David Hume sought out to express his opinion on ethics in which sentiment is seen as the grounding basis for morality. These theories can be seen as a response to the theories proposed by philosophers where they believed reason is considered to be the basis for morality. In this following essay I will show how Hume provides an argument in favor of sentiment being the foundation of our morality, rather than reason. To do this, I will begin to outline Hume’s ethical theories, highlighting his main ideas for grounding morality on sentiment and bring up some possible counterarguments that might potentially weaken this argument. Hume based his position in ethics off of what some would describe his naturalistic, or empirical theory of the mind and is known for asserting four major principles. (1)He …show more content…
Hume makes the claim that in order to make a moral judgment, one must keep in mind all the relevant aspects the situation, and recognize all the relevant ideas in relation to the situation. This means that we must take into consideration reason. Nevertheless, The moral judgment itself is not possible without passions or sentiment, which ultimately takes in all the deliverances of reason and creates the sentiment of disapproval or approval. All of these arguments effectively convey Hume’s beliefs that passion plays the dominant role in motivating action, and that reason is merely a “slave of the passions.” Hume describes how reason cannot hold control over passion’s motivational influence nor can it resist it. He illustrates the idea that one cannot use the power of reason to criticize or praise passions. A piece of evidence that he gives is that reason cannot be the motive to moral action; if reason doesn't have the ability to motivate any sort of action, it ultimately cannot motivate moral
For more than two thousand years, the human race has struggled to effectively establish the basis of morality. Society has made little progress distinguishing between morally right and wrong. Even the most intellectual minds fail to distinguish the underlying principles of morality. A consensus on morality is far from being reached. The struggle to create a basis has created a vigorous warfare, bursting with disagreement and disputation. Despite the lack of understanding, John Stuart Mill confidently believes that truths can still have meaning even if society struggles to understand its principles. Mill does an outstanding job at depicting morality and for that the entire essay is a masterpiece. His claims throughout the essay could not be any closer to the truth.
In “Morality and Natural Sentiment,” David Hume believes that morality “is more properly felt than judged of” (p. 83). Hume argues that although we are able to identify all the objective evidence pertaining to an immoral situation, we aren’t capable of determining the wrongness of the actions by examining the situation with simply reason, since there is no existing set list of moral judgments. Therefore, morality must be a sentiment, since reason just reveals facts about what happened and how it happened. I agree with Hume in that morality isn’t based on reason, because in order for something to be declared right or wrong, a person has to apply their own personal notions of what counts as virtuous conduct versus vicious conduct. Everyone has
Unlike rationalists, Hume believes that reason is not the motive to the will, but merely the slave of the passions. Morals are not within the immediate grasp of reason, because reason alone cannot desire anything but merely find out a way to actualize the end; It is the passion that desires and dictates our wills.
... Finding the equilibrium between emotion and reason n is crucial for one to be able to make moral decisions that can be justified in an acceptable manner. The ability to balance those two can be very challenging, especially in situation where the emotion side of the brain attempts to take control. It should be kept in mind that emotion and reason can keep reasonable thinking from turning into irrational behavior.
In this essay I shall seek to outline what has come to be referred to as the Humean Theory of Reasons (HTR). I will subsequently go on to discuss the moral implications of HTR, surrounding the incompatibility with notions of moral absolutism and universalism. A possible Korsgaardian response to Hume will then be proposed, suggesting that it may in some cases be irrational to act immorally, but only if one’s actions are not compatible with one’s desired end. I will conclude that the question of whether it is irrational to act immorally gives rise to a number of issues if HTR or a Korsgaardian position is to be accepted. Nevertheless, I argue that each of these is more compelling in its answer than an externalist alternative due to a potential capacity to explain why one acts in a certain way.
(11) I do not mean to deny here that the virtuous person engages in deliberation or that she has formed particular practical principles as a result of deliberation. Nor do I wish to deny that she deliberates properly, in contrast to her non-virtuous counterparts. I mean only to uncover the non-rational conditions that cause her and other agents' deliberations to be as they are.
Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, trans. Schneewind, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1982, 72.
