Abstract:

Hume’s theory of justice is unique in the Western intellectual history of justice. On the one hand, Hume holds the dualism of human nature: human beings have both the nature of benevolence or sympathy for others and selfish nature and emotion; on the other hand, he believes that people are fundamentally selfish. In Hume, such two kinds of emotions or natures of human beings produce two kinds of rules or virtues, in which one is natural and the other is artificial. Fundamentally speaking, artificial rules or virtues originate from the selfish nature of human beings. Justice is produced on the premise of an agreement made to regulate people’s selfish nature so that people can benefit each other. Hume mainly discusses the three laws of justice, but he only discusses the virtue of justice in the sense of moral sense produced by fulfilling one’s promise. However, Hume’s views on the origin of justice are contradictory: although he discusses the original contract in his Treatise of Human Nature, he basically negates the original contract in other theses.

Key words: justice, the law of justice, artificial virtues, contract