“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” — David Hume

I must be misunderstanding what Hume is saying, because on the face of it I couldn’t disagree with him more.

Replace “reason” with “motivation” or “justification” and I’ll agree with his statement. But reason should never be the slave to the passions and it ought never be found there.

Reason: verb. To think, understand and form judgments by a process of logic.

Passion: noun. A strong and barely controllable emotion or the state of being under the influence of such an emotion.

So the process of logic should be the slave of strong and barely controllable emotions? I don’t think it works that way.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1ulkykn7jc