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| Hume’s
Ethics |
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Contents
1. Introduction
2. Hume’s ethics as an emotive theory of ethics
3. Conclusion
4. Bibliography
David Hume is an outstanding Scottish philosopher of the
18th century whose views has a significant impact on the following
generations of thinkers throughout the world. His sceptical
arguments concerning induction, causation and especially religion,
including his famous thesis that human knowledge arises only
from sense experience and not from rational judgments, shaped
the 19th and 20th century empiricist philosophy. His famous
saying that ‘reason is the slave of the passions’
is a cornerstone of his ethical views largely explains the
emotive character of his ethics.
Hume’s ethics as an emotive theory of ethics
In his works David Hume paid a lot of attention to ethical
and moral problems he wanted to discuss these issues and presented
his own particular views. At this respect it is worth to mention
his moral theory basically depicted in Book 3 of the Treatise,
titled “Of Morals”. The author basically discusses
the principle issue of his ethics whether moral distinctions
are derived from reason. To put it more precisely David Hume
discusses the question concerning whether human moral approval
is a rational judgment about conceptual relations and facts
or an emotional response. On analysing such a dilemma, Hume
arrives to the conclusion that it is rather an emotional response
that has little, if has any at all, in common with reason.
Moreover, it is necessary to underline that T.Z. Lavine in
her discussion of Hume’s philosophy points out that
according to him “reason provides the means, the instruments
or devices, for gaining what the passions desire” (1984:180).
In general Hume is very critical in relation to his opponents
who based their ethic theories on rationalistic account of
morality. For instance, Hume’s criticises Samuel Clarke
and presents several arguments against his rationalistic views,
the most famous of which is an argument from arboreal parricide:
“a young tree that overgrows and kills its parent exhibits
the same alleged relations as a human child killing his parent;
if morality is a question of relations, than the young tree
is immoral, which is absurd” (Frankl 1985:233).
Furthermore, Hume also argues that moral assessments are not
judgments about empirical facts. The philosopher states that
it is impossible to find a fact that can be called immoral
for any immoral action that is examined. In other words Hume
stands on the ground that it is impossible to deduce statements
of obligation from statements of facts. Consequently, as moral
approval is not judgment of reason, Hume concludes that it
must be an emotional response. To put it more precisely, a
spectator moral approval is a type of pleasure that cannot
be experienced when considering an agent’s qualities,
moreover, this pleasure “produces additional feelings
of love or pride within the spectator” (Frankl 1985:247).
Obviously Hume is very critical about the reason. For instance,
he denies that reason has any important role in motivating
or discouraging behavior, it is just a sort of calculator
of concept and experience. What he believes is really important
is what people feel about the behavior. In such a way it becomes
obvious that Hume tends to instrumentalism, which state that
an action or ethical notion is reasonable if and only if it
serves the agent’s goals and desires, whatever they
be. According to him, reason can enter the picture only as
a lackey, informing the agent of useful facts concerning which
actions will serve his goals and desires, but “never
deigning to tell the agents which goals and desires he should
have” (Frankl 1985:261).
At the same time, it is necessary to point out that in moral
and ethical context such radicalism in Hume’s views
is not so radical as it might seem to be. In fact the philosopher
argues that immoral behavior is not immoral because it is
against reason. He first claims that “moral beliefs
are intrinsically motivated – if you believe killing
is wrong, you will be ipso facto motivated not to kill and
to criticise killing and so on” (Frankl 1985:295). However,
he reminds that the reason alone can motivate nothing –
reason discovers matters of fact and logic, and it depends
on individual’s desires and preferences. Consequently,
reason alone cannot motivate moral beliefs. On the other hand
Hume does not absolutely deny the role of reason since it
works though under the influence of human emotions and desires.
Furthermore, Hume advanced the idea that the explanation of
moral principles is to be sought in the utility they tend
to promote. At this respect it is quite noteworthy to mention
that Hume argues that moral spectators approve of benevolence
and benevolence is approved of because it has utility.
At the same time, it should be said that Hume’s ethic
theory is not deprived of some controversial points. For instance,
attempting to determine whether an agent’s motivating
character trait is natural or artificial, he decides this
one virtue at a time. For him, the natural virtues include
benevolence, meekness, charity and generosity. By contrast,
the artificial virtues include justice, keeping promises,
allegiance and chastity. Paradoxically in fact, Hume classes
the key virtues that are necessary for well-ordered state
as artificial, and he classes only the more supererogatory
virtues as natural.
Conclusion
Thus, taking into account all above mentioned, it is possible
to conclude that Hume’s ethical views are based on denying
the role of reason and exaggerating the role of human emotions,
desires and preferences. At the same time his moral and ethical
theory is to a certain extent controversial and often justly
criticised. In fact he is not very persuasive mainly because
his argument against moral rationalists seems to confuse questions
of moral epistemology with questions of moral motivation.
Hume can hardly be right to claim that from the fact that
one is not motivated to do the right thing, it follows that
one cannot understand what the right thing to do is. Finally
his efforts to explain how moral distinctions arise from human
passions seem to invoke the very kind of substantive, non-instrumental
reasoning which he denies in his works.
Bibliography:
1. Lavine, T. Z. (1984). From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic
Quest. New York: Bantam Books.
2. Frankl, Victor E. (1985). Man's Search for Meaning. New
York: Washington Square Press.
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