Hume on Affective Leadership

This chapter introduces David Hume’s views on ‘affective leadership,’ which refers to the political management of dispositions and emotions conducive to minimal union in the social-political sense. Hume’s ideas on this are presented and analyzed by way of close scrutiny of his (and Spinoza’s) extended treatment of the fall of the Dutch statesman, Johan de Witt. This is done to articulate some distinctive features of a ‘Humean’ political theory in which the management of dispositions and emotions of a “spirit of union” play a central role.