The vigorous and doux soldier
- If war is an inevitable condition of human nature, as David Hume suggests, then what type of societies can best protect us from defeat and conquest? For David Hume, commerce decreases the relative cost of war and promotes technological military advances as well as martial spirit. Commerce therefore makes a country militarily stronger and better equipped to protect itself against attacks than any other kind of society. Hume does not assume commerce would yield a peaceful world nor that commercial societies would be militarily weak, as many contemporary scholars have argued. On the contrary, for him, military might is a beneficial consequence of commerce.
| Author details: | Maria Pia PaganelliGND, Reinhard SchumacherORCiDGND |
|---|---|
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1080/01916599.2018.1509225 |
| ISSN: | 0191-6599 |
| ISSN: | 1873-541X |
| Title of parent work (English): | History of European ideas |
| Subtitle (English): | David Hume’s military defence of commerce |
| Publisher: | Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group |
| Place of publishing: | Abingdon |
| Publication type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Date of first publication: | 2018/10/02 |
| Publication year: | 2018 |
| Release date: | 2022/03/09 |
| Tag: | David Hume; Trade and conflict; commercial peace; cost of war; doux commerce; martial spirit |
| Volume: | 44 |
| Issue: | 8 |
| Number of pages: | 12 |
| First page: | 1141 |
| Last Page: | 1152 |
| Organizational units: | Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Wirtschaftswissenschaften |
| DDC classification: | 3 Sozialwissenschaften / 33 Wirtschaft / 330 Wirtschaft |
| 3 Sozialwissenschaften / 35 Öffentliche Verwaltung, Militärwissenschaft / 355 Militärwissenschaft | |
| Peer review: | Referiert |
