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Physical Objects and Moral Wrongness: Hume on the "Fallacy" in Wollaston's Moral Theory
- Hume Studies
- Hume Society
- Volume 35, Number 1 & 2, 2009
- pp. 87-101
- 10.1353/hms.2009.a403833
- Article
- Additional Information
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In a well-known footnote in Book 3 of his Treatise of Human Nature, Hume calls William Wollaston's moral theory a "whimsical system" and purports to destroy it with a few brief objections. The first of those objections, although fatally flawed, has hitherto gone unrefuted. To my knowledge, its chief error has escaped attention. In this paper I expose that error; I also show that it has relevance beyond the present subject. It can occur with regard to any moral theory which, like Wollaston's, locates the wrongness of an act in a property that can reside in non-actions no less than in actions.