传统理性主义伦理学认为，道德是理性认识永恒的是非标准并通过自由意志指导行为的结果。休谟将经验主义贯彻到底，导致了伦理学方法论上的非形而上学转向，认为理性不能认识超经验的是非标准，因而自由意志和理性的能动作用就失去了依据，他进而提出情感才是道德区别的标准和伦理学研究的主要对象。休谟据此建立的以情感进步观为基本特征的德性伦理学对西方现代伦理学的发展产生了深远影响。%According to traditional rationalism ethics, a behavior is virtuous because it is guided by free will subject to reason that can find eternal standard about right and wrong. Hume carries through empiricism and leads to the turn of ethical methodology from metaphysics to non-metaphysics, and thinks reason can not obtain the metempirical standard about right and wrong, so there is no basis for the initiative of reason and free will. Furthermore Hume puts forward that moral sentiments are the main research objects of ethics, and are the standards which distinguish between virtues and vices. Hume has further established virtue ethics of sentimentalism, which is characterized by the view of the progress of sentiments, and which has a far-reaching impact on the development of modern western ethics.
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