David Hume and the Idea of Emotional Resonance in Ethics

Abstract

The article on the basis of David Hume’s ideas demonstrates that emotional resonance takes place in complicated situations of social activity when an individual acquire the capability to identify typical actions of people in the typical situations. He reacts emotionally positively on his own actions if they principally coincided with appropriate typical actions of others. The acts of behavior acquire stable character because individual emotions reinforces due to their comparison and coincidence with the emotions of others. We also consider other situations when different emotions stimulate moral behavior but emotional resonance does not happen.