ABSTRACT
David Hume's account in the Treatise of the artificial virtues, their obligation and motivation, resists easy interpretation. In his theory of the artificial virtues and vices, Hume considers "the three fundamental laws of nature, that of the stability of possession, of its transference by consent, and of the performance of promises". This chapter offers a different reading of Hume, distinguishing the natural obligation to justice, fidelity or promise-keeping, and allegiance from the moral obligation, and showing that the natural obligation is not feigned, and that the moral obligation may be related to it. It introduces the sensible knave from the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. The knave offers an objection, not to this different reading of Hume as a reading, but to the adequacy of the theory so read. The chapter considers whether Hume may have an alternative answer that would leave these virtues intact.
