'Because Everyone Thinks So': Hume on Authority and Common Opinion

23 Pages Posted: 27 Oct 2010 Last revised: 21 Aug 2023

See all articles by Leslie Green

Leslie Green

Queen's University - Faculty of Law; University of Oxford - Faculty of Law

Date Written: October 1, 2010

Abstract

Many legal and political philosophers think that common attitudes to authority impose powerful constraints on justification. In particular, they often think sceptical theories are objectionably inconsistent with the common view that everyone has a duty to obey the law. The most influential argument of this sort is due to David Hume, and it is his version that is tested here. The paper argues that common opinion lacks is less probative than Hume thinks, and that his related objections to consent theory fail. There is no reason to think our common views of political authority are what Hume and others think they are. There is no reason to exempt widely-held common views about moral matters from scrutiny in light of the genesis of those views. There is reason to think that, in politics as in religion, what Hume called 'superstitions' are quite common.

Suggested Citation

Green, Leslie, 'Because Everyone Thinks So': Hume on Authority and Common Opinion (October 1, 2010). Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper No. 59/2010, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1697992 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1697992

Leslie Green (Contact Author)

Queen's University - Faculty of Law ( email )

Kingston, Canada, Ontario K7L3N6
Canada

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/people/leslie-green

University of Oxford - Faculty of Law ( email )

Balliol College
Oxford
Oxford, UK, OX1 3BJ
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/people/leslie-green

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