Montesquieu versus Hume: Origins of national characters

The idea of defining and comparing nations was discussed with modern concepts commonly by Enlightenment philosophers. In this context, Montesquieu and Hume developed ideas on national characters by their own methodologies and philosophical approaches. This research is essentially based on Hume's criticisms of Montesquieu's ideas about the physical causes. Although Montesquieu has been generally mentioned with his climate theory as a defense of political determinism, he devoted the last three parts of The Spirit of the Laws to explain the effectiveness of moral regulations for moderating the laws and manners, and aimed to regulate the French legislative, administrative, and social systems through the moral factors. Furthermore, according to Montesquieu, while physical conditions have a dominant effect on uncivilized societies because of their impacts on the human body, they can be altered through moral factors particularly in modern times. Therefore, although Hume was justifiable in targeting Montesquieu's thoughts on climate in his criticism, it would be incomplete to characterize Montesquieu as a political determinist. Hume, on the other hand, rejected any impact of physical causes on human behaviors in his writings, and as a continuation of his scientific philosophy on human nature and moral psychology, he claimed that moral factors are the only source of national characters. According to Hume, differences in laws and human behaviors are based on different experiences and sharing of sentiments through the principle of sympathy, and any factors other than moral ones cannot affect the minds of people. These differences between their methodological approaches that rooted in the variation of classical and modern teachings form the fundamental distinction between them. Determining the circumstances of France and Britain is crucial to clarify this distinction. In this respect, it is argued in the research that the consequences of the modernization process of France and Britain from the feudal period based on traditional understandings to the eighteenth century through political, intellectual, and socio-economic developments, the revised feudal system of the French monarchy and the modern commercial mixed government of Britain, were influential on the intellectual and methodological thoughts of philosophers.