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DAVID HUME'S MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE TREATISE - Coggle Diagram
DAVID HUME'S MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE TREATISE
2.3.3 OF THE INFLUENCING MOTIVES OF THE WILL
REASON ALONE CANNOT BE A MOTIVE
REASON CONCERNS:
a) DEMONSTRATION (Relations of Ideas) eg: MATH
b) PROBABILITY (Matters of Fact) eg: cause + effect
"It can never in the least concern us to know that such objects are causes and such others effects, if both causes + effects be INDIFFERENT to us"
REASON = SLAVE OF THE PASSIONS
Passions don't REPRESENT anything -> NO TRUTH VALUE
"UNREASONABLE" passions - 2 ways:
1) based on non-existent object
2) motivates ineffective means
"It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger"
PASSIONS / DESIRES (often mistaken for REASON)
a) CALM -> INSTINCTS (eg: kindness to children) + GENERAL APPETITES (Good: seek, Evil: avoid)
b) VIOLENT EMOTIONS
"STRENGTH OF MIND" = a) > b)
3.1.1 MORAL DISTINCTIONS NOT DERIVED FROM REASON
MORAL RATIONALISM (à la Samuel CLARKE) -> Hume's critique of:
1) Moral distinctions influence actions -> "Reason alone" cannot
2) Passions cannot be "contrary or conformable to reason"
3) If "unreasonable" passions involve a MISTAKE OF FACT & are NOT IMMORAL
If it were, all vices would be equally immoral, because all falsehoods are equally false
4) 'MORAL RELATIONS'
can't be INTERNAL ONLY -> eg: "crimes in ourselves"
can't be EXTERNAL ONLY -> inanimate crimes
it must be UNIVERSAL -> But internal-external relations only knowable by EXPERIENCE
MURDER CHALLENGE: where's the vice?
"You never can find it until you turn your reflection into your own breast" -> VICE / VIRTUE like SECONDARY QUALITIES
OUGHT not derivable from IS
3.1.2 MORAL DISTINCTIONS DERIVED FROM A MORAL SENSE
"To have the sense of virtue is nothing but to feel a satisfaction of a particular kind from the contemplation of a character"
CHALLENGE: IS ANYTHING PLEASANT THEREBY VIRTUOUS?
① DIFFERENT KINDS OF PLEASURE (good music vs good wine)
② VICE + VIRTUE MUST:
a) be placed in ourselves/others
b) give rise to one of -> PRIDE / HUMILITY (Virtue) or LOVE / HATRED (Vice)
NOT a separate SENSE for each "moral distinction", but a general explanation for all
NATURAL?
N1. NOT SUPERNATURAL -> vice + virtue equally N1
N2. COMMON -> virtue UNnatural?
N3. NOT ARTIFICIAL -> both are equally "out of nature" because "the actions themselves are artificial"
3.2.1 JUSTICE, WHETHER A NATURAL OR ARTIFICIAL VIRTUE?
"There are some virtues that produce pleasure and approbation by means of an artifice or contrivance that arises from the circumstances and necessity of mankind"
Moral quality of act determined entirely by MOTIVE
MAXIM: No action can be virtuous unless there be in human nature some motive to produce it distinct from the sense of its own morality
CIRCLE ARGUMENT -> MONEY LENDER: What's the motive to repay?
I. SELF-LOVE -> BUT unchecked = source of injustice + violence (equal duty w/ secret loan)
II. CONCERN FOR PUBLIC INTEREST -> "no such passion in human minds as the love of mankind merely as such"
III. PRIVATE BENEVOLENCE -> Owed even to my enemy / rich men love their money / property explains sense of entitlement
INFLUENCE OF NATURAL PASSIONS ON VIRTUE
children > nephews > cousins > strangers
"artificial" ≠ arbitrary