The Scottish Philosopher David Hume

AN INTRODUCTION INTO THE ETHICAL THEORY OF DAVID HUME.

IF YOU WANT TRUTH LOOK TO SCIENCE OR MATHEMATICS; ETHICS IS ULTIMATELY BASED ON OUR FEELINGS; NATURAL MORAL SENTIMENTS IS WHERE MORAL DECISION-MAKING IS GROUNDED.*

*David Hume1711 - 1776

Early Life*Born in Edinburgh, and raised under a strict Presbyterian regimen, he enrolled in the University of Edinburgh when he was twelve years old. After three years, he dropped out without a degree, planning to devote himself to philosophy and literature.

A short time later, Hume admitted he had lost the faith of his childhood, writing that once he read Locke and other philosophers, he never again entertained any belief in religion.

Humes Skepticism*A skeptic is a person who demands clear, observable, indubitable evidence before accepting any knowledge claim as true.

Humes Skepticism*Humes empirical criterion of meaning holds that all meaningful ideas can be traced to sense experience (impressions).

Beliefs that cannot be reduced to sense experience are technically not ideas at al, but meaningless utterances.

Identity and Continuity*Our minds confer identity on things; we do not perceive it. Rather, we feign or fabricate continuity.

His point is that we have no direct impression of cause and effect, the link between perceptions that would make our assumptions about identity and continuity certain.

Conjoined events do not prove they are causally connected any more than there is a causal connection between the rooster crowing and the sun rising. All one can do is extrapolate based on oft-repeated occurrences. He does not deny the principle of causality; he denies the basis on which some people try to prove causality.

Hume on the Self*Applying his empirical criterion of meaning, Hume argues that we do not have any idea of the self as it is commonly understood.

If we have no impression of the self, what are we?

According to Hume, if there is no underlying, constant thing to unite our sensory perceptions, then the self is nothing more than a bundle of such perceptions. This is known as Humes bundle theory of the self.

Hume on the Self*

Hume on Religion*In 1751, Hume wrote the most devastating, direct, and irreverent of his works, the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.

In his Dialogues, Hume mounts an unrelenting attack on the argument from design and other attempts to demonstrate the existence of, or understand the nature of, God.

Hume did not deny the existence of God a position known as atheism; rather, he adopted the agnostic view that we do not know enough to assert or deny the existence of God.

Hume v. Aquinas*Aquinas Teleological Argument Argument for the existence of God, which claims that the universe manifests order and purpose that can only be the result of a conscious intelligence.

Hume v. Aquinas*The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster. David Hume, On Suicide

Hume on Morality*If the mind creates the ideas of causality and necessity, then reason alone can never be our guide to moral action.

Instead, Hume had another theory: 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.

Hume on Morality*Moral facts do not exist; rules of morality are not derived from reason.

A moral evaluation does not express any proposition or state any fact. Either it gives vent to a feeling, or it is itself a feeling.

Vice and virtue are perceptions in the mind based upon sentiment.

Consider the following quote:Take any action allowed to be vicious: willful murder, for instance. Examine it in all its lights and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. You never can find it, till you turn your affection into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact; but it is the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in your self, not in the object. So that which you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it.

~ A Treatise of Human Nature, Everymans Library (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1956) 2:177.

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Hume v. KantKants ethical theory is based upon duty to reason. The categorical imperative provides an imperative to act.According to Kant, no matter how unpleasant the command makes you feel, you are obligated to fulfill it.*

Hume v. Kant*

Fallacy of Deriving Ought from IsIn every system of morality which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not.

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Fallacy of Deriving Ought from IsMoral theories begin by observing some specific facts about the world, and then they conclude from these some statements about moral obligation.

In other words, they move from statements about what is the case to statement about what ought to be the case

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Natural Virtues

Natural virtues originate in nature and are more universal (compassion, generosity, gratitude, friendship, fidelity, charity, benevolence, clemency, equity, prudence, etc).

In the Human Treatise, Hume states, there is no such passion in human minds, as the love of mankind, merely as such, independent of personal qualities, of service, or of relation to ourselves Tis true, there is no human, and indeed no sensible, creature, whose happiness or misery does not, in some measure, affect us when brought near to us and represented in lively colours (pg. 13).

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Artificial Virtues

Artificial virtues are dependent upon social structures (justice*; fidelity to promises, chastity, modesty, duties to sovereign states)

Study of individual assessments reveal that socially useful acts are approved while those which are socially detrimental are disapproved.

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Hume on Justice:As justice evidently tends to promote public utility and to support civil society, the sentiment of justice is either derived from our reflecting on that tendency, or like hunger, thirst, and other appetites, resentment, love of life, attachment to offspring, and other passions, arises from a simple original instinct in the human breast, which nature has implanted for like salutary purposes.

~ An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, (Chicago: Open Court, 1966), 35.*

Hume v. UtilitarianismWe find ethical actions agreeable not because of the utility of such actions (they are useful to me) but because we have a moral sentiment or feeling of approval about such actions.

In thinking about the pleasures or pains of other people, we (along with all other normal human beings) are attracted to what arouses in us natural sentiments of humanity and benevolence. Such sentiments are not derived from self-love but from a sense of identifying with other human beingsOf course, promoting social utility is in our own self-interest, but acting for the sake of promoting our own self-interest is not a good enough reason for acting in a moral way*

Why is there common morality?

Problem: If morality is based on individual sentiments, why do we agree?

Answer: The human psychological makeup of man is similar. Therefore, moral sentiments and therefore also moral judgments will tend to be similar. If provided the same data, people will tend to respond similarly. *

Advantages of Humes Ethical Outlook1.Some will appreciate the fact that it removes metaphysical mysteries from realm of ethics because it grounds morality in moral sentiments which all humans share.

2.Pleasure and pain are important considerations in ethical judgments.

3.It seems to avoid the egoism of the utilitarian perspective.*

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