Hume on moral motivation and artificial virtue

Moral distinctions derived from sentiment, not reason

‘To have the sense of virtue, is nothing but to feel a satisfaction of a particular kind from the contemplation of a character. The very feeling constitutes our praise or admiration…We do not infer a character to be virtuous, because it pleases: But in feeling that it pleases after such a particular manner, we in effect feel that it is virtuous.’ (III.1.ii)

In the first section of Book III of the Treatise, Hume attacks the view that ‘virtue is nothing but a conformity to reason’ and that moral rightness and wrongness are discerned by reason alone. Based on the conclusion of Section II.3.iii, that reason is passion’s slave and cannot motivate us to any action, he argues that moral distinctions cannot be based on reason because they do have the power to motivate us. The moral rightness or wrongness of an action is supposed to (and does) motivate us to do it or to refrain from doing it. But reason alone cannot impel us to act or deter us from acting. ‘Reason is wholly inactive, and can never be the source of so active a principle as conscience, or a sense of morals’ (III.1.i).

Secondly, Hume draws on the conclusion of II.3.iii that actions cannot be reasonable or unreasonable, strictly speaking. They can be based on false beliefs, but that is not the same as being reasonable or unreasonable. However, actions can be, and are, morally praiseworthy and morally blameworthy (laudable or blameable). This cannot be the same as reasonable or unreasonable. Moreover, being based on a false belief does not make an action morally blameworthy (if I take your umbrella because I falsely believe it is mine, that excuses rather than convicts me of stealing it).

Hume offers another much-discussed argument in III.1.i, designed to show that ‘virtue and vice are not matters of fact, whose existence we can infer by reason.’ He thinks this is obvious when we reflect on a case of vicious action, such as ‘wilful murder.’

‘Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. In which-ever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. You never can find it, till you turn your reflexion into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact; but ‘tis the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object.’

Hume adds that ‘Vice and virtue, therefore, may be compared to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind.’ As in the case of the impression of necessary connection (discussed in Book I.3.xiv of the Treatise), we project our own perceptions onto the objects that occasion them.

According to Hume, then, moral distinctions are based on sentiment or feeling rather than reason. Just as in Book I, Hume says that ‘belief is more properly an act of the sensitive, than of the cogitative part of our natures’ (I.4.i), in Book III he says that ‘Morality, therefore, is more properly felt than judg’d of’ (III.1.ii). Since moral distinctions are not founded on reasoning or the comparison of ideas (on thinking), they

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must be founded on impressions (on feeling). Hume thinks it is plain from experience that what is virtuous produces a pleasant impression or sentiment in us, and what is vicious produces an unpleasant impression. The pleasure that the contemplation of virtuous acts or characters elicits in us constitutes our approbation of those acts and characters.

Conjoined with Hume’s account of the indirect passions, the fact that the contemplation of virtue produces pleasure explains why we feel pride in contemplating our own virtuous traits of character and why we love (admire) others who possess such traits. The contemplation of virtuous traits produces pleasure, which is transferred to the idea of myself when the trait is mine (thus generating pride), and is transferred to the idea of you when the trait is yours (producing love).

Hume’s next question, then, is: How does the pain or pleasure that distinguishes moral good and evil arise in the human mind?

The artificial virtue of justiceHume divides virtues into natural and artificial, depending on whether they produce pleasure and approbation naturally or by means of a contrivance. Justice (by which he particularly means honesty with respect to property), he claims, is an artificial virtue. Suppose you have lent me money. Justice requires that I repay you. But what motive do I have to repay you? Hume rejects the view of those who argue that natural self-interest ‘is the legitimate motive to all honest actions’, because ‘self-love, when it acts at liberty…is the source of all injustice and violence.’ Nor does he believe that honesty can be explained by a universal love of mankind, since the extent of our natural benevolence is limited.

How, then, do rules of justice and property arise, and how do we come to approve of those who keep them and disapprove of those who break them? Like Hobbes, Hume thinks that humans need to band together with other humans to satisfy their needs; only through co-operation can we gain the force, ability and security that we lack as isolated individuals:

‘By the conjunction of forces, our power is augmented: By the partition of employments, our ability encreases: And by mutual succour we are less expos’d to fortune and accidents.’ (III.2.ii)

The advantages of society are no help unless humans know of them, but Hume thinks that the family provides a kind of natural society which makes us aware of the advantages of association and co-operation. However, Hume thinks that humans’ natural selfishness (though not as absolute as depicted by Hobbes), their tendency to love their own family more than others, threatens the co-operation with others that is required if we are to reap the benefits of society. It produces what Hume calls ‘an opposition of passions’; each of us loves or cares about ourselves more than any other single person, and though we love and care about others as well as ourselves, Hume thinks the strength of our love is proportional to the degree to which we are related to or acquainted with them. Since we all try to pursue our own advantage and the advantage of those we care about, our natural passions are in opposition. This wouldn’t matter so much if it were not for the fact that many human advantages (notably, material goods) are (a) in scarce supply, and (b) transferable.

‘As the improvement, therefore, of these goods is the chief advantage of society, so the instability of their possession, along with their scarcity, is the chief impediment.’ (III.2.ii)

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How can this impediment be overcome and possession secured? The solution derives from artifice, Hume claims, not from nature:

‘…or more properly speaking, nature provides a remedy in the judgment and understanding, for what is irregular and incommodious in the affections. For when men, from their early education in society, have become sensible of the infinite advantages that result from it, and have besides acquir’d a new affection to company and conversation; and when they have observ’d, that the principal disturbance in society arises from those goods, which we call external, and from their looseness and easy transition from one person to another; they must seek for a remedy...This can be done after no other manner, than by a convention entered into by all the members of the society to bestow stability on the possession of those external goods, and leave every one in the peaceable enjoyment of what he may acquire by his fortune and industry. By this means, every one knows what he may safely possess; and the passions are restrain’d in their partial and contradictory motions.’ (III.2.ii)

How can the understanding restrain the passions, given that Hume has argued that reason is the slave of passion? Hume is careful to argue that this restraint is not contrary to these passions; if it were, it could not be maintained, since nothing can oppose a passion but another passion. The restraint imposed by the convention of justice is contrary only to the impetuous (violent) movement of the passions. Our understanding shows us that abstaining from the possessions of others, provided that they abstain from ours, is the best way to maintain a society which is necessary to our well-bring and subsistence, and to the well-being and subsistence of those we care about. Reason or understanding, then, shows us that conventions of property are needed to secure something we care about. In more Humean terms, the prospect of pleasure offered by peaceful society leads to a desire for it, and reasoning indicates the way in which it is to be achieved. No explicit promise is needed, Hume argues; as long as we all realise that it is our interest to respect each others’ goods, we will behave accordingly.

How, then, do we come to attach sentiments of right and wrong to justice and injustice? Why are we displeased by unjust acts, even when they do not affect our interests? Hume’s answer appeals to sympathy, our natural tendency to feel what others feel. If I see the effects of, say, pain in another’s voice and gestures, that brings to mind their cause, and forms such a lively idea of that cause that it is converted into the feeling itself. So I feel unease when I see someone else suffering (III.3.i). When I contemplate an unjust act, or the vicious character trait that gives rise to it, this brings to mind the suffering resulting from these causes, and this unpleasant feeling attaches itself to the acts and traits themselves. Thus I come to feel hatred (contempt, disapprobation) when I think of dishonesty (injustice) in others, and humility (shame) when I think of dishonesty in myself.

‘Thus self-interest is the original motive to the establishment of justice: but a sympathy with public interest is the source of the moral approbation, which attends that virtue.’ (III.2.ii)

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