ABSTRACT
David Hume starts by offering a complicated general proof of the artificiality of justice. The original motive to the establishment and observance of justice is, according to Hume, the desire for the material prosperity and personal security which only society can confer. Only the principles of justice are founded on human conventions. There are two objections to Hume’s views. The first is that Hume implies that the “natural” obligation to justice, founded on self-interest, requires an “inflexible observance of the rules of justice”. The second objection is that Hume is emphatic that the “moral” obligation to justice, founded on sympathy and public utility, requires an “inflexible observance” of the rules of justice. Hume’s account of “the manner in which the rules of justice are established by the artifice of men”. The motive of self-interest, enlightened by the experience of family life, leads men to form agreements in order to obtain security and prosperity.
