There are good reasons to consider Hume to have been a moral relativist. There are also good reasons to deny that he was one. Hume answered the question of the Euthyphro in the negative: a divine being could feel no sentiments, so could feel no moral sentiments, and so could have no moral sense. Morality, like secondary qualities, is something that exists for creatures and that is brought about by making those creatures a certain way. At the same time, Hume was concerned to argue that, as a matter of fact, human beings all share a common sentimental constitution that makes them all value what is useful or agreeable either to self or others. The issue of moral disagreement is a challenge to this conclusion. But Hume sought to address it only to the extent that it is a challenge. Moral disagreements that arise from prioritizing different utilities, or giving different weight to the useful as opposed to the agreeable or the personal as opposed to the social, are not ones he was concerned to resolve or adjudicate, though he did think that our moral psychology would not allow us to tolerate one another’s contrary opinions on these matters.

This paper aims to explain why the question about “the objectivity of values” is a bad one. It begins by investigating its historical roots in Plato and in the philosophy of the seventeeth and eighteenth centuries. It then argues that the question presupposes a distinction between qualities of objects that are “in them” and those that are “in us,” a distinction Rorty suggests is pointless. In light of this stance, it goes on to criticize J. L. Mackie’s famous argument that there are no objective values, the notion of moral principles, and the very idea of moral philosophy.