David Hume and international political theory: A reappraisal

Review of International Studies

Volumn 34, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 225-242

  Van De Haar, Edwin ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 42949177528     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: 14699044     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210508008000     Document Type: Article

References (147)

1. T. J. Schlereth, The Cosmopolitan Ideal in Enlightenment Thought. Its Form and Function in the Ideas of Franklin, Hume and Voltaire, 1694-1790 (Notre Dame, NC and London: The University of Notre Dame Press, 1977), p. 108.
2. R. Klibansky and E. C. Mossner, 'Editors Introduction', in New Letters of David Hume (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954), p. xxvii.
3. For a detailed overview and positive judgement of his diplomatic efforts, see E. C. Mossner, The Life of David Hume (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 489, 533-56.
4. Edward Keene, International Political Thought: A Historical Introduction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005), pp. 135-7.
5. D. Forbes, Hume's Philosophical Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 140.
6. L. L. Bongie, David Hume: Prophet of the Counter-Revolution (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2000).
7. Hedley Bull, 'Introduction: Martin Wight and the Study of International Relations', in Martin Wight, Systems of States, ed. Hedley Bull (Leicester: Leicester University Press in association with the London School of Economics and Political Science, 1977), p. 1.
8. Ian Clark, "Traditions of Thought and Classical Theories of International Relations', and Ian Clark and Iver B. Neumann. 'Conclusion', both in Clark and Neumann (eds.), Classical Theories of International Relations (Houndmills and London: Macmillan Press, 1996), pp. 1-19, 256-62.
9. M. Wight, International Theory: The Three Traditions, eds. Gabriele Wight and Brian Porter (London: Leicester University Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1991), p. 260.
10. For a critical assessment of the use of traditions, see Renée Jeffery, 'Tradition as Invention: The "Traditions Tradition" and the History of Ideas in International Relations', Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 34 (2005), pp. 57-84.
11. Barry Buzan, 'The English School: An Underexploited Resource in IR', Review of International Studies, 27 (2001), pp. 474-6.
12. Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, 2nd edn. (Houndmills and London: Macmillan, 1995), pp. 23-6.
13. Wight, 'Three Traditions', pp. 39, 206, 165-6.
14. M. Wight, Four Seminal Thinkers in International Theory, eds. Gabriele Wight and Brian Porter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 51.
15. D. C. Ainslie, 'The Problem of National Self in Hume's Theory of Justice', Hume Studies, XXI (1995), pp. 289-94.
16. Schlereth, "The Cosmopolitan Ideal', pp. 104-5.
17. R. J. Glossop, 'Hume and the Future of the Society of Nations', Hume Studies, X (1984), p. 54;
18. Robert S. Hill, 'David Hume', in Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey (eds.), History of Political Philosophy, 3rd edn. (Chicago, IL and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 550-1.
19. David Hume, A. Treatise of Human Nature, eds. David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 183.
20. Hume, 'Treatise', pp. 188-9.
21. Ibid., p. 200.
22. David Hume, Essays: Moral. Political and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987), p. 288.
23. Hume, 'Treatise', p. 5.
24. Ibid., p. 79.
25. David Hume, The Letters of David Hume, ed. J. Y. T. Greig (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), letter 69a.
26. Ainslie, 'Problem of National Self, p. 302.
27. Hume, 'Treatise', p. 218.
28. Ibid., p. 371. This view is very similar to Adam Smith's thoughts on this matter.
29. Hume, 'Essays', p. 85.
30. J. B. Stewart, Opinion and Reform in Hume's Political Philosophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), p. 312.
31. Ainslie, 'Problem of National Self, pp. 305-7.
32. J. G. A. Pocock, Virtue, Commerce and History: Essays on Political Thought and History, Chiefly in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 138.
33. J. G. Hayman, 'Notions on National Characters in the Eighteenth Century', Huntington Library Quarterly, 35 (1971), pp. 13-14.
34. Hume, 'Essays', p. 197.
35. Ainslie, 'Problem of National Self, pp. 295-6.
36. Hume, 'Essays', pp. 197-215.
37. F. G. Whelan, Order and Artifice in Hume's Political Philosophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 293.
38. Stewart, 'Opinion and Reform', p. 311.
39. Knud Haakonssen, The Science of a Legislator: The Natural Jurisprudence of David Hume and Adam Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 21.
40. David Hume, The History of England: From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688. In Six Volumes, ed. William B. Todd (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1983), vol. 1, pp. 103, 161.
