60 CRAIG HENDERSON
country altogether. For Hume, as we have seen, this does not amount to true consent
as there are no realistic alternatives for the minority other than “automatic”
acceptance.
Ancient Athens is considered by Hume to have been the most extensive democracy
that ever existed. Yet, even in such a society which prided itself to have been founded
on democratic principles, he reasons, it is apparent that when we consider those
suppressed minorities such as women and slaves, we find that “that establishment was
not, at first, made, nor any law voted, by a tenth of those who were bound to pay
obedience to it” (Hume 1987: 473). Clearly then, if a significant percentage of the
population have no say in the formulation of the laws by which they are governed, or
the societal structure of their state, then that society is not one which all of its citizens
could be said to have truly consented to, in terms of its laws or social structures. The
upshot of this example is that even in a supposedly democratic society consent loses
its binding force when it is accepted that certain individuals or minority groups are
excluded from the voting process altogether.
In the latter part of Of the Original Contract, Hume (1987: 480-487) attempts to
prove that promises are an unnecessary, superfluous addition to our interests when
seeking to explain why people forfeit their natural liberty and obey the laws of their
state. He draws parallels between the first kinds of moral duty that people experience
- those related to our natural instincts - and our desire for unlimited freedom and our
want of dominion over others. It is argued (Hume 1987: 480) that our sense of
obligation, which arises when we reflect on the necessities of human society and that
which keeps natural instincts in check, is parallel with regards to allegiance and
justice. Stressed here is that, rather than obtaining their moral force and binding
nature through the act of promising, obligations come to have moral weight and value
through simply observing acting as a collective rather than out of self-interest brings
about the best results for everyone. In keeping with this empiricism, we can see how
both existing in a society and continually acting in a selfish nature with little or no
regard to our fellow citizens would be extremely detrimental to them and thus the
need for obligations arises out of the pragmatic concern for ensuring the existence of