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Title: The Scottish Philosopher David Hume (1711-1776):


1
The Scottish Philosopher David Hume (1711-1776)
  • 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.

2
Consider the following quote
  • Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the
    destruction of the whole world to the scratching
    of my finger.
  • A Treatise on Human Reason, edited by L.A.
    Selby-Rigge (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1988), 416.

3
Consider the following quote
  • Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the
    passions, and can never pretend to any other
    office to serve and obey them.
  • A Treatise on Human Reason, edited by L.A.
    Selby-Rigge (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1988), 416.

4
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) 2177.

5
Consider the following quote
  • When we run over libraries, persuaded of these
    principles what havoc must we make? If we take
    in our hand any volume-of divinity or school
    metaphysics, for instance-let us ask, Does it
    contain any abstract reasoning concerning
    quantity or number? No. Does it contain any
    experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact
    and existence? No. Commit it then to the
    flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry
    literalism and illusion.
  • Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding,
    12.3.173.

6
I. Major Tenets
  • (1) Reason alone cannot be a motive to the will,
    but rather is the slave of the passions In
    other words, reason alone cannot motivate to
    action the impulse to act itself must come from
    moral sentiments.
  • (2) Morals are not derived from reason they are
    derived from the experience of people.
  • (3) Morals are generated from moral sentiments
    feelings of approbation (approval, esteem,
    praise) disapprobation (disapproval,, blame)
    felt by spectators who consider a character
    trait or action

7
I. Major Tenets
  • (4) While some virtues and vices are natural,
    others, including justice, are artificial.
  • (5) The human psychological makeup of man is
    similar. Therefore, moral judgments will tend
    to be similar.
  • (6) Since morals will tend to be similar,
    moralities may be conceived in terms of social
    utility

8
I. Major Tenets
  • (7) Humes ethics comes out of the worldview of
    empiricism only matters of fact are those
    discernible by the senses.
  • (8) Moral facts do not exist rules of morality
    are not derived from reason.
  • (9) Vice and virtue are perceptions in the mind
    and that is all that is needed to regulate moral
    behavior.
  • (10) Moral distinctions are constituted by their
    pleasantness and usefulness (he did not
    synthesize how the relate to each other).

9
II. Overview of Significant Points
  • 1. Primacy of feelings over reason as a guide to
    ethics
  • 2. Hum was profoundly influenced by Newtonian
    scientific revolution
  • 3. Empirical science nor science can offer us
    ethical truths only genuine knowledge comes from
    pure mathematics or empirical science. It is not
    because reason is flawed, but because basic
    ethical preferences are generated from feelings
    passions
  • 4. Factual knowledge arises exclusively from the
    data supplied by the senses and is extended in
    usefulness by means of inferences based on a
    belief in cause-and-effect relations.

10
II. Overview
  • 5. Feelings cannot provide an objective
    foundation for ethics In fact, feelings are not
    subject to reason.
  • 6. Hume attacks the idea of a necessary
    metaphysical connection between cause and
    effect.
  • 7. The basis of moral assertion is sourced in
    feelings of approval (pleasure) or disapproval
    (pain or uneasiness).
  • 8. Hume is a compatibilist regarding free-will
    and Newtonian determinism (he is a strict
    empiricist).

11
II. Overview
  • 9. Hume agrees with the moral sense theorists
    such as Shaftesbury and Hutcheson (moral sense)
    and Butler (conscience) that all requirements to
    pursue goodness and avoid evil as consequent upon
    human nature, which is so structured that a
    particular feature of our consciousness (whether
    moral sense or conscience) evaluates the rest.
  • 10.Because we are the kinds of creatures we are,
    with the dispositions for pain and pleasure, the
    kinds of familial and friendly interdependence
    that make up our life together, and our approvals
    and disapprovals of these, Hume believes we can
    escape radical relativism, generate natural and
    artificial virtues are socially agreeable.

12
II. Overview
  • Natural and Artificial Virtues
  • Artificial virtues are dependent upon social
    structures (justice fidelity to promises,
    chastity, modesty, duties to sovereign states)
  • Natural virtues originate in nature and are more
    universal (compassion, generosity, gratitude,
    friendship, fidelity, charity, benevolence,
    clemency, equity, prudence, etc).

13
On Justice
  • On Justice
  • It is natural for justice to arise, but we will
    come together and establish conventions of
    justice.

14
II. Overview
  • 11. This view of moral grounding in moral
    sense, emotions, or passional nature is
    contrary to rationalists like Locke, Hobbes, and
    Clarke, who believed that good and evil were
    discovered by reason.
  • 12. Locke, Hobbes, and Clarke believed, in some
    moods, that moral standards or requirements are
    requirements of reason.

