Hume's Moral Theory

In the Middle Ages, moral injunctions were more often than not found in the authority of the Church. The reason anyone would want to do or be good was simply that it was commanded that they do so. In place of the authority of the Church, modern philosophers sought the ground of morality in Reason itself. Hume, however, with his anti-Rationalist frame of mind, found neither Church authority nor the authority of reason convincing or acceptable as the foundation of ethics.

These are some of the arguments in the works of Hume against reason as the basis of moral theory.

· That reason judges only matters of fact and relations. This distinction is found in Hume's epistemology, in which he argues that reason is impotent to judge or determine anything regarding issues that are not either relations of ideas or matters of fact. This distinction can be seen in his argument that the principles of universal causation and nature's uniformity are not grounded in reason. They are, instead, objects of faith or belief. The argument runs, generally, as follows:

1. All the objects of human reason are either relations of ideas or matters of fact. The distinction here is between necessary truths and contingent truths.

2. The principle of nature's uniformity, that the future will resemble the past, is not a relation of ideas because its denial is conceivable. It is conceivable that the future will not resemble the past.

3. Therefore, the PNU must be a matter of fact, i.e., it must be verifiable in our experience.

4. But, the PNU is not a matter of fact, since it can never be verified in our experience. That is, there is no guarantee that the future will resemble the past.

5. Therefore, the PNU is not an object of our reason or knowledge.

The question now remains what it is. Hume asserts that it must be an object of belief or faith since it is not grounded on reasoning or any process of human understanding. We believe strongly through custom and habit that the future will resemble the past.

Relating this to moral theory, the following must be the case. Consider a particular moral judgment (e.g., that some action, X, is a crime). There is nothing in the concept of X rendering it necessarily true that X is a crime. There are occasions on which X might be considered a non-crime. Thus it is not an object of reason.

· What ensues in the case of that which we call a moral act is a moral judgment. This moral judgment is an active feeling or sentiment. What we do is FEEL some sentiment of blame or approbation. This is the source of the claim that an action is virtuous or vicious.

· Inanimate things may bear all the same relations to each other that moral agents bear to each other. Hume gives the example of a tree that topples its parent, which is no different in fact from the human who does the same thing. If morality consisted in relations, then we would say that the tree in question was to be held morally responsible for its actions. However, we do not.

· All the actions of human beings can never be accounted for by reason. This is clear in the case of Aristotle, for example, who claims that the ultimate reason for our actions is the attainment of happiness. But when we ask why anyone desires to be happy, he can give no answer. It is an ultimate end, and never referred to any other object. Thus, the actions of man have no dependence on the intellectual faculties in the long run. It is always a sentiment of approval or disapproval that finally determines the actions we perform.

Hume's position does not imply that reason has no place in ethics, but it does imply that it has a subordinate place. That is, Hume claims, "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." In other words, we use reason in order to be able to attain our ends, but the process is distinct from the end. The end is a matter of sentiment, not a matter of rationality, though the end may be achieved by the use of reason.

Hume was not a normative moral theorist. He may be, in fact, the first of the meta-ethicists since he was not concerned to determine what we OUGHT to do, but instead was concerned with what terms like 'ought,' 'virtue,' and 'moral' mean. His position leads to the conclusion that we cannot demonstrate moral conclusions from factual judgments.

The Nature of Moral Goodness in Hume's Moral Theory:

Moral virtue is distinguished from all other kinds of goodness by the following:

1. It is a pleasure resulting from a consideration of character or motive.

2. It is disinterested approbation.

We may consider a thing good because it is useful to us. When we call a thing beautiful, it is because it has a certain capacity to excite or arouse in us certain feelings that we find pleasant or agreeable. But there is more than this in the case of moral judgments. What is more is that we see in moral judgments something of character or motive regarding the person who performs an action. This is not the case in the examples of the beauty of a horse, or a statue, for that matter.

In reference to this claim, Hume argues against the egoism of Hobbes and others (like DeMandeville) by claiming:

1. Egoism contradicts the obvious facts about human conduct. All we need to do is to see that there are dispositions such as benevolence and generosity, friendship, love, gratitude and compassion. Since this is the obvious appearance of things, it must be admitted that egoism is a false doctrine.

2. Egoism forces us to make claims that move us toward a much more complicated psychological theory than is warranted by the evidence. An example used is that of the man whose rich and powerful friend dies. From such a person we might be able to claim that his sorrow at the death of his friend results from self-interest such that he expected some benefit from this friend. But what about a case in which the friend is poor, and has no influence? How are we to explain in this case?

3. Self-love cannot be our only good since its satisfaction depends on the satisfaction of various other, particular desires. It is clear, for example, that eating is pleasant, but it is not always to be considered self-interested. Thus, the problem is not that self-interest is immoral. It is simply bad psychology.

The Nature of Moral Disagreements:

It is not the case that Hume claims that morals are so subjective that it is impossible that we can have moral agreement. The feeling of benevolence, for example, is present in all of us (though it differs in strength) and it is universal.

Disagreements in morality come about through differences concerning whether conduct being evaluated is useful to mankind. Such things can be determined through an analysis of empirical facts. We should therefore be able to reach agreement.

Notes from the Text:

1. Hume's moral theory, like his epistemological one, centers on beliefs or feelings that we have. In the case of epistemology, we believe that like causes will produce like effects, but we cannot penetrate to the real essence. We find constant conjunctions between causes and effects. But this does not mean that there is any necessary connection between them. In the same way, we see constant conjunctions between certain actions and our feelings of moral approbation or disapprobation. We may therefore tend to believe that they are in some way connected.

2. Hume was not a relativist. Since we all have basically the same psychological make-up, our moral responses will be, for the most part, comparable.