashtuns, their their irrationality. It's

20:27

an. Image is good, that

20:29

is that the people are. You know they're

20:31

more people to more spread out. That makes

20:33

it harder for them to combine to have

20:35

to enact oppressive measures if there's a of

20:38

the majority factions in the country's armed services.

20:40

Again, Madison. His argument

20:42

in Federal Ten In a nutshell, Madison spells

20:44

out things if it was grid a length

20:46

of zoomed on again assistance one paragraph of

20:48

this one Us states. But in terms of.

20:51

Purely. Practical Impact. That might be

20:53

the single most influential paragraph you ever

20:56

wrote on. To just that, the will

20:58

influence Madison, and thus a whole American

21:00

experiment. Beautifully

21:02

distilled and for just the reasons

21:04

you say. In. Him

21:07

Buchanan. Quoting. From the has

21:09

entered you said an idea of a

21:11

private commonwealth republican. Large territories are more

21:13

difficult to form and once established and

21:16

less susceptible to tomato and saxon. The.

21:18

Various parts of the larger public assistance

21:21

and remote and will be very difficult

21:23

for factions to intrigue, prejudice or pass

21:25

them to hurry to representatives into any

21:27

measures against the public interest. A master

21:29

sentence that Madison, as you say, distills

21:32

into spammers and it's about house in

21:34

an extended Republicans less likely that the

21:36

majority will invade minority rights or. Attacks

21:39

leave. A corner action is

21:41

say, Discover their

21:44

strength. I'm. Angela

21:46

What would love more? of

21:48

course about what for what

21:50

Madison took from Hume and

21:53

then maybe introduce differences between

21:55

Madison's most him a Saxon

21:57

and news. Yeah,

22:01

it's kind of actually great to hear

22:04

Dennis' summary, right, of

22:06

Madison on factions. And

22:09

I think one of the things that

22:11

I would add to that is that

22:13

both him and Madison seem to think

22:16

that factions are inevitable and they're going

22:18

to happen. And

22:21

this is probably just due to

22:23

human nature. But

22:25

I think also, you know, if

22:27

you've got people that have different

22:30

interests and different passions, different

22:33

levels of wealth as

22:35

well, different amounts of

22:37

property, what you're going to find

22:40

is people are going to group together

22:42

between those who are most similar to

22:44

them. And I think he

22:46

thought that that could be a threat,

22:48

like it could lead to the dismantling of

22:51

a government, it could lead

22:53

to violence. And these are

22:55

things that he definitely thought that the government

22:57

should be able to control. And that seems

22:59

to be when Madison starts, he says, you

23:01

know, a well functioning government

23:03

should be able to stop the

23:06

violence of factions. So

23:09

very kind of clear, I

23:11

think, similarity in that this is something that is

23:13

inevitable in society. And so that means if we're

23:15

going to talk about how we ought to be

23:18

governed, then we have to talk about well, how

23:20

are we actually going to deal with

23:22

something like factions? And now,

23:25

as you said, Madison thought

23:27

that we could manage it by getting

23:29

bigger. He seems to have gotten that

23:32

from him. So the more diverse groups

23:34

we have, the more people interests are

23:36

out there, it's going to

23:38

be the case that no one group

23:40

can dominate the other. So

23:43

I take it that for both

23:45

of them, faction is absolutely central

23:47

for any kind of well governed

23:50

union. But it's something

23:52

that has to be taken seriously, because it's

23:54

just going to be something that happens when

23:56

you have groups of people together, because

23:59

we're together in a. society, Kim says,

24:01

you know, we're dependent upon

24:03

each other. So we have to

24:05

learn how best to live with each other. So

24:07

making sure that no one group can threaten the

24:09

rights or the well being of community is of

24:11

absolute importance. And that's what I love about

24:14

Madison's number 10 is that he

24:16

starts right there like this is like,

24:18

if we're going to be well governed, we have to

24:20

start with this. So

24:23

I think he was also worried about religious

24:25

factions as well as political ones, but Madison

24:29

is focused on political ones, but

24:31

notice that they both think that

24:34

factions in moderation are

24:36

okay. And it's, you know,

24:38

it's okay to have moderate

24:41

party affiliation. That's not a

24:43

detriment at all. In fact,

24:45

I think he says at one point, part

24:47

of the English constitution, the upshot of that

24:49

is that yeah, you're going to have moderate factions that will

24:51

come out of it. But the question

24:53

arises, well, what do we do to curb

24:56

that? The extreme factions,

24:58

because you definitely wasn't a

