Perry, Hume and the rejection of naturalism

pp. 95-124

in: Stephen Satris, Ethical emotivism, Berlin, Springer, 1987

Abstract

Apart from my emphasis on language, my approach is not dissimilar to that of Hume. We must “glean up our experiments in this science from a cautious observation of human life, and take them as they appear in the common course of the world, by men’s behavior in company, in affairs, and in pleasures.”1 Stevenson further remarks in the preface that a proper use of this Humean method of observation will show that empiricism does not discredit or distort ethics but can succeed in giving ethics a place whose importance is without question.