David Hume’s Stark Warning: Reason Serves Passion (Barry Brownstein, March 25, 2025, The Daily Economy)
For those who believe reason governs them, further consideration of Hume’s philosophy exposes their arrogance.
“Nothing is more usual in philosophy, and even in common life,” Hume wrote in his Treatise, than to claim the “pre-eminence of reason above passion.”
By passions, Hume means our predispositions, charged thinking, and emotions generated by beliefs of which we are often unaware. Hume argues, “reason alone can never produce any action, or give rise to volition.” He adds, “I infer, that the same faculty [reason] is as incapable of preventing volition, or of disputing the preference with any passion or emotion.”
Hume argues our “passions” come first, and then we use “reason” to justify what our emotions have decided. We think reason drives our decision-making bus, but reason is often only a passenger.
The notion of Reason is a conceit.