25:00

fan of extreme factions, because

25:03

violence, threatened

25:05

disruption society. And

25:07

I think as he says once, you know, we kind

25:09

of like society, we want it to continue. So we

25:12

want to make sure if we're going to be governed

25:14

well, that we have the right kind of measures in

25:16

place to make sure that factions

25:19

can't, you know, infringe

25:21

on others and also threaten

25:24

the well being of society. Now

25:28

differences. Well,

25:31

I guess Madison really, what

25:33

he does is gives it like

25:35

a beautiful solution based on him looking

25:37

at the current state of American politics. So

25:41

and so obviously Hume didn't have that. So

25:45

but Madison is kind of like he's

25:47

taking what he was doing an idea

25:49

of a perfect Commonwealth and he is

25:51

applying it. But not it's not like

25:53

he takes the utopia from him. Obviously,

25:55

I think as Dennis mentioned, there's no

25:57

utopia, there's no perfect government. That's

26:00

just, you know, that's a

26:02

fiction. Even the best government

26:05

is going to have weaknesses. Just

26:07

like any system of justice, there's

26:10

going to be injustice. So,

26:13

but I think what I like about Madison

26:16

is that he thinks we can

26:18

actually build the stability and stop

26:20

the. I have lost

26:22

you and I'm going to check my.

26:24

Mr. Aaron, do you want to pick up where Angela

26:26

left off while we wait for her and Jeff to

26:28

return? Yeah, sure thing. So

26:31

Madison opens Federalist 10, writing

26:34

that a well-constructed union

26:37

will be able to break

26:40

or at least if not cure,

26:42

at least mitigate the main mischifts

26:44

of faction. And right

26:46

there with this phrase, well-constructed union,

26:49

we see that Madison is employing

26:51

this new science of politics that

26:54

Hume developed, which is focused

26:56

on institutions more than the

26:58

character of the people leading

27:01

more than the character of the governors. Right.

27:03

It's what kind of institutions can we create

27:06

to ensure safety

27:09

and promote public

27:11

happiness? And so Madison,

27:15

I think, is building on what

27:18

Hume wrote and that politics may

27:20

be reduced to a science where

27:22

he's concerned with taking human beings,

27:25

not as we wish them to be, but taking

27:28

them as they are. And

27:31

for Hume, in an essay called Of

27:34

the Dignity or Meanness of Human Nature,

27:37

he emphasizes both

27:40

the highs and lows of human nature. So

27:44

if you look at the human

27:46

person and compare the human person

27:48

to other animals, well, we come

27:50

out looking quite good, quite

27:52

noble. And

27:55

perhaps a divine part of us, the

27:57

rational part that is capable of doing

27:59

that. capable of categorizing,

28:02

for saying things, planning,

28:05

executing those plans. But

28:08

if you look at the angelic realm and

28:10

compare the human person to angelic

28:12

beings, well, we look

28:14

quite depraved. And Hume had a Calvinist

28:16

upbringing, so he knew a good bit

28:18

about human depravity. And

28:21

similarly with Madison, I mean, he says

28:23

in Federalist 63 that reason, truth, and

28:27

justice should be the authorities of our

28:29

public deliberation. But that's not always going

28:31

to be the case. Sometimes

28:33

partial interests will arise. Sometimes

28:35

partial loves will predominate. And

28:38

that's when faction occurs. So for

28:41

Hume, faction is not necessarily a

28:43

bad thing. There are certain bad

28:45

kinds of faction. Hume

28:48

thinks that the modern world is unique and

28:50

that there are factions based on speculative

28:53

first principles, so the wigs of his

28:55

day, based

28:58

their partisan proposals

29:01

based on the theory of the

29:03

original contract, whereas Tories developed their

29:05

proposals in line with the theory

29:08

of the divine right of kings. And

29:10

Hume thinks it's a bad idea to debate these

29:12

moral first principles in public life. But

29:17

for Hume, economic interests are

29:19

most excusable, because these are, as Madison would

29:22

say, sewn into the nature of man. And

29:24

so these are the things that we need

29:26

to deal with. Either you're going to extinguish

29:29

liberty, but that's not desirable.

29:32

So the next best thing is to check the

29:34

mistress of faction, and that's by

29:37

limiting power where it

29:39

needs to be limited and balancing

29:41

various interests so that no single

29:43

one predominates. So Madison says there

29:45

are various faculties, various opinions are

29:48

going to form various

29:50

levels of property will

29:53

be attained. There'll be mercantile interests. There

29:56

will be landed interests, moneyed interests. And

30:00

What we need to do is recognizing the

30:02

depravity of the human person recognizing as madison

30:04

said that enlightened statesmen will not always be

30:06

at the helm How are we going to?

