Moral Prejudices

David Hume's essay "Of Moral Prejudices" offers a spirited defence of "all the most endearing sentiments of the hearts, all the most useful biases and instincts, which can govern a human creature", against the onslaught of philosophers who would, in the pretext of reforming prejudices and errors, endeavour after perfection. Following Hume's example, Annette Baier delivers an appeal for our fundamental moral notions to be governed not by rules and codes, but by trust: a moral prejudice. In this enterprise, Baier takes her inspiration from Hume, whom she calls the "woman's moral philosopher" because he held that "corrected (sometimes rule-corrected) sympathy, not law-discerning reason, is the fundamental moral capacity", a quality normally associated with the feminine rather than with the masculine. Male moral philosophers have consistently avoided the whole question of love, for example. Baier entreats us to reject both the Platonic idea that we have a true self and the Kantian idea that it is rational to be moral, a notion that makes obligation central to ethics.
Baier's topics range from violence to love, from cruelty to justice, and are linked by a preoccupation with vulnerability and inequality of vulnerability, with trust and distrust of equals, with cooperation and isolation. Throughout, she is concerned with the theme of women's roles. In this exploration of the implication of trusting to trust rather than proscription, Baier interweaves anecdote and autobiography with readings of Hume and Kant to produce a challenging and readable book.