15
II. Overview
  • 13. Hume takes an intermediate view regarding
    whether morality is conventional (Hobbes) or
    natural (Locke). Hume thinks natural impulses
    of humanity and dispositions to approve cannot
    entirely account for our virtue of justice a
    correct analysis of that requires the thesis
    that mankind, an inventive species, has
    cooperatively constructed rules of property and
    promise.

16
II. Overview
  • 14. Hume disagrees with Hobbes regarding the
    following
  • a. Necessary psychological Egoism
  • b. Necessary violent view of a state of nature
    whereby without an organized state all is in a
    war against all

17
II. Overview
  • 15. Hume disagrees with Locke (and Rawls) about
    the idea of humanity being involved in a highly
    cooperative domain of law- governing citizens for
    the following reasons
  • a It is a hypothetical condition in which we
    would care for our friends and cooperate with
    them
  • b. Self-interest and preference for friends
    over strangers would make any wider
    cooperation impossible.
  • One of the central themes of Humes political
    philosophy is that we are both fundamentally
    loving and selfish.

18
II. Overview
  • 16. Turning from reason to sentiment Hume
    believes that has avoided radical relativism or
    mere subjectivism.
  • a. Since people have the same psychological
    makeup, their moral responses will be similar.
  • b. If provided the same data, people will tend
    to respond similarly. That does mean that all
    people will agree about the moral worth of an
    action.
  • c. Ethical disagreements generally stem not from
    differences in our passional nature or
    feelings but from (a) misunderstandings
    regarding circumstantial evidence or from (b)
    incomplete analyses.

19
II. Overview
  • 17. Study of individual assessments reveal that
    socially useful acts are approved while those
    which are socially detrimental are disapproved.
  • 18. Since we judge acts generally by their
    conformity to social utility (rather than by
    immediate, personal preferences), impartiality
    will tend to prevail in moral judgments.

20
II. Overview
  • 18. 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.
  • 19. All objections of human inquiry are relations
    of ideas (mathematics definitions) or matters of
    fact (everything known through one or more of the
    senses).

21
II. Overview
  • 20. Laws of nature are habits formed in our minds
    on what has occurred in the past and the
    expectation of similar experiences will occur in
    the future.

22
The Nature of Moral Judgment3 Textual
Interpretations
  • 1. Non-propositional View 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. (A more refined form of this
    interpretation allows that moral evaluations have
    some propositional content, but claims that for
    Hume their essential feature, as evaluations, is
    non-propositional).

23
The Nature of Moral Judgment3 Textual
Interpretations
  • 2. Description of the Feelings of the Spectator
    Hume is describing the feelings of the
    spectator, or the feelings a spectator would have
    were she to contemplate the trait or action from
    the common point of view.

24
The Nature of Moral Judgment3 Textual
Interpretations
  • 3. Dispositional interpretation Evaluated trait
    or action is so constituted as to cause feelings
    of approval or disapproval in a (suitably
    characterized) spectator. On the dispositional
    view, in saying some trait is good we attribute
    to the trait the dispositional property of being
    such as to elicit approval.

25
IV. Moral Sentiments
  • 1. Moral sentiments are emotions which possess
    unique phenomenological quality, and special set
    of causes.
  • 2. Moral Sentiments are caused by contemplating
    the person or action.
  • 3. Moral sentiments tend to be clarified or
    brought into focus by social utility which is a
    common moral sentiments or similar responses
    (collectively).

26
IV. Moral Sentiments
  • Moral sentiments are the sort of pleasure
    uneasiness which are associated with 4 passions
  • 1. Pride
  • 2. humility
  • 3. Love
  • 4. Hatred.
  • Some argue that pleasure and pain cause these 4
    passions others believe these 4 passions make up
    the pleasure or pain.
  • Thus, when we feel moral approval we tend to
    love or esteem, and when we approve a trait of
    our own we are proud of it.

27
IV. Moral Sentiments
  • Because we share a similar psychological makeup,
    thus share common moral sentiments, we are able
    to generate or invent artificial virtues because
    we find them to be pleasant and not painful
    (e.g.,)
  • 1. Justice with respect to property,
  • 2. Allegiance to government,
  • 3. The laws of nations,
  • 4. Modesty, and
  • 5. Good manners), which (Hume argues) are
    inventions contrived solely for the interest of
    society.

28
IV. Sentiments Sympathy and Benevolence.
  • Sympathy is not seen as a mental capacity in the
    Inquiry as it is in the State of Nature (as a
    mirror to yourself).
  • Rather he replaces sympathy with a general
    benevolence in Inquiry. We care about our
    species of such but not as a mental capacity.
  • Example, in Human Treatise, he 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 ourseit
    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).
  • But in Inquiry he doesnt talk about a mental
    capacity as a mirror to yourself but we have a
    benevolence which is part of our species.