30:10

limit, you know these factions which are

30:12

so pernicious And

30:14

how are we going to limit them and

30:16

prevent them from? taking

30:19

us away from deliberation

30:21

over about the

30:23

general good Superb

30:26

I'm back forgive me for having dropped off

30:28

because of a wi-fi issue, but no

30:31

need for me in this great conversation, which is

30:33

Moderating itself and you so

30:35

well introduce the connection between

30:37

hewn's pessimistic view

30:40

of human nature and his

30:42

solutions to the problem of faction which madison

30:44

channeled as you said both first

30:47

representation and second the separation of

30:49

powers are Madison's human solutions to

30:51

the problem of faction. Let's

30:54

now put Hamilton on the table

30:56

and since Our

30:58

new you introduced his idea of human

31:00

nature Focus

31:03

on this famous phrase of

31:05

humans every man must be supposed

31:07

a nave which Hamilton

31:09

embraced in 1775

31:13

in an early stage in his political career.

31:15

He wrote an essay called

31:17

the continentalist which Set

31:20

forth the relevance of hume for the

31:22

revolution and broadly

31:24

Hamilton embraced Hume's

31:27

idea that Were motivated

31:29

by private interests not public interest and

31:31

the goal of government is not to

31:33

eliminate self-interest But to harness it to

31:35

make it cooperate in the public good

31:38

notwithstanding is insatiable avarice

31:40

and Ambition this

31:42

introduces the central question of Hume's notion

31:45

of virtue and while classical philosophers said

31:47

you could only have a republic When

31:49

virtuous citizen used their powers of reason

31:51

Hume Disagrees and

31:53

says reason isn't ought to be the slave

31:55

of passions and can never pretend to any

31:58

other office and to serve and

32:00

obey them. And Hume argues that self-interest can

32:02

actually serve the public good. And

32:05

profit-maximizing commerce can increase the prosperity of all. All

32:07

right, Dennis, how did I do with that? That's

32:09

just a stab at the summary of the connection

32:11

between Hume's views on

32:14

human nature and his views

32:17

of commerce. And tell

32:19

us more about that and how they influenced

32:22

Hamilton. Yeah, no, that was an excellent introduction.

32:25

I do think that's one of

32:27

the biggest things that put Hume

32:29

on the side of, say, Hamilton

32:31

and against the side of Jefferson

32:33

is his extraordinarily welcoming attitude toward

32:36

commerce and commercial society, even much

32:38

more so than Adam

32:40

Smith, who's much more famous as a

32:42

proponent of commerce and commercial society. So

32:44

let me maybe just back up and

32:47

talk about Hume's attitude toward commerce and

32:50

maybe even the situation in which he

32:53

made this, or gave his arguments, because

32:55

two of the most venerable

32:58

traditions of Western thought up to

33:00

that time, namely civic republicanism and

33:03

Christianity, tended to regard commerce and

33:05

wealth and luxury, all the things

33:08

that went with commerce, as inherently

33:10

corrupting. They saw commerce as a threat to

33:13

public order, to political liberty, to

33:15

virtue, to salvation. And Hume

33:17

comes in and says, commerce is

33:19

good. There's nothing particularly noble or redeeming

33:21

about poverty. There's nothing intrinsically objectionable about

33:27

luxury. For

33:29

me, the key essay in this regard

33:31

is an essay, it was first titled

33:33

of luxury and later retitled of refinement

33:36

of the arts. I

33:39

read this as one of the most

33:41

forceful and comprehensive, yet succinct defenses of

33:43

the whole modern liberal commercial order that's

33:45

ever been written. It's only maybe 12

33:48

pages long. It's amazing how much gravity

33:50

covers in this essay. Hume

33:52

argues that progress in the arts and

33:54

sciences and commerce and the like lead

33:57

to what he calls an indissoluble chain of

34:00

industry, knowledge, and humanity, as well as

34:02

liberty, he adds later in the essay.

