University College London
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT
UK
Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote extensively on ethics, and on religion. His great contribution was to recognise what has become a central tenet of modern Humanism; which is that the second typically has nothing positive to give to the first.
Hume believed that morality was derived from the feelings of people; a natural state of empathy and benevolence which owed little to religion. Religion, Hume argued, hardened the heart and perverted the understanding of others.
In this lecture, Simon Blackburn explains his thinking on both topics, and on the negative relation between them.
The Bentham Lecture is organised by the Humanist Philosophers’ Group with support from the British Humanist Association and the Philosophy Department at University College London.
Time: 6.00 PM (for a 6.30 start) through to 8.30 PM (followed by a drinks reception)
About the speaker:
A vice-president of the British Humanist Association, Professor Simon Blackburn is a vigorous proponent for quasi-realism: a stance which has its origins from the work of David Hume. Until his retirement in 2011, Professor Blackburn was a professor of philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge. Now a distinguished research professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Professor Blackburn is also a Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge.