ABSTRACT
David Hume's political thought has been variously characterized as archetypically conservative, as contractarian, as utilitarian, and as an elaborate apology for the eighteenth-century ruling classes. Like his theory of justice, Hume's account of allegiance to government is based ultimately on convention and practice. Governments remain and should remain in existence, he says, because they serve the interest we have in maintaining justice. In "A Dialogue", Hume confronts the issues of uniformity and diversity directly. The chapter argues that underlying his rejection of rules for revolution is a much more flexible view of human nature than is usually recognized, a view that opens the way for a contextualist account of politics. However, the best evidence that Hume is a contextualist lies in the considerations he brings to bear when he discusses real politics. Many commentators take it as obvious that Hume believes in a very particular form of human nature, one which is ahistorical and acontextual.
