Hume on Women
In his 1783 essay On the Immortality of the Soul, David Hume presents the following, somewhat unexpected, argument:
On the theory of the soul’s mortality, the inferiority of women’s capacity is easily accounted for. Their domestic life requires no higher faculties either of mind or body. This circumstance vanishes and becomes absolutely insignificant on the religious theory: the one sex has an equal task to perform as the other; their powers of reason and resolution ought also to have been equal, and both of them infinitely greater than at present.1
So, an argument in favor of the no-immortal-souls position is that it would make it
easier to account for women’s natural inferiority, as being a housewife requires no great intellectual or physical gifts. Immortal souls, it would seem, are above such terrestrial concerns and therefore more egalitarian. Interestingly, this argument comes form a section of the essay entitled Moral Arguments.
There may well be other passages from Hume that mitigate or contradict these opinions—and if so please bring them to light here—but at this point the great sceptic’s assessment on traditional gender roles seems fairly straightforward. In the meantime you can find a few comments regarding the passage where I first spotted it at Siris.
CITATIONS:
1. David Hume, On The Immortality of the Soul, §II, 1783 (originally written in 1755). Online here.
Comments
3 Comments so far
His withdrawn essay on marriage advocated it being an equal partnership, and Annette Baier suggests that this was also, in effect, advocated in his published work (she notes that Hume’s ethics endorse only the authority of the state and not any of the other traditional forms of authority of supposed superiors over inferiors, and the traditional authority of men over women is among the traditional forms which Hume fails, she thinks conspicuously, to endorse). Of course, one might believe in intellectual difference without thinking it justified authority, and Hume probably did.
I agree with the comment. Hume pointed out (EPM, Conclusion) how women could with hold their knowledge of the paternity of their children, to get a better deal in society, and he also regarded Elizabeth Tudor as one of ngland’s ablest rulers. In the essay on immortality he is teasing the Christians, who did believe in women’s lower place. He often teased his readers.
Hume was a bit of a humourist as well, you know. His comments can’t always be taken at face value.