Why is incest deplorable amongst humans, but not for dogs? What makes it acceptable for a man to kill a deer, but wrong if he kills another man? Why do these lines get drawn between humans and animals? David Hume has an answer to these questions. Though many philosophers, like Saint Augustine, argue that humans are morally different from animals because of their capability to reason, Hume states that it is passion and sentiment that determines morality. In his book, Treatise with Human Nature, Hume claims that vice and virtue stems from the pleasure or pain we, mankind, feel in response to an action not from the facts that we observe (Hume, 218). Hume uses logic to separate morality into a dichotomy of fact and value, making it clear that the only reasonable way to think of the ethics of morality is to understand that it is driven by passion, as opposed to reason (Angeles, 95). In this essay I will layout Hume's position on morality and defining ambiguous terms on the way. After Hume's argument is well established, I will then precede to illustrate why it is convincing and defend his thesis against some common objections.
Mill writes that thinkers are still arguing the foundation of morality and constantly squabbling over the definition of right and wrong. He tells the reader that Plato wrote that Socrates first postulated the idea of Utilitarianism in his writings against the Sophists (Mill 1). He says man must test what is right and wrong seemingly against his own instinct, and that instinct can only give general principles of moral judgment (Mill 2). He writes that the intuitive and deductive schools taught that there is a science of morals but did not have a first principle. Rather they relied only on second principles to guide moral action. Mill writes that utilitarian arguments are indispensable for moralists and that the greatest happiness principle has influenced even those who vocally reject it (Mill
For instance a good example of this you can find in the third book of the Treatise; Passions, since they don’t represent anything real and are not arguments in and of themselves. Now I would Love to be corrected if I’m wrong, but aren’t passions real things that you care about and enjoy? Does that mean my passion for music just some bundle of impressions or judgments? Sure I had to experience Music to get an impression of it, to further make a judgment from it but, after that a unexplainable sensation dwells inside that makes me want to pursue music. Moving past that, Hume speaks on cause and effect a lot and how causation and pretty much Newton’s third Law, “Every action has an opposite or equal reaction”. He believes that we can perceive cause and effect or two events being related to one another. Yet, it is no more than our desire to associate sequences together, which Hume of course finds the use of association “unfounded and meaningless”. I struggle with seeing how even Hume can stand his malarkey. Because if I push a chair over, and it falls over, there is very much a connection between those events. The
In this essay Hume creates the true judges who are required to have: delicacy of taste, practice in a specific art of taste, be free from prejudice in their determinations, and good sense to guide their judgments. In Hume’s view the judges allow for reasonable critiques of objects. Hume also pointed out that taste is not merely an opinion but has some physical quality which can be proved. So taste is not a sentiment but a determination. What was inconsistent in the triad of commonly held belief was that all taste is equal and so Hume replaced the faulty assumption with the true judges who can guide society’s sentiments.
Something must be desirable on its own account, and because of its immediate accord or agreement with human sentiment and affection” (87). In conclusion, I believe that Hume thinks that reason, while not completely useless, is not the driving force of moral motivation. Reasons are a means to sentiments, which in turn are a means to morality, but without reasons there can still be sentiments. There can still be beauty. Reasons can not lie as the foundation of morality, because they can only be true or false.
He explains that there are two types of impressions, impressions of sensations and impressions of reflection. Impressions of reflection can be defined as desires, emotions, passions and sentiments or reactions to ideas. This type of impression arises from copied ideas stored in memory or the imagination. Impressions of sensations are defined as feelings from our senses, pains, and pleasures. These impressions arise in the soul from an unknown source. Hume doesn’t go into detail about the causes of sense impressions, he explains that finding the origin of these impressions is a problem that he has left to “anatomists and natural philosophers”. Before we experience impressions of reflections we must experience those of sensation. He gives the example of an impression of sensation of pain or pleasure, copies of these experiences are saved in our memories as ideas and when we remember an idea of pain or pleasure it “produces the new impressions of desire and aversion, hope and fear” also known as impressions of reflections because these experiences come from a ‘reflection ‘on a previous experience. Hume breaks impressions down even more to complex and simple. Simple impressions can be described as single shapes, colors and smells, complex impressions are the color or shape of
Motivation and Emotion (pg. 354) both play an important part in our daily life. Motivation helps us understand why we do things a certain way or why our behaviors change unexpectedly. While emotion shows our relationships with others and our health, and making important decisions. Motivation comes from the latin word “movere” which means to move where one starts on activities until one's psychological needs are fulfilled. An example in the chapter is “when a person is relaxed in front of the television and begins to feel hungry, the physical need for food might cause the person to get up, go into the kitchen, and search for something to eat”(Ciccarelli). But, there are two different types of motivation, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. In
In the world, there are two categories of what people think about. One of them is relations of ideas. This is the type exemplified by geometry and algebra since facts within these subjects are found through reason of thought. However, the other type, matters of fact