...will." They are intended to show that "reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will" and that "it can never oppose passion in the direction of the will" (T 2.3.3, 4I3)- Hume argues for the first contention in two ways: he says that reason has two functions...

...Action) is like (C > F), but with a special volitional cognition. According to David Hume (1888: 413), Reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will. Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions (415). Compare the following: a. The bridge...

...truth of what they represent. One version of this argument is Hume's in the Treatise, z.3.3. He claims that 'reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will' (Hume 1888 edn.: 413). This is designed to show that an agent's motivating reasons for an action must...

...of action, with belief (or information) relegated to being the slave of the passions, on the ground that 'reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will' ( Treatise, Book n, Part HI, Section 3). This will be the target of a Kantian riposte presently. But...

...action and desire that conativism assigns to desires. Hume elsewhere writes (the emphases are added): 'reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will' (7^413), 'reason alone can never produce any action, or give rise to volition' (T^1^), 'reason alone......

...passions that do motivate it. After all, as we have seen, the function of reason is to make judgments. "The understanding exerts itself after two different...objects, of which experience only gives us information" — namely, matters of fact. But even when such judgments guide actions, they cannot motivate them...

...Bk. 2, sect. 3). All intentional action, according to Hume, requires passion of some kind. He wrote that "reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will" (1739/1888, p. 413). Suppose, for example, that two people agree that a third person needs help, but...

...needs, desires, and passions becomes the impetus that stimulates the self into moral movement because "reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will" (Hume, 1739, p. 413). This clearly aligns with the Freudian corpus. And while subjectivity strives...

...distinction for Hutcheson now becomes an absolute principle governing the explanation of human conduct 'reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will ... it can never oppose passion in the direction of the will' (Hume, 1978: 413). Behind such confident...

...similar understanding. Just as Aristotle declared that "thought by itself moves nothing," Hume declared that "reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will" (1888, 413). As explained by John Bricke (1996), Hume advances a "conativist" theory of ethics that...