An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals

Judging it to be "of all my writings incomparably the best," Hume accurately assessed this groundbreaking classic, which continues to influence philosophical thinking on ethics to this day through the force of its ideas and its clarity of expression. Among the many insights that Hume expounds in this work is that morality is grounded in feelings, not in knowledge. Based on moral sentiment, people naturally value agreeable qualities and shun disagreeable ones.