Author(s): Md Rafiussan
Abstract: Although British Empiricism, strictly speaking, is a philosophical school having nothing to do with the colonial practices, it can, nevertheless, be shown to have an instrumental connection with the latter, especially in its ethical manifestations, during the period of European colonialism of the 18th and 19th centuries. David Hume, the accredited high priest of British Empirical thought, formulated an ethical doctrine which, in its developed form in the 19th century Utilitarianism, acted as a legitimization tool for all the brutal practices of colonialism. The most sustained attack on Hume’s ethical position came from Immanuel Kant, the famous German philosopher and a contemporary of the former. Drawing largely on what Edward Said argues in his Orientalism (2001), this paper contends that the differences between these two philosophers in terms of their moral propositions are traceable not just to their epistemological disagreements but they can also be interpreted against the reality of the modern European colonialism.
Keywords: British Empiricism, Ethical Doctrine, Utilitarianism, Epistemological Disagreements, Colonialism