29
V. Kant vs. Hume
  • 1. Similarity Hume and Kant recognized the
    difference between pure reason (understanding)
    from practical reason (work of the will). In
    other words, they both recognized an important
    difference between judgments of facts and
    judgments of value.
  • 2. Difference Kant was a rationalist in his
    conception of morals Hume was an empiricist. A
    rationalist derives principles of morality from
    metaphysical assumptions. Stated differently,
    Kant grounds his morality in rationalism and Hume
    on natural moral sentiments.
  • 3. Difference According to Kant, no matter how
    unpleasant the command makes you feel, you are
    obligated to fulfill it.

30
VI. Kant vs. Bentham and Mill on utility
  • Jeremy Bentham argued that the standard of
    goodness in the greatest amount of happiness for
    the greatest number of persons is intrinsically
    valuable.
  • 1 While Hume and Bentham agree that happiness is
    good, Hume does not admit that it is the only
    thing that is good. Human beings are complex
    organisms, and their total welfare includes more
    than the satisfaction of the one need for
    happiness.
  • 2. Mill recognizes the cultural, intellectual,
    and spiritual pleasures are of greater value
    than mere physical pleasure. While Hume will
    agree that we are complex humans, he would reject
    Mills finite godism and would reject his
    utilitarianism because he grounds morality not
    in utility but in moral sentiments which all
    humans share.

31
VII. Hume on Justice
  • 1. The purposes of justice can be realized only
    by adapting the methods that are used to the
    particular situation that is involved.
  • a. Justice is a relative virtue in contrast to a
    deontological version of justice, one that is
    not influenced by the situational setting.
  • b. He believes our human understanding of
    justice does vary from one time to another and
    that the application of the principles of
    justice will vary with the circumstances under
    which they are applied.
  • c. Hume implies that there is an unchanging
    element in justice The purpose is always that
    of meeting the needs of society.

32
VII. 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.

33
VII. Hume on Justice
  • 2. Justice is dynamic
  • a. Justice is expressed in laws and customs
    which are generated when the need arises for
    them.
  • b. The nature of justice varies in view of
    situational setting (illust. Sexual morality may
    vary depending upon setting).

34
VII. Hume on Justice
  • 3. In view of his appendix on justice in An
    Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals that
    there are certain principles which may be
    recognized that can advance justice
  • A. Avoid giving special privileges to some but
    not others
  • B. Take into account the long-range interests of
    others rather than immediate satisfactions
    personal and immediate needs may need to be
    sacrificed in order to achieve the well-being of
    society.
  • C. Seek to meet the needs of society as a whole.

35
VII. Hume on Justice
  • 4. On Distributive Justice
  • Justice exists for meeting the needs of society
  • Justice will be stated in general rules of
    conduct but particular situations and other
    factors may arise whereby the needs and meeting
    those needs will mean change (e.g., war).
  • Distributing justice is quite impossible to meet
    every need.
  • Justice is for the purpose of distributing goods
    in an equitable manner there is no exact formula
    for doing this that will meet the needs of every
    situations that comes about.
  • Neither extreme wealth or poverty are in the best
    interests of others.
  • Believes in a moderate view of property rights.
  • Justice is a relative virtue nothing remains
    constant about the nature of justice.
  • In dire circumstances, scarce resources, there is
    no justice and no benevolence.
  • Because of our human nature we have limited
    benevolent and limited justice.

36
VIII. Hume on Altruism and Selfishness
  • 1. Altruism and selfishness are not necessarily
    opposed to one another.
  • 2. We possess a humanitarian sentiment which
    naturally approves of what is beneficial and
    useful to society.
  • 3. Since we share a common morality derived from
    our nature, principles of morality are not
    derived from self-love alone.
  • 4. What gains the admiration and respect of
    others is by acting upon the pleasing moral
    sentiments that fellow-humans share this is
    virtuous and meritorious.
  • Human nature includes both selfish and unselfish
    sentiments.
  • Human nature is selfish to some extent.
  • Human nature also has the capacity to act beyond
    ones selfishness.
  • We can feel the pain of others and their
    misfortune.
  • Selfishness can over shadow good intentions but
    does necessarily have to.