41. Hume, 'Essays', pp. 255, 260.
42. Ibid., p. 308.
43. Frederick G. Whelan, Hume and Machiavelli: Political Realism and Liberal Thought (Lanham, MD and Oxford: Lexington Books, 2004), pp. 224-5.
44. Whelan's recent book (see the previous note) comes close to a full overview, but does not cover all aspects of Hume's international relations.
45. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 99.
46. Hume, 'Treatise', p. 362, Glossop, 'Future', p. 51.
47. Hume, 'History', vol. 4, p. 159.
48. Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 25, 88.
49. Hume, 'Treatise', p. 362.
50. Hume, 'Essays', p. 255.
51. Hume, 'Principles of Morals', p. 99.
52. Hume, 'Treatise', pp. 362-4.
53. Hume, 'Principles of Morals', p. 100.
54. J. Harrison, Hume's Theory of Justice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), p. 233.
55. J. L. Mackie, Hume's Moral Theory (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), pp. 113-15.
56. Mossner, 'Life', pp. 41-2.
57. Fania Oz-Salzberger, "The Political Theory of the Scottish Enlightenment', in Alexander Broadie (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 169.
58. Klibansky and Mossner, 'Editors Introduction', pp. xxvii-xxviii.
59. T. L. Beauchamp, 'Editors Introduction', in David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 18-19.
60. Glossop, 'Future of the Society of Nations', pp.46-53.
61. Robert A. Manzer, 'A Science of Politics: Hume, The Federalist, and the Politics of Constitutional Attachment", American Journal of Political Science, 45 (2001), p. 512.
62. J. T. King, 'The Virtue of Political Skepticism', Reason Papers, 15 (1990), pp. 24-46. The question whether Hume was a Tory or a Whig has been subject of continued debate, but many commentators regard him as a Whig.
63. See for example Eugene Miller, 'David Hume: Tory or Whig?', New Individualist Review, 1 (1961), pp. 19-27.
64. Reprinted by Liberty Fund (1981); James Conniff, 'Hume on Political Parties: The Case for Hume as a Whig', Eighteenth Century Studies, 12 (1978-1979), pp. 150-73.
65. Hume, 'Essays', p. 337.
66. Ibid., pp. 323-39.
67. Ibid., p. 93.
68. Hume, 'History', vol. 1, p. 296.
69. K. Haakonssen, 'Introduction', in David Hume, Political Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. xxii.
70. Hume, 'Essays', p. 507.
71. Ibid., p. 337.
72. J. Black, "The Theory of Balance of Power in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century', Review of International Studies, 9 (1983), pp. 55-61;
73. J. R. Sofka, 'The Eighteenth Century International System: Parity or Primacy?', Review of International Studies, 27 (2001), pp. 147-53.
74. Schlereth, "The Cosmopolitan Ideal', p. 113.
75. F. Linares, Das Politischen Denken von David Hume (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1984), pp. 81-2.
76. F. G. Whelan, 'Robertson. Hume and the Balance of Power', Hume Studies, XXI (1995), pp. 316-17.
77. Whelan, 'Hume and Machiavelli', pp. 210-11.
78. Hume, 'Essays', p. 337.
79. Whelan, 'Hume and Machiavelli', p. 211.
80. Hume, 'Letters', letter 453.
81. Hume, 'New Letters', letter 127.
82. Hume, 'Principles of Morals', p. 86.
83. J. B. Stewart, The Moral and Political Philosophy of David Hume (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1963), p. 194.
84. Hume, 'Essays', pp.261-2.
85. Ibid., pp. 257-9.
86. Ibid., p. 259.
87. J. D. Danford, 'Hume's History and the Parameters of Economic Development', in D. W. Livingstone (ed.), Liberty in Hume's History of England (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990), pp. 161-8.
88. Hume, 'Essays', p. 38.
89. Hume, 'History', vol. 5, p. 39.
90. Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 80-1.
91. Stewart, 'Opinion and Reform', p. 308; Shirley Robin Letwin, The Pursuit of Certainty: David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Beatrice Webb (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1998), p. 116.
92. Hume, 'Letters', letter 510; Mossner, 'Life', pp. 553-4.
93. Ibid., letter 514.
94. Ibid., letter 511.
95. Ibid., letter 512.
96. Pocock, 'Virtue, Commerce, History', pp. 137-9.
97. Some writers use his uncharacteristically illiberal remark on the inferiority of negroes (in a note to the essay Of National Characters) as an excuse for slavery. Theorists of more fame look at the better known parts of his work. Franklin visits him several times and corresponds with him from the 1750s onwards. Hume influences Paine's ideas on the origin of government. Hamilton calls him a solid and ingenious writer and refers to his work in the last Federalists paper. In Federalist no. 10, Madison is clearly influenced by the essay The Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth, where Hume maintains that a stable republic may cover a large geographical area.
98. See J. M. Werner, 'David Hume and America', Journal of the History of Ideas, 33 (1972), pp. 439-56.
