ABSTRACT
The most common argument for ethical skepticism proceeds from the apparent fact of ethical diversity or variation: people at different times and in different places have adopted different and often incompatible moral codes. Paralleling a line of argument that is often used to generate perceptual skepticism, it is then argued that there is no rational basis for selecting one moral principle or moral code over any other. In the Treatise, David Hume’s insistence upon the uniformity and regularity of moral phenomena comes out most clearly in the section entitled “Of Liberty.” Negatively, Hume treats the idea of liberty as fantastic. Equating it with chance, he dismisses it in these words: As chance is commonly thought to imply a contradiction, and is at least directly contrary to experience, there are always the same arguments against liberty or free-will.
