DAVID HUME

Ethical Claims Describe Feelings

David Hume, a British philosopher who lived from 1711 to 1776,

has had a great influence on contemporary ethics. For this reason, we
thought it helpful to include some short excerpts from his writings.
Hume’s ethical thinking had two phases. The first phase saw
ethics as based on feelings instead of reason; here Hume is close to
classic subjectivism: “X is good” means “I like X.” His second phase
saw ethics as based on a combination of reason and feelings; we
first use reason to get our facts straight and then we see what our
other-regarding feelings move us to do. Here Hume is closer to the
idea! observer view: “X is good” means “We would desire X if we
were informed and impartially concerned for everyone.”
As you read the selection, ask yourself whether Hume’s early
view gave a satisfactory approach to morality. Can you understand
why he tried to incorporate more rationality and altruistic
sentiment in his later view?

Morality is not from reason (his early view)

Some affirm that virtue is a conformity to reason, that there are eternal
fitnesses of things which are the same to every rational being that
considers them. All these systems concur in the opinion that morality,
like truth, is discerned merely by ideas. In order to judge these systems,
we need only consider whether it is possible, from reason alone, to
distinguish between moral good and evil.
Since morals have an influence on the actions and affections, it follows,
that they cannot be derived from reason; and that because reason alone
can never have any such influence. Morals excite passions, and produce
or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular.
The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of reason.
As long as it is allowed that reason has no influence on our passions
and actions, ‘tis in vain to pretend that morality is discovered only by a
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deduction of reason. An active principle can never be founded on an

inactive.

Reason and feelings

Reason is the discovery of truth or falsehood. Truth or falsehood consists
in an agreement or disagreement either to the real relationship of ideas,
or to real existence and matter of fact.1 Whatever, therefore, is not
susceptible of this agreement or disagreement, is incapable of being true
or false, and can never be an object of our reason. Now ‘tis evident our
passions, volitions, and actions, are not susceptible of any such
agreement or disagreement. ‘Tis impossible, therefore, they can be
pronounced either true or false, and be either contrary or conformable to
reason.
Reason, in a strict sense, can only have an influence on our conduct in
two ways: Either it excites a passion by informing us of the existence of
something which is a proper object of it; or it discovers the connection of
causes and effects, so as to afford us means of exerting any passion.2
These judgments may often be false and erroneous. A person may
suppose a pain or pleasure to lie in an object, which has no tendency to
produce either of these sensations. A person may also take false measures
for attaining his end, and may retard instead of forwarding his project.
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. When a passion
is neither founded on false suppositions, nor chooses means insufficient
for the end, the understanding can neither justify nor condemn it. Tis not
contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the
scratching of my finger. ‘Tis not contrary to reason for me to choose my
total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of a person wholly unknown to
me. Tis as little contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledged
lesser good to my greater.

Morality is from feelings

Thus on the whole ‘tis impossible that the distinction between moral
good and evil can be made by reason; since that distinction has an
influence upon our actions, of which reason alone is incapable. But reason
and judgment may be the mediate cause of an action, by prompting or
directing a passion.
If the thought and understanding were alone capable of fixing the
boundaries of right and wrong, the character of virtuous and vicious
either must lie in some relations of objects, or must be a matter of fact.
This consequence is evident. As the operations of human understanding
divide themselves into two kinds, the comparing of ideas and the
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inferring of matters of fact, were virtue discovered by the understanding

it must be an object of one of these relations.3
Take any action allowed to be vicious: Willful murder, for instance.
Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real
existence, which you call vice. In whichever 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 reflection 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. So that when
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.4
Thus the course of the argument leads us to conclude that, since virtue
and vice are not discoverable by reason, it must be by means of some
sentiment that we are able to mark the difference between them. Morality,
therefore, is more properly felt than judged of.