99. Hume, 'Essays', pp. 89, 92; Haakonssen, 'Introduction', pp. xxi-xxiii.
100. Ibid., p. 255.
101. Ibid., p. 263.
102. J. Fieser (ed.), Early Responses to Hume's Moral, Literary and Political Writings (Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2005), pp. xii-xiii;
103. Lionel Robbins, A History of Economic Thought: The LSE Lectures, eds. Steven G. Medema and Warren J. Samuels (Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 151.
104. A. S. Skinner, 'David Hume: Principles of Political Economy', in D. F. Norton (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hume (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1993), pp. 239-45.
105. Hume, 'Essays', pp. 308-9.
106. Ibid., pp. 328-30.
107. R. W. McGee, 'The Economic Thought of David Hume', Hume Studies, XV (1989), pp. 197-9.
108. D. Miller, Philosophy and Ideology in Hume's Political Thought (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), p. 125.
109. Hume, 'Essays', p. 262; E. Soule, 'Hume on Economic Policy and Human Nature', Hume Studies, XXVI (2000), p. 146.
110. Hume, 'Essays', pp. 272-3.
111. R. A. Manzer, 'The Promise of Peace? Hume and Smith on the Effects of Commerce on War and Peace', Hume Studies, XXII (1996), pp. 369-82.
112. D. A. Irwin, Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 76;
113. R. Sally, Classical Liberalism and International Economic. Order: Studies in Theory and Intellectual History (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), p. 57.
114. For a modern confirmation, see Katherine Barbieri, The Liberal Illusion: Does Trade Promote Peace? (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2005).
115. Also see Fania Oz-Salzberger, 'Political Theory of Scottish Enlightenment', pp. 157-77.
116. Jerry Z. Muller, The Mind and The Market: Capitalism in Modern European Thought (New York: Anchor Books, 2003), p. 54.
117. M. Cohen, 'Moral Skepticism and International Relations', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 13 (1984), p. 301.
118. See for example: E. B. Haas, 'The Balance of Power: Prescription, Concept or Propaganda", World Politics, 5 (1953), p. 456;
119. R. Jervis, 'A Political Science Perspective on the Balance of Power and the Concert', The American Historical Review, 97 (1992), p. 718;
120. T. L. Knutsen, A History of International Relations Theory (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), p. 122;
121. J. N. Nye, Jr., 'The Changing Nature of World Power', Political Science Quarterly, 105 (1990), pp. 177-92;
122. Sofka, 'The Eighteenth Century System', p. 154; J.A. Vasquez, Classics of International Relations (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990), pp. 273-6;
123. K. N. Waltz, 'Anarchic Orders and Balances of Power', in R. O. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), p. 119.
124. Sally, 'Classical Liberalism', pp. 35-63.
125. Chris Brown, Understanding International Relations, 2nd edn. (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 107, 152.
126. D. Boucher, Political Theories of International Relations: From Thycidides to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 145.
127. M. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A. Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 1992), p. 76.
128. Wight, 'International Theory', pp. 17, 247, 267; M. Wight, Power Politics, eds. Hedley Bull and Carsten Holbraad (London: Leicester University Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1995), pp. 168-9.
129. Whelan, 'Hume and Machiavelli', pp. 209-11, 214-15, 217, 227-9.
130. Ibid., p. 315.
131. Ibid., pp. 292, 297.
132. Hume, 'History', vol., p. 153.
133. Hume, 'Principles of Morals', pp. 87-8.
134. Chris Brown, Sovereignty, Rights and Justice: International Political Theory Today (Cambridge: Polity, 2002), pp. 40-1, 47-8.
135. Hume, 'Essays', p. 119.
136. Whelan, 'Hume and Machiavelli', pp. 222-3, 297.
137. See above and also Whelan, 'Hume and Machiavelli', pp. 224, 234.
138. Nicholas Rengger, 'On the Just War Tradition in the Twenty-First Century', International Affairs, 78 (2002), p. 363.
139. C. Brown, T. Nardin and N. J. Rengger (eds.), International Relations in Political Thought: Texts from the Ancient Greeks to the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 383.
140. Andrew Linklater and Hidemi Suganami, The English School of International Relations: A Contemporary Reassessment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 175.
141. Barry Buzan, from International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 45.
142. Linklater and Suganami, 'The English School', pp. 59-71.
143. Buzan, From International to World Society', p. 46.
144. Linklater and Suganami, 'The English School', chs 4-7, pp. 266-8.
145. Ibid., pp. 64-5.
146. Ibid., p. 265.
147. As cited by Linklater and Suganami, 'The English School', pp. 18-20. Also see N.J. Rengger, 'Serpents and Doves in Classical International Theory', Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 17 (1988), pp. 215-25.