SIMPATIA ED ETICA: IN DIFESA DELLA PROSPETTIVA HUMEANA

Abstract

In this essay I reconstruct the role which the principle of sympathy plays in the ethics of Hume. I show that Humean sympathy should not be read in terms of empathy, as many do read it nowadays, and I defend Humean sympathy from those critics for whom it is deleterious to a correct account of morality. I claim that the Humean take on ethics is fundamentally correct: sympathy reveals itself to be indispensable both to finding a common point of view from which to judge morally, and to having a moral perspective that is capable of moving human beings to act according to its dictates.