The Basis of Moral Judgments: Hume's Perspective

Moral judgments are essentially rooted in personal feelings and preferences rather than objective moral facts. In Hume's view, the notion of right and wrong arises from emotional responses, and any reasoning provided serves primarily to justify those feelings post hoc. While reasoning plays a vital role in ethical development by helping to refine perspectives and address contradictions, it does not define the moral value of actions or beliefs. According to Hume, the intuition that some moral positions are inherently better than others leads to the concept of moral anti-realism, which asserts that there are no universal moral truths, only varying degrees of moral preferences shaped by individual emotions.