34:05

And so here he's very much on the

34:07

opposite side of someone like his contemporary Jean-Jacques

34:09

Rousseau. Hume had a very famous personal quarrel

34:11

with Rousseau. Rousseau thought

34:14

commerce and civilization, the whole

34:16

complex of things that went by the name of progress at

34:18

the time, made people vicious

34:21

and miserable. Hume thought they did the

34:23

opposite. Hume thought that commerce,

34:27

the whole process of civilization makes us

34:29

happier, it makes us more virtuous. They

34:32

make society not just richer, but freer,

34:34

more stable, more orderly, more moderate, more

34:36

humane. He wrote

34:39

quite a bit on what was then

34:41

called political economy. He takes a very

34:44

cosmopolitan view insofar as,

34:47

most of the economic tracks of the day are

34:50

setting out to say, well, how might

34:52

we advance Britain's trading interests? Or what

34:54

came to be seen as basically

34:57

what amounted to the same thing in most eyes

34:59

is, how can we earn France's trading interests? Hume

35:03

looks at this with a much broader

35:05

view that I have a philosopher, a

35:07

historian, let's rise above petty national prejudices

35:10

and animosities. How can commerce

35:12

free trade, he thought can promote the interests of

35:14

all. So here, I

35:17

mean, he's writing before Smith's Wealth of Nations

35:19

and he's anticipating a lot of Smith's arguments

35:21

about, what's the

35:23

true source of a nation's wealth? It's

35:25

not gold or silver or a positive

35:27

balance of trade, as those

35:29

known as the mercantilists advocated, rather it's

35:31

a productive citizenry. He

35:34

argued that most attempts by politicians

35:36

to guide or control people's economic

35:39

choices are at

35:41

best futile, at worst, positively

35:43

counterproductive, that free trade

35:45

benefits everyone, city,

35:47

country, rich, poor, government, populist,

35:49

everybody benefits. Yeah, so he's

35:52

anticipating a lot of Smith's arguments in the wealth

35:54

of nations. So, I think

35:56

that's a big part of why someone like

35:58

Hamilton or Hamilton's good friend, Governor Morris,

36:00

what would they found so attractive in Hume

36:03

that has such an overwhelmingly positive view

36:06

of commerce and its social and political

36:08

effects? Superb, such a

36:10

great introduction of the centrality of commerce

36:13

and why, as you said, that welcoming

36:15

view would naturally make him a

36:17

favorite of Hamilton and not of Jefferson,

36:19

who of course suspects Hamilton's

36:24

urban preference for financiers

36:26

and exalts agrarian virtue.

36:30

Angela, tell us more about that dichotomy

36:32

you flagged about the

36:35

fact that Hamilton mistrusted Hume and Hamilton

36:38

liked him. And

36:41

it affected their views

36:43

of English history. Hume wrote

36:45

a history of England that

36:47

Jefferson considered such a locus

36:50

of honey ditorious and that he would

36:52

insist on both or eyes or edited

36:54

versions before they were safe to

36:57

be read by law students, because it was so Tory-like.

37:01

And what was it that made

37:03

Hume a favorite of conservatives beyond

37:05

his embrace of commerce and

37:08

made Jefferson so mistrustive? She

37:12

may have had the same Wi-Fi

37:14

issues I did. So if I

37:16

may, Aaron, might I ask you

37:18

to take that one up? Yeah, yeah,

37:20

absolutely. You

37:23

mentioned this quote, you know,

37:25

treating everyone as if he

37:29

were a nave and thinking

37:32

just a little bit more about faction.

37:35

I mean, Hume was

37:37

a moral sentimentalist. So we

37:40

have feelings of praise

37:42

and blame. And one

37:44

thing about a faction is

37:46

that it disrupts the

37:48

operation of the sentiments so that we

37:52

judge what is good and bad based on partial

37:54

interest rather than the public interest. So Hume

37:57

did think that there was a redeeming

37:59

quality. to economic self-interest

38:02

is that you display industry

38:05

and frugality and

38:08

discipline and create

38:10

products that other people want. You're going

38:12

to contribute to the increasing prosperity of

38:15

your community. And

38:18

Dennis mentioned of refinement in the

38:20

arts that great Hume

38:23

essay that really is, as Dennis

38:25

said, a distillation of the modern

38:28

commercial spirit. And

38:30

that's what Hamilton

38:32

cites in Federalist 85

38:34

when he describes Hume as a

38:36

solid and ingenious writer. And

38:39

Hamilton is the only one who refers to

38:41

the United States as a commercial nation. And

38:43

he does that in Federalist 6. And

38:46

this too is evidence

38:48

of his reliance on Hume's

38:50

theory of advancement,

38:53

advancement in the mechanical arts,

38:56

leads to advancement in the liberal

38:58

arts, material welfare, increasing material welfare

39:01

leads to the improvement of

39:03

morals. And so Hume is a key

39:06

theorist there. And Hamilton

39:09

was definitely attentive

39:12

to Hume's theory

39:15

there. And one

39:17

thing, I mean, adding to this

39:20

conflict between Hamilton and Jefferson,

39:22

Hume was a defender

39:25

of authority to a certain degree.

39:28

And one essay he says that in

39:31

every government there's a perpetual conflict between

39:33

liberty and authority. And he says, although

39:36

civil liberty is the perfection of

39:39

government, authority is necessary to

39:41

its existence. And so in his history

39:43

of England, as you mentioned, Hume

39:46

refers to the modern period beginning

39:48

with the Tudors is when really

39:51

useful history begins. And we

39:53

can start learning from how the

39:56

centralization of the state

39:59

reduced the power of the barons

40:01

and reduced competing jurisdictions between

40:03

the church and the barons

40:06

and the prince. And so

40:08

you have a centralized monarchy

40:10

that eventually gets limited. But

40:13

that monarchy also with Henry VIII

40:15

subordinates the church to its power.

