The epistemology of ethical sentimentality

The paper exposes a peculiar sentimentalistic view on moral judgments: an explanation of moral life following the suggestions of David Hume in his "science of human nature". The characteristic point of the humean sentimentalism is the admission of a differentiation between the original emotions, directly perceived, and the reflex sentiments expressed in the moral judgments. This differentiation is not admitted in emotivism and in extreme sentimentalism of some kinds of naive expressivism. The essay defends the merit of this epistemological sentimentalism specially as a way for the justification of the moral choices and evaluations in opposition with ethical rationalism. Hume's pages offer many suggestions on the specific passages of a sentimentalistic check of the acceptability of a moral judgment. The article is a systematic attempt of reconstruction of this passages as a contribution to the contemporary discussion on meta-ethics.