Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

As I observed in yesterday's entry, Mauser's project commits him to refuting an Humean argument. Yesterday I gave that argument in Mauser's paraphrase. Today I'll give it in Hume's own words. "In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with," Hume wrote, "I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprized to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, it is necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relat...

Bernard Mauser was, as of May 2011, a candidate for a Ph.D. in philosophy from Marquette University. I've read bits and pieces of his dissertation online. It has the forbidding title, "The Ontological Foundations for Natural Law Theory and Contemporary Ethical Naturalism." Natural-law theory, to put matters starkly, is the whole body of theory that holds that there is such a fact as "human nature," and that human nature is normative. Understanding our own nature tells us how we ought to live. Natural-law theory may be theistic. That is, one may couple the "laws of nature" with "Nature's God" as Thomas Jefferson did. But natural-law theory need not be theistic, and Mauser cites Larry Arnhart as an example of a philosopher who invokes the laws of nature while keeping nature's God out of the account. At any rate, natural-law theory is certainly realist and cognitivist. It necessarily contends that good and bad are objective (...