40:18

And then not so

40:20

much with Henry VII and Henry VIII, but

40:23

after them, Elizabeth, and onward, you

40:25

find the promotion of

40:27

commerce. So Hume sees the role

40:29

for an energetic

40:32

government, which is precisely what

40:34

the Federalist Party wanted during

40:37

the time of ratification. So

40:40

you could see how Jefferson, who

40:42

was a decentralist, would be somewhat

40:45

wary of Hume's writing, especially

40:47

when, as Hume

40:50

said when he was making, when he was

40:52

amending the history of England, he made almost

40:54

every change away from the Whig side and

40:56

toward the Tory side. So especially as Hume

40:58

got older, he was more skeptical of cries

41:01

for liberty, and he defended the

41:03

need for a strong authority

41:06

in order to promote

41:08

civilization and peace

41:11

in society. Great. That so

41:13

well explains why he would appeal to

41:16

Hamilton and not Jefferson. Jefferson

41:18

sees an alterable tension between liberty

41:20

and power. Jefferson believes that

41:23

power can reinforce liberty

41:27

by increasing commerce and the well-being for

41:30

all, and Hume would be a

41:32

natural touchstone for

41:35

Hamilton. And I know

41:37

we've lost Angela, and she's still trying to

41:39

get back with Wi-Fi. And as we're waiting,

41:41

let's turn to Federalist

41:44

85, Hamilton's discussion

41:47

of executive power. He explicitly

41:49

cites Hume. Dennis, he cites

41:52

your favorite piece, The

41:54

Rise of Arts and Sciences, and

41:56

talks about the need for an

41:58

energetic executive. describe

42:01

Hume's influence on Hamilton in this

42:03

Federalist piece, and broadly

42:06

why it was that Hamilton

42:08

thought that Hume's defense

42:11

of a strong monarch who was able to

42:13

bring the House of Lords, the

42:16

House of Commons over to his side

42:18

by giving them offices and emoluments, Hamilton

42:21

thought, you can call this corruption, but

42:23

it's a good way of the executive

42:25

defending its own interest against the incursions

42:27

of Parliament. Jefferson took that out of

42:29

context and said Hamilton was defending corruption.

42:31

So give us a sense of how

42:33

that influenced Hamilton's human conception

42:36

of executive power. Sure. Well,

42:38

first, just a minor correction.

42:40

So Hume wrote two essays,

42:42

one called Of the Rise and Progress in the Arts

42:44

and Sciences, one called Of Refinement

42:46

in the Arts. So I've been referring to the

42:48

latter. I was mistaken

42:50

there. But yes, so in this 85th and

42:53

final paper of the Federalist

42:55

is the only paper in

42:57

the Federalist that Hamilton

43:00

or Madison or Jay, for that matter, Publius

43:04

actually cites Hume. The

43:06

clear allusion to Hume, I think, in Federalist 10, but

43:08

he actually cites Hume in

43:11

Federalist 85. He calls Hume

43:13

a writer equally solid and

43:15

ingenious. So again, showing the

43:17

sort of differences between Hamilton

43:19

and Jefferson on their

43:22

attitudes toward Hume. Although I guess I should say,

43:24

I don't think it's been said, I think the

43:26

younger Jefferson, in fact, admired Hume more

43:29

than the later Jefferson did. It was really only later

43:31

in his career that Jefferson came to

43:33

see him as a Tory who ought

43:35

to be avoided or shielded from young

43:37

students. Can I

43:39

add one more thing that we haven't,

43:41

we've been talking about Hume's impact on

43:44

the founders. Hume

43:46

also himself talked about the

43:49

march toward American independence. And I don't want

43:51

to finish this discussion without at least touching

43:53

on that. So Hume

43:55

dies in the autumn of 1776. So of

43:57

course, very early on in the movement. toward

44:00

independence. I think word of the Declaration

44:02

of Independence didn't reach Scotland until just

44:04

days before Hume's death. And

44:06

so Hume never published anything on the topic,

44:08

but he did write quite a bit in

44:11

his correspondence about American affairs.

44:14

And I think it's very interesting, he

44:16

was among the earliest and most consistent

44:19

advocates of American independence in all of

44:21

Britain. Almost everybody besides Hume, and again

44:23

his good friend Adam Smith, advocated

44:27

forceful measures to keep the colonies within

44:29

the British fold and saw the Americans

44:32

behaving really terribly.