Hume’s later thinking

I am apt to suspect that reason and sentiment concur in almost all moral
determinations and conclusions. The final sentence, it is probable, which
pronounces characters and actions amiable or odious, praiseworthy or
blamable, depends on some internal sense or feeling, which nature has
made universal in the whole species. But in order to pave the way for
such a sentiment, and give a proper discernment of its object, it is often
necessary that much reasoning should precede and general facts fixed
and ascertained.
The notion of morals implies some sentiment common to all mankind,
which recommends the same object to general approbation, and makes
every man, or most men, agree in the same opinion or decision
concerning it. This is the sentiment of humanity.5
When a man denominates another his enemy, he is understood to
speak the language of self-love, and to express sentiments, peculiar to
himself, and arising from his particular circumstances. But when he
bestows on any man the epithets of vicious or depraved, he speaks
another language, and expresses sentiments, in which he expects all his
audience to concur with him. He must here, therefore, depart from his
private and particular situation, and must choose a point of view,
common to him with others; he must move some universal principle of
the human frame, and touch a string to which all mankind have an
accord and symphony. If he mean, therefore, to express that this man
possesses qualities, whose tendency is pernicious to society, he has
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chosen this common point of view, and has touched the principle of
humanity, in which every man, in some degree, concurs.6

Study questions
1 Hume thinks that morality influences our conduct. Explain how he
uses this idea to argue that morality cannot be from reason.
2 What does Hume mean by “reason”? With what two kinds of truth
does reason deal?
3 How can reason influence conduct? Can feelings and actions go
againstreason?
4 Explain Hume’s statement that “Reason is and ought only to be the
slaveof the passions.”
5 Hume thinks that there are only two kinds of truth. Explain how he
uses this idea to argue that moral beliefs do not express truths.
6 What is the point of his “willful murder” example? What do we
mean when we call the murder “bad”?
7 In Hume’s later thinking, how do reason and feeling cooperate as
wemake moral judgments?
8 In what way do agents making moral judgments try to be
“impartial”? Howcan this help people to reach agreement on moral
issues?

For further study

This selection has excerpts, which are sometimes simplified in their
wording, from two of David Hume’s books. Our earlier sections are from
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739); our excerpts are mostly from the
beginning of Book 3, but the “reason is the slave” paragraph is from
Section 3 of Part 3 of Book 2. Our last section is from An Enquiry
Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751); the first paragraph is from
Section 1 while the rest is from Part 1 of Section 9. For more on Hume’s
approach, see Antony Flew’s David Hume: Philosopher of Moral Science
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), J.L.Mackie’s Hume’s Moral
Theory (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980), and Barry Stroud’s
Hume (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977). Harry Gensler’s Ethics:
A Contemporary Introduction (London and New York: Routledge, 1998)
discusses subjectivism and the ideal observer view in Chapter 2.
Related readings in this anthology include Ayer and Mackie (who give
contemporary versions of Hume’s view); Kant (the major historical
opponent of Hume); Nagel (a recent opponent of subjectivism); Smart
(who uses Hume’s approach to defend utilitarianism); and Callicott (who
uses Hume’s approach to defend environmental ethics).
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Notes

1 This principle, which is central to Hume’s thought, is often called “Hume’s

fork.” Hume’s fork says that every truth is about either abstract ideas (like
“2+2=4”) or empirical facts (like “It’s raining outside”). Unless we have
feelings, neither of these sorts of truth can incite us to action; in this sense,
reason is inert.
2 Here is an example to clarify Hume’s point. Suppose that I desire to eat.
“There is an apple on the tree” and “To get the apple I must climb the tree”
can then influence my conduct, by telling me how to satisfy my desires. So,
assuming a previous desire, reason can influence my conduct.
3 Hume again appeals to “Hume’s fork,” this time to argue that moral
judgments cannot be truths.
4 Contemporary philosophers who are inspired by Hume on this point go in
one of two ways. Subjectivists see “X is bad” as a truth claim about the
speaker’s feelings, along the lines of “I dislike X.” Emotivists see “X is bad”
as an exclamation (not a truth claim), like “Boo on X!” While these views
are fairly close in practice, they differ in some important ways; Ayer’s
defense of emotivism in this anthology claims that subjectivism is much
easier to refute.
5 Hume’s “sentiment of humanity” involves concern for others—a sentiment
that we all share to some degree (although it may be weaker than our
desire for self-interest). Moral judgments appeal to this sentiment.
6 Some see Hume here as anticipating the ideal observer theory. This view
sees “X is good” as a truth claim about what we would desire under certain
conditions: “We would desire X if we were fully informed and had
impartial concern for everyone.”