Hume

David Hume

Born: April 26, 1711, Edinburgh

Died: August 25, 1776, Edinburgh

Nothing is more surprising than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.         - DavidHume 

An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
David Hume
ISBN 13:978-0-915145-45-4
          10: 0-915145-45-6

I found Hume dfficult to read

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/
Hume's position in ethics, which is based on his empiricist theory of the mind, is best known for asserting four theses: (1) Reason alone cannot be a motive to the will, but rather is the “slave of the passions” (see Section 3) (2) Moral distinctions are not derived from reason (see Section 4). (3) Moral distinctions are derived from the moral sentiments: feelings of approval (esteem, praise) and disapproval (blame) felt by spectators who contemplate a character trait or action (see Section 7). (4) While some virtues and vices are natural (see Section 13), others, including justice, are artificial (see Section 9). There is heated debate about what Hume intends by each of these theses and how he argues for them. He articulates and defends them within the broader context of his metaethics and his ethic of virtue and vice.

Q1
What does rational thought have to do with moral reason?
p. 84-87, 82-88

http://www.freeessays.cc/db/35/peh273.shtml
The basic premise of Hume’s arguments on morality is simply that our actions are not governed by reason, but rather by passion or as Hume states, “that reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will; and secondly, that it can never oppose passion in the direction of the will.”(413) “Reason…” to Hume, “…is the discovery of truth or falshood.

http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/4v.htm
All human actions flow naturally from human feelings, without any interference from human reason.
The ideas of benevolence, utility, and justice arouse our deepest and most pervasive feelings, he maintained, and these feelings in turn motivate us toward actions of moral worth

https://www.google.ca/#hl=en&tbo=d&spell=1&q=hume,+rational+thought+vs+moral+reason&sa=X&ei=X0axUMCUNqXciQK_7IHQCA&ved=0CCwQvwUoAA&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&fp=1208aebc5d073809&bpcl=38897761&biw=680&bih=568
reason can assess a potential opinion as rational or irrational; ... Hume claims that moral distinctions are not derived from reason

Q2
How can we derive a theory of morality when we focus on the principle of utility and consequential ethics?
p. 09

http://www.utilitarianism.com/david-hume.html
the circumstance of utility, in all subjects … is constantly appealed to in all moral decisions concerning the merit and demerit of actions”.

http://www.ohadmaiman.com/displayessay.asp?PageNumber=18
Justice + Utility + Sentiment of Humanity --- Moral Distinction
His theory ties Justice to Utility, claiming that for an action to be just, it must be useful. It then ties the J+U to the SH, claiming that an act of justice is useful according to a universal Sentiment of Humanity. The third step connects the SH to the MD, claiming that the Sentiment of Humanity allows people to have the ability to make Moral Distinctions between right and wrong, just and unjust.

http://seschmid.org/LSF/LSF_Utilitarianism_4up.pdf

For Hume, social utility grounds ethics

 

- The more good a given behavior produces for society, the better the action (virtue)
-Pleasure is still that standard for moral value. But, true pleasure appears to result from responses to the correct virtues,which are those that have social utility

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/#ear

virtue is not the same as reasonableness and vice is not contrary to reason.

 

Morality— this argument goes on — influences our passions and actions: we are often impelled to or deterred from action by our opinions of obligation or injustice. Therefore morals cannot be derived from reason alone.

 

Q3
Is Hume mixing morality with utility and sentiment-how successful is the argument?
Usefulness source of moral sentiment p.43
p. 09
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/#ear
Hume claims that moral distinctions are not derived from reason but rather from sentiment.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/#ear
moral judgments are meaningless ventings of emotion that can be neither true nor false

Q4
What is Hume's principle of justice?
p. 34,
Public utility is sole origin of justice

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-virtue/
Hume saw (or believed he saw), however, that individual justice at least sometimes conflicts with what benevolence would motivate us to do. He is as much a sentimentalist as Hutcheson, believing that judgments about virtue and rightness depend on our capacity for sympathy rather than on some form of reason (or on a distinct moral sense) and holding that being virtuous depends on feelings and feelingful motives like benevolence and sympathy rather than on reason.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-virtue/
Motives like benevolence, curiosity, and prudence Hume calls natural in the twofold sense that they exist apart from social convention(s) and that they do not require explicitly ethical thinking (or conscience) or in order to issue in action. But the virtue of justice is not natural, but rather should be considered “artificial,” according to Hume, because it depends for its existence on human conventions and artifices and because the primary motive to justice is a sense of justice (or of duty).

Q5
What are the principles of utility, which help or hurt this position-how do we judge the good? Is there any objective criteria or material to judge the good? p. 57
p. 17 social virtue
attach notion of good to;
Bodily gifts ,merit, endowments, approval of benevolence, justice, virtue

Q6
Is there an individual interdependency of moral sentiment that can be measured to weigh or measure moral goodness.
p. 39

My uneducated answer /guess for today is yes

Q7
What is the weight of reason/rational response/rational judgement in moral decision making?

I think morals are learned as dictated by religion, law, social mores, and family values, so we know if something is 'good or bad'
Knowing does not always matter, we may know something is "bad" but do it anyway
We may choose to decide that we do not agree that it is 'bad'

If it's not harming ourself or others it's ok

Q8
What role does reasoning play in moral decision making?

weighing the cost/benefit
weighing the consequences & risk factors
What's in it for me?

Q9
Can utilitarian position be separated from the self interest?

Perhaps in Random Acts of Kindness & altruism, but there is probably self interest, so no

Q10
Do you agree with Hume?

I think that we are always thinking and using our intuition or instincts to make decisions.
In different instances one aspect may prevail in the final outcome than another