The king, sensible that nothing kept alive the ideas of military valour and of ancient glory, so much as the traditional poetry of the people, which, assisted by the power of music, and the jollity of festivals, made deep impression on the minds of the youth, gathered together all the Welsh bards, and from a barbarous, though not absurd policy, ordered them to be put to death.--David Hume History of England
Edward I's mass murder of the socio-cultural leaders of the Welsh in 1284 is called 'barbarous,' but not absurd. It's not absurd because Hume recognizes the significance of what one might call a 'civic culture' -- poetry of the people...assisted by the power of music, and the jollity of festivals, -- for possible future (national) political resistance. That is to say, Hume recognizes the instrumental rationality of the English king's pacification of the Welsh which requires forceful methods to succeed.
That despite finding Edward's policy intelligible from the perspective of (Machiavellian) statecraft, one might well naturally think that Hume also condemns Edward's mass murder, even cultural genocide because he calls it 'barbarous.' And it is certainly case that the sociological contrast between barbarous and civilization, which is an important empirical distinction in Hume, is also normatively laden. For Hume, to be civilized is to be normatively better, more advanced, than to be barbarous. So, the natural thought is not silly here. I return to this below.
Yesterday, Mauricio Suárez called my attention to an article in The Scotsman, where academics protested the removal of David Hume's name from a university building at the University of Edinburgh. At first sight the critics are correct to suggest that Hume did not get honored belatedly by the university (which infamously refused him a post while living) in virtue of his racism, but for other “great and locally relevant [intellectual] achievements.” Let's stipulate this is true (although below I make an important qualification). It is also an interesting and tough question (recall Neil McArthur -- himself a distinguished Hume Scholar - here) how much imperfection one can tolerate in a scholar before certain academic honors for genuine intellectual achievements become off-limits. Jacob Levy (here; here) has done important work on this topic, which has influenced my own evolving sense.
Since I am a Hume scholar -- even got my first lucky intellectual break to write on Hume for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy --, you may expect me to be sympathetic to the critics and worry about my reputation. But, in fact, Hume scholarship has tried hard to confront Hume's racism (and I discuss some of this scholarship in my book on Smith). Anyway, my concern here is not with the reputation of Hume scholars, but with how to think about Hume's legacy.
I agree with the critics that the University of Edinburgh has done itself a disservice by it's unintellectual and uninformative explanation for its decision (here, so you can make up your own mind; ht Dailynous). But it does not mean the critics are right that there is no case here. As I have explained here, that infamous footnote occurs in a text which is also quite clearly anti-semitic. Hume's attitude toward the Jews (which sometimes could be more sympathetic) contrasts strongly with (say) Toland's advocacy of Jewish emancipation (a generation earlier).
In addition, Hume's views on the Irish (in his History) are not exactly sympathetic. I think (and will argue another time) that Adam Smith's one real fight with his close friend, Hume, involved Hume's prejudice toward the Irish (where Hume takes the side of the English, recycling its propaganda) in his treatment of the Irish (1641) rebellion. But today, I link you to Clare Moriarty's tweet which presents another's testimony. (Moriarty is a scholar of Berkeley's mathematics, who has called attention to his eugenic interests, anti-Irish prejudices, and slave-owning in the past.)
So, it is not true that in Hume's age, Hume's racial views were uncontroversial. Philosophers are endlessly taught, on the authority of both Hume (“that bigoted silly fellow")* and Kant, that James Beattie was a philosophical idiot. But whatever the merits of this claim against Beattie's arguments on causation, Beattie was also a fierce critic of Hume's racism (and may have even influenced Hume to moderate his racism).
So, the scholarly critics of the University of Edinburgh, rely on a flawed modern historicist defense of Hume which itself presupposes moral progress, where we know better and the mythical past was uniformly bigoted, as I have argued here (one of my better blog posts--go read it!) And while Hume was a critic of (ancient) slavery, his views on race were (predictably) used by contemporary defenders of slavery (recall here) and fiercely debated by English abolitionists.**
So, the case against Hume is that his racism is not a minor aberration in his thought, but a significant element of his larger views. In my view this is so not because Hume was especially animated by cultural prejudice or racism, but rather because he was a proponent of civilization -- which he associated with being governed by rule of law, commerce, humanity, and progress -- and thought it okay, on balance, if civilization was spread, even by force. And this returns me to his comment on Edward I.+ For, while if we only look at the passage above, it might seem Hume condems Edward's brutal policy of pacification, Hume himself offers the following summing up a bit later in the History:
The enterprizes, finished by this prince, and the projects, which he formed and brought near to a conclusion, were more prudent, more regularly conducted, and more advantageous to the solid interests of his kingdom, than those which were undertaken in any reign either of his ancestors or his successors. He restored authority to the government, disordered by the weakness of his father; he maintained the laws against all the efforts of his turbulent barons; he fully annexed to his crown the principality of Wales; he took many wise and vigorous measures for reducing Scotland to a like condition; and though the equity of this latter enterprize may reasonably be questioned, the circumstances of the two kingdoms promised such certain success, and the advantage was so visible of uniting the whole island under one head, that those who give great indulgence to reasons of state in the measures of princes, will not be apt to regard this part of his conduct with much severity. But Edward, however exceptionable his character may appear on the head of justice, is the model of a politic and warlike king: He possessed industry, penetration, courage, vigilance, and enterprize:
Here Hume quite clearly suggests that Edward I was the best king England ever had before or since ("any reign either of his ancestors or his successors").++ And one of the reasons for this is the very brutal annexation of Wales and the model it provided for the subduing of Scotland. And while Hume grants that from the vantage point of equity and justice Edward can be criticized, the consequences of this brutality are so excellent that the means justify the ends (the expansion of civilization). It is a very natural reading of Hume's History -- which was the source of his initial fame -- that brutal conquest in the name of reason of state is fine as long as you promote and secure the rule of law. This is a consequentialist argument.
Notice that Hume is not shy about judging characters of the past as exemplars worth emulating or not. Hume would reject the historicist argument of his defenders.
And while I have no doubt that British (racialized) imperialism in the name of civilization would have happened without Hume, Hume did help give this ideology (which goes back to earlier times [cf Petty's conquest of Ireland]) extremely wide currency and respectability (despite Adam Smith's and his student Millar's attempts to undo it). So, while this ideology does not influence the problem of induction, I do think it ties together many elements in Hume's moral and political philosophy and defense of commercial society. And I sometimes fear that despite Hume's scepticiam and irreligion (which made him ineligible for a university position), it is this proto-imperialist ideology that made Hume so widely and publically highly regarded (assuming most were uninterested in his metaphysics and the fine points of his epistemology). That's compatible with the claim that there are resources in his philosophy to combat this ideology.
Let me close. I do not think the case against Hume is simple or without complexity. And I do not wish to suggest that one cannot paint a better picture of Hume than I did today. (I have done so myself and will do so again.) But the case against Hume is wider and more relevant than his defenders realize. And ignoring that case means we do not confront the complicity of our heroes in justifying really important evils that ought to be repaired if we still can.
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