Hume's Cultural Bigotry

In the literature, discussion of Hume’s racism has largely centred on an appalling and infamous footnote to his essay entitled ‘Of National Characters’. This ignores, or at best sidelines, the bigotry contained in the main text of the essay. I will first make the case that the main text of the essay expresses a cultural bigotry. Then, I contrast this cultural bigotry with the racism expressed in the infamous footnote.  This contrast serves to cast light on Hume’s cultural bigotry itself, of course, which is an important undertaking in its own right. But further, it also serves to elucidate the character and severity of the racism expressed in the infamous footnote. In particular, while this racism violates several of Hume’s theoretical norms, importantly in committing unphilosophical probability and ignoring the theoretical virtue of simplicity, the same is not true of his cultural bigotry.