Final answer:
David Hume's criticisms on the fallacy of composition revolve around the mistaken leap from individual parts to the whole and the separation between factual observations and moral values, known as the is-ought problem.
Step-by-step explanation:
David Hume's criticisms on the fallacy of composition center around the problematic reasoning from parts to the whole without proper justification. He challenged the idea that what applies to individual components must necessarily apply to the entire collection or system.
For example, Hume argued against the Design Argument used to infer the existence of God by pointing out the weaknesses in the analogy comparing the universe's complexity to the complexity of human design. Hume suggested that such comparisons are gratuitous because we do not have experience with the creation of worlds to justify the analogy.
Furthermore, he pressed on the is-ought problem, emphasizing that factual observations cannot directly dictate moral prescriptions, as facts about the world do not intrinsically contain values or moral duties.
In this critique, Hume affected numerous fields, including theology by challenging arguments for the existence of God and ethics by questioning the naturalistic fallacy, which attempts to derive moral 'oughts' from natural 'is.'
This is exemplified in the open-question argument in ethics, where the distinction between natural properties and moral properties is highlighted; genuine moral properties cannot simply be concluded from natural facts.