Hume, Butler, and Mandevillian Skepticism

The debate over whether human motivations are fundamentally self-interested or benevolent consumed Shaftesbury, Mandeville, and Hutcheson, but Hume—though explicitly indebted to all three—almost entirely ignores this issue. I argue that his relative silence reveals an overlooked intellectual debt to Bishop Butler, one which allows Hume to employ Mandevillian claims about virtue without endorsing a Mandevillian skepticism.