44:35

Hume and again Smith are basically the

44:37

lone dissenters on the score. They both

44:39

denounced the war, they denounced the policies,

44:41

what they saw as the mercantilist policies

44:43

that provoked it. Hume in his

44:46

correspondence as early as 1771, so

44:48

this is way before almost

44:50

any American had seriously contemplating

44:53

severing ties with Britain, says

44:55

basically the union with America can't

44:57

last. There's just in the nature of things there's

44:59

no way this can last. When Bohr

45:01

breaks out in 1775 he immediately says

45:04

we should lay aside all anger, shake

45:07

hands, and part friends. Basically just let

45:10

America go. In fact

45:12

at one point he went so far as to

45:14

declare I'm an American in my principles and wish

45:17

we would let them alone to govern or misgovern

45:19

themselves as they think proper. Now

45:21

I think that's maybe a bit misleading for Hume

45:23

to say he's an American in his principles. I've

45:25

already tried to suggest he

45:28

really distrusts the invocation of

45:30

abstract principles in political

45:33

life of the kind that the American revolutionaries

45:35

love to appeal to, the self-evident truths and

45:37

inalienable rights of the Declaration of Independence and

45:39

the like. Really his advocacy

45:42

of American independence rested on pragmatic considerations

45:44

and what he thought would be best

45:46

for Britain. He thought, you know, most

45:49

British people were sure that the colonies

45:51

were an important source of

45:53

national wealth and power and the like. He

45:55

thought they were a burden, an economic, political,

45:58

military burden that Basically

46:00

both sides would benefit if they just

46:02

end the colonial relationship, set up a

46:04

system of free trade, and just

46:07

part ways. So he's

46:09

not quite an American in his principles,

46:11

I'm trying to suggest, but he was,

46:13

I think, interestingly one of the first

46:15

and boldest advocates of American independence in

46:18

all of Britain. A

46:21

powerful statement about I'm an American in

46:23

my principles, but more

46:25

complicated for just the reasons that you say.

46:28

I should note that Angela's campus has lost internet,

46:30

she's trying to get back, we haven't gotten her

46:32

back yet. There are

46:35

lots of great questions that

46:38

have come through, and

46:40

just a few that

46:43

I'll flag in connection

46:45

with happiness. Charlie

46:48

Cranmer asks, is it true that the pursuit of happiness

46:50

was changed from the original to pursuit of property? How

46:52

did that work? Property

46:55

is an alienable natural right. You can

46:57

surrender it to government during the transition

46:59

to the state of nature. Happiness

47:02

by contrast is unalienable because you can't

47:05

surrender your powers of reason, and you

47:07

can't allow anyone else to tell you

47:09

or anyone else what to think. So

47:12

that's why Jefferson gets the pursuit of

47:14

happiness, not from John Locke's second treatise,

47:16

but from Locke's essay concerning human understanding,

47:18

and the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers

47:20

think of happiness as unalienable rather than alienable.

47:25

And we also have a great

47:28

question about is there a source

47:31

from humans writing appropriate and accessible for

47:33

middle schoolers approaching the Constitution? What would

47:35

be Linda Littman? Great question.

47:39

Dennis and Aaron have recommended humans

47:41

essays, and I think I'll

47:43

ask you, Aaron, is there a

47:46

particular essay that you would start with for

47:48

the middle school students? And

47:50

then as we begin to tie

47:52

this together, give us a

47:54

sense of Hume's influence on Hamilton's view

47:56

of executive power in Federalist 85. Those

48:00

are great questions there. As

48:02

far as Hume's essays and

48:04

teaching middle schoolers, I really

48:06

like Hume's, that politics

48:09

may be reduced to a science. And

48:11

I mean, you get there, I mean,

48:13

Alexander Pope said that government is best,

48:15

which is best administered. And you have

48:18

Hume rebutting

48:20

that and saying that the constitutional

48:22

machinery is more important. And

48:26

he has a great set of

48:29

essays on happiness, four essays on happiness that I

48:31

would recommend. And we've been talking about happiness a

48:33

little bit here. And then it started by saying

48:36

that Hume was this, you

48:38

know, a cheery

48:41

guy. I mean, people like to have dinner parties with him, to

48:43

have conversations with him. And in these

48:46

four essays, Hume speaks about the

48:49

ancient moralists. And he

48:52

says there are some sentiments that seem to

48:54

arise naturally in human affairs. And

48:56

he ties the Platonists with

48:59

contemplation, and the Stoics with

49:01

action, and the Epicureans with pleasure.

49:03

And then he writes an essay called the Skeptic,

49:06

which is a response to these and argues,

49:09

as Hume will argue

49:11

later, happiness consists in the balance

49:13

of all these things, right, a little bit of contemplation,

49:15

a little bit of action, a little bit of pleasure.

49:18

And I mean, I think that says a lot

49:20

about who Hume is, his perspective

49:22

on happiness. And you have there this idea

49:24

that there are

49:26

various perspectives on happiness. And

49:29

the pursuit of them requires, you know,

49:31

in Hume's mind, and also, I mean,

49:33

you can see this in the Federalist

49:35

Papers, you can see this in later

49:37

interpreters of the American political order, you

49:39

know, there's a plurality of visions

49:41

of happiness, and there's a freedom there

49:44

to pursue that we'll be happier if

49:46

we allow each other to pursue these

49:51

various life plans. But as but Hume

49:53

says, I mean, he and he repeated

49:55

in his works, you know, the aim

49:57

of this moral inquiry is to promote

50:00

to help delineate and promote our duties.

50:03

And so I think that's

50:05

what I mean, the idea of happiness and

50:07

virtue are closely tied together. Beautiful,

50:10

and Linda says middle schoolers love happiness

50:12

and don't we all? And what a

50:14

great place to begin learning

50:17

about happiness from here, and they are

50:19

so accessible, which is why it's such

50:21

a great introduction for learners of all

50:23

ages. Dennis,

50:27

as we begin to bring

50:29

this great discussion home, why

50:32

was it that Hamilton

50:34

was so attracted to Hume's

50:36

notion of a

50:38

strong monarch defending himself

50:40

against legislative approachments by

50:43

handing out offices? And

50:47

Jefferson called that a kind of corruption, but it

50:49

was central to Hume's vision and

50:52

how well has it

50:55

endured in the American context? Right,

50:59

a number of British thinkers at

51:01

this time worried about the system

51:03

that the king used to

51:05

essentially grease the wheels of politics to

51:07

use money as

51:10

leverage within Parliament. This

51:13

is seen as corruption, the Whigs wanted to get

51:15

rid of this, people like Jefferson saw this as

51:19

an enormous black mark on the British

51:21

Constitution. People like Hume

51:23

and Hamilton thought, you know, sometimes

51:25

the wheels need to be greased,

51:27

right? That politics, you can't stand

51:30

too much on principle,

51:32

that sometimes you need to

51:34

bow to pragmatic considerations. This

51:37

sounds, I think, strange to

51:39

the modern year, that we tend to

51:41

think of principles as almost automatically good

51:44

things, right? To call a person principled,

51:46

and maybe even especially a politician principled,

51:49

is high praise, right? You have strong beliefs,

51:51

you have the courage of your convictions, you're

51:53

not just motivated by kind of, you

51:56

know, pragmatic political considerations. Hume...

52:00

thought that too much emphasis on principle

52:02

was in fact a great danger, a

52:04

source of great ills in politics. Well,

52:07

why would that be? Well, Hume

52:09

worries that when people think that

52:12

their views, their beliefs, their

52:15

desires are justified by a principle,

52:18

then they start to regard those

52:20

who disagree with them as not

52:22

just political opponents or as rivals,

52:24

who have different interests, but

52:27

rather as somebody who's wrong, maybe

52:29

even evil or impious. Right?

52:31

And so this is why Hume thinks

52:33

that a politics of principle is

52:36

apt to be a politics of fanaticism

52:38

and zeal and ruinous conflict. There

52:41

can be moderation, there can be

52:43

compromise when it's just a matter

52:45

of conflicting interests. But

52:48

it's a lot harder to do that when it's

52:50

a matter of principle. And so again, this sounds

52:52

very odd for a philosopher to condemn

52:54

the intrusion of speculation of

52:57

principle into politics. Philosophers

53:00

from Plato to the present who said, well, how

53:02

can we use philosophy to guide politics? But this,

53:04

in some ways, this ties together a lot of

53:06

what we've been seeing as befits

53:09

a skeptic like Hume. He thinks

53:11

it's wrong headed, it's

53:13

dangerous to appeal

53:15

to some transcendent principle beyond the political

53:17

world and expect that it's somehow going

53:20

to solve all of our problems. So

53:22

the alleged corruption of

53:24

the parliament is sometimes just a

53:26

necessary matter of what has

53:29

to go on in politics. Indeed,

53:34

a great distillation of

53:36

Hume's skeptical vision. Aaron,

53:41

there's a big topic and little

53:43

time to address it. But in

53:45

your closing thoughts, you

53:48

talk about Hume's religious skepticism, the fact

53:50

that he was attacked as an atheist,

53:53

although you say he's better understood as an agnostic.

53:55

And at the end of his career, he described

53:57

himself as an epicurean as surprisingly

54:00

did Jefferson, what

54:02

can you say to help

54:05

our listeners understand

54:07

Hume's spiritual

54:10

views and their relationship to his politics?

