Reference no: EM13988155

1. Explain Hume's arguments in the Treatise that: (1) reason alone does not motivate any willful action; and (2) reason cannot oppose passion in influencing the will. How do these conclusions support his claims that, "Reason is, and ought only be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them," and, "It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger?"

2. In Part II, Section III of the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, David Hume argues that taking the utility away from justice would take away justice's very "essence." How does Hume establish utility as the general principle of the social virtue of justice? What would the status of utility and justice be in the "golden age" and "state of nature" fictions that Hume mentions later in the same section?