Hume on the nonhuman animal

Hume wrote about fundamental similarities and dissimilarities between human and nonhuman animals. His work was centered on the cognitive and emotional lives of animals, rather than their moral or legal standing, but his theor ies have implications for issues of moral standing. The historical backgrou nd of these controversies reaches to ancient philosophy and to several prom inent figures in early modern philosophy. Hume develops several of the them es in this literature. His underlying method is analogical argument and his conclusions are generally favorable regarding the abilities in animals. Hu me does not attribute a moral sense or capacity of judgment to animals, but he does suggest that their actions exhibit moral qualities, such as other- regarding: instincts. Hume allows in-kind differences in both demonstrative reason and moral judgment, but in the domains of both causal reason and mo ral agency he believes there are differences of degree rather than of kind. Hume's most significant philosophical contribution was to move as far as a nyone before him to a naturalistic explanation of human and nonhuman minds that invited psychological and epistemological examination of minds by usin g the identical methods and categories for man and beast.