Triadic Law of Habit Reflecting on David Hartley’s Theory and Practice of Moral Development

This paper reconstructs and frames David Hartley’s triadic law of habit as foundational to his neurophilosophy of moral development. Extending the focus onto his implementation of the ‘Rule of Life’ – a natural principle of moral progress –, it argues that the super-empirical reality referred to in Hartley’s mystical vocabulary is emotionally invested by his own practice. Through an examination of his methods – particularly meditation and language cultivation – the paper presents Hartley as a meaningful interlocutor on the issue of moral stagnation and reflects on his relevance to the contemporary challenge of social fragmentation.