ABSTRACT
This paper shows that Hume’s theory of passion, such as elaborated mainly in book II of the Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40) and in ‘A Dissertation on the Passions’ (1757), gives rise to a conception of the decision process which challenges the canonical approach to the rationality of decision, as rationality of preferences or rationality of choice. It shows that when adopting a Humean perspective, rationality is not embodied as consistency requirements of individual behaviour, but may emerge as a possible outcome of some dispositions of our mind, which make the world inhabited by our emotions.
JEL classification: B11, B31, B41, D01.
