Hume Tower renaming undermines Edinburgh University

The far-right has been quick to exploit university’s flawed decision by spreading fake news, writes Martyn Mclaughlin

Reason, David Hume once wrote, is the slave of passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. It was an observation which noted that logic, for all its virtues, was a weak motivational force. It is sad to see that his alma mater has seemingly misinterpreted this thesis to act on its own ill-judged impulses.

The University of Edinburgh’s decision to rename a building honouring the 18th-century philosopher has sparked some thoughtful discussion and articulate criticism, yet there has been a notable lack of scrutiny of the bizarrely inchoate statement announcing the news.

It went into great detail about the university’s intentions, referencing an upcoming “detailed review” of its links to the past and offering laudable promises of research, engagement and reflection to come. But if you were looking for a substantive assessment of Hume’s racist comments and their impact on his legacy – a not unreasonable expectation, given the statement’s purpose and ambition – it was decidedly threadbare.

It alluded to Hume’s “comments on matters of race”, and their capacity to cause distress among contemporary students. Nowhere, however, did it explicitly reference, let alone engage with the views expressed by Hume, to be found in a footnote to his essay, ‘Of National Characters’, which gave voice to his suspicion that negroes were a “naturally inferior” race.

These are the only documented racist remarks Hume committed to paper. Even so, they are foul and reprehensible, and provide irrefutable evidence that he possessed opinions about black people that could most charitably be described as troubling.

Sadly, Hume was not alone in this. Several great Enlightenment thinkers believed concepts such as liberty and equality were beyond the capabilities of indigenous and enslaved people.

Montesquieu, for instance, wrote of Africans as “barbarians”, while Voltaire – a polygenist who held shares in a company which trafficked slaves – dismissed black people as “incapable of great attention” and possessing only “a few more ideas than animals”.

Yet both wrote forceful denunciations of slavery. Few arguments are as powerful as that put forward by the maimed, half-dressed mill worker in Candide, who informed Europe that his horrific injuries were “the price we pay for the sugar you eat”.

Hume, a part of this curious paradox, published abhorrent racist views and encouraged his patron to purchase a plantation in Grenada, all the while making impassioned arguments against slavery.

In ‘Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations’, he argued that all those who participated in slavery were reduced to the status of petty tyrants. The essay’s focus may have been trained on ancient civilisations, but it provided foundational arguments for the abolitionist movement.

This view does not excuse Hume for his racist remarks, but if we are to act as judge and jury over his character, it is impossible to arrive at a fair assessment without appre - ciating his wider writings, beliefs, and the fact that the Enlightenment’s intellectual winds of change sometimes blew cold. This context is vital, and more nuanced than many might suppose.

For example, the university’s state - ment points out that Hume’s views were “not uncommon at the time”.