37
IX. In Summary
  • About Hume's ethics we have a moral sentiment
    or feeling of approval or disapproval
    (approbation or disapprobation) about actions
    that we find pleasing or agreeable. We find
    actions agreeable (and thus approve of them) not
    because of the utility of such actions but
    because we naturally have an inclination to
    approve of what we are attracted to. 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
    beings. That sense of fellow-feeling, not the
    perception of the utility of actions, is the
    basis on which we feel moral obligation. Of
    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 Dr.
    Steve Daniel

38
X. Advantages that have been offered on this view
  • 1. 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 attempts to balance both selfishness and
    altruism.
  • 4. It seems to avoid pure egoism, utilitarianism,
    and radical relativism.

39
XI Objections Raised against Hume
  • 1. Hume reduces ethics to a matter of taste
    (e.g., A.J. Ayer C.L. Stevenson), relativism,
    and subjectivism.
  • Hume replies since people have the same
    psychological makeup, moral responses will be
    comparable. To be sure, this doesnt mean
    everyone will agree about but if provided the
    same data, they will generally tend to respond
    similarly
  • a. Common Nature
  • b. Same Data
  • Similar response.
  • Ethical differences stem not from differences in
    our feelings or passional nature but from
    misunderstandings about the actual circumstances
    surrounding a given act or from incomplete
    analyses of the consequences accruing from the
    act.

40
XI. Objections
  • 2. Those who embrace objectivist feelings will
    reject Humes account of subjectivist feelings.
    Some believe feelings can be a source of
    objective truths of ethics. Consider Blaise
    Pascals famous statement
  • The heart has its reasons that the reason know
    not
  • For those who embrace objective feelings they
    would argue that while feelings may not be an
    infallible guide to ethics, feelings are not
    distractions on the path to ethical truth.
    Rather, feelings can be a source of ethical
    insight.
  • Do you agree? Can ethical feelings be
    objectively true or are they more like tastes?

41
XI. Objections
  • 3. Moral sentiments cannot provide an adequate
    basis for moral obligations (e.g., justice).
  • Humes response It is obligatory, for example,
    to be justbut the reason we adopt the concept of
    justice and guide our actions in conformity to it
    is because it comes from the moral sentiments we
    all share.
  • Hume doesnt deny a specific instance of
    injustice could be more beneficial to society
    than its corresponding instance of justice in
    some odd case, but by conforming ourselves to the
    moral sentiments of justice, humanity can be
    served.
  • Response Still justice is not absolute, fixed
    upon absolutes it is sourced in moral sentiments
    that can change (justice becomes somewhat
    relative even if it is not radical relativism).

42
XI. Objections
  • 4. Borrowing the notion of social utility to find
    a way to maintain social order is using reason.
    Social utility is powerful enough to incite
    action to actually do the good.
  • Hume would respond by saying that the source of
    utility is not reason but moral sentiment that
    we naturally share we identify with other beings
    on that sense of fellow feelings. Thus, it is
    not from social utility but moral sentiments
    that ground our morality. Secondly, reasons of
    social utility is not powerful enough to incite
    action it is the moral sentiments of feelings
    of approval or disapproval that motivates action,
    not the perception of social utility.
  • 5. Humes skepticism is self-defeating because he
    did not suspend moral judgments regarding God,
    miracles, and metaphysics.

43
XI. Objections
  • 6. Metaphysical problem According to Hume,
    meaningful propositions are empirical. But this
    is self-defeating, for the statement that only
    analytic or empirical propositions are
    meaningful is not itself an analytic statement.
    If one allows that such statements are
    meaningful, then why cannot metaphysical
    statements be meaningful? Stated differently, to
    say there is no metaphysics is itself a
    metaphysical statement, namely that you know that
    metaphysics doesnt exist.
  • 7. Causality can be experienced internally. I am
    the cause of this sentence I am typing, and I
    experience that fact. Everyone experiences their
    own thoughts and actions.

44
XI. Objections
  • 8. Fundamentally it fails to explain what is
    wrong with a wrong action because it is solely
    based on human experience. Reason only reveals
    matters of fact.
  • a. Good in the moral sense of the term is reduced
    to feelings or moral sentiments.
  • b. Evil in the moral sense of the term is reduced
    to feelings or moral sentiments.
  • 1. Humes response is that there is no other way
    to judge morality. Moreover, we are naturally
    constituted in such a way that there is present
    in us a sense of humanity which always
    approves of that which promotes human welfare and
    is useful in society because we all share it.

45
XI. Objections
  • 9. Hume is subject to the postmodern critique
    that are our emotions are not a product of
    moral sentiments. Rather, we are morally
    scripted by our sub-culture. How does Hume know
    that our moral sentiments are natural and not
    socially inscribed values?
  • 10. Doesnt the idea that we all share a similar
    constitution of moral sentiments beg the
    question that we are designed by God (e.g.,
    Thomas Reid)?
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