54:14

Absolutely, great question. I

54:17

mean, Hume is, he wasn't

54:21

alive at the time

54:23

of the English Civil Wars, but the Wars

54:26

of Religion, he read

54:28

the works of Bernard Mandeville and Pierre Beall,

54:30

he read Hobbes, and so he knew of

54:33

the violence, the extraordinary violence that occurred in

54:35

these wars of religion. And

54:37

liberal political thought is in many

54:39

ways derived from this

54:42

attempt to lower the

54:44

temperature of political discourse,

54:47

to not allow enthusiastic

54:50

religious views to intrude upon

54:52

public political discourse. And

54:55

at this time, in the response to the religious

54:57

wars, there was a kind of skepticism and an

55:01

Epicureanism that arose.

55:03

And Epicureanism was

55:06

known in the ancient world for separating

55:09

politics, more than politics,

55:12

from the providential order.

55:14

It was more empirical

55:16

in its approach. And so, and

55:19

Hume is someone who says in the

55:21

treatise that experience

55:23

is the only authority on which we can

55:25

rely. Madison

55:28

in the Federalist 20s, it's called

55:31

Experience the Oracle of Truth. And so

55:33

there's this turn to make politics,

55:37

I don't want to say less principled,

55:39

but you know, I mean less philosophical,

55:42

or certainly less ideological. And

55:44

one thing I argue in my book is that

55:48

this attempt to make

55:50

politics less philosophical required a

55:52

lot of philosophical maneuvering.

55:56

And that's one thing I think

55:58

I contribute with this. book is showing

56:00

that, I mean, Hume, for

56:02

someone who wanted to be

56:05

more practical, perhaps, in politics,

56:07

I mean, he wrote a

56:10

massive tome, as you've

56:12

mentioned, Jeff, on the understanding and the

56:14

passions and morals. And I think in

56:16

modern political thought, I mean, sometimes in

56:18

modern life, we take

56:20

for granted some of these big philosophical

56:22

moves that were taken during the Enlightenment.

56:27

And I mean, that's one of the

56:29

reasons Hume remains this central, the central figure.

56:31

I mean, he was ambitious, he wanted to

56:33

be heard. And he was heard.

56:35

And I do think that

56:37

this skeptical Epicureanism that arose in

56:39

the early modern and Enlightenment periods

56:43

was present in Hume. But that's precisely,

56:45

you know, folks like Madison, they

56:47

didn't accept that

56:50

moral and those moral and religious views.

56:52

So they looked at Hume's political views

56:56

and his thoughts on public

57:00

opinion, and reliance on

57:02

experience and observation. These,

57:04

you know, producing a constitutional machinery,

57:07

these are the things that they really

57:09

took on board. Absolutely

57:13

fascinating. So important to distinguish between

57:16

the epistemology and the politics, but

57:18

to note that the framers took

57:20

some of Hume and

57:22

not all of it. Thank

57:25

you so much. First

57:27

of all, Angela Coventry, who wasn't

57:29

able to get back, but contributed so

57:31

much to our discussion, as well as

57:33

Dennis Rasmussen and Aaron Alexander Zubia. And

57:36

to you, dear NCC friends, it's just

57:38

so exciting to see your phenomenal questions

57:40

and the fact that you're taking an

57:42

hour out in the middle of your

57:44

evening to learn about this important topic

57:47

of Hume and the founders. And of

57:50

course, the way to keep the conversation

57:52

going is to keep reading and to

57:56

read the Hume essays, starting with the essays

57:58

on happiness. and

58:00

to continue with more primary

58:02

sources and then the great

58:04

books of our scholars today,

58:07

Dennis Rasmussen, Aaron Alexander-Sibya, and

58:09

Angela Kaffintry. Thank

58:11

you, panelists, thank you, friends, and

58:13

look forward to seeing everyone again

58:15

soon. I'm going to end. Today's

58:22

episode was produced by Tanea Talver, Lana Ulrich

58:24

and Bill Pollack. It was engineered by David

58:26

Stotts and Bill Pollack. Research

58:28

was provided by Lana Ulrich, Samson

58:31

Mastashare, Cooper Smith, and Yara Derase.

58:34

We the people, friends, I'm so excited.

58:36

On February 13th, which is coming up,

58:38

I am releasing my new book, The

58:40

Pursuit of Happiness, How Classical Writers on

58:42

Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders

58:45

and Defined America. You

58:47

heard about it during the Hume Conversation,

58:49

and I can't wait to share it with you. If

58:51

you would like a signed book plate, and

58:53

who wouldn't, email me

58:56

at jrozen at constitutioncenter.org, and

58:58

I would love to send it to you. Please

59:00

recommend the show to friends, colleagues, or anyone

59:02

anywhere who is hungry, is

59:04

waiting, is eager for a weekly

59:07

dose of constitutional and

59:09

historical illumination and debate. Sign

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behalf of the National Constitution Center, I'm

59:47

Jeffrey Rosen.