Hume’s Political obligation. Between precarity and skepticism

Abstract

The first objective of this paper is to reconstruct Hume’s concept of political obligation based on the theses of the Treatise of Human Nature and some of his political essays. Hume is critical of contractualism and consent as a basis of authority’s legitimacy, proposing instead what he calls “precarious acquiescence”. The second objective is to analyze the reach of Humean skepticism regarding political obligation and verifying if it extends to the obligation to abide by the rules of justice. In order to do that, we will analyze the figure of the sensible knave, introduced in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. We will conclude that Humean skepticism that is reflected on his understanding of political obligation, impacts his answer to the potential rule offenders, nevertheless, more than a failure in Hume’s argument this skepticism is an advantage in order to think politics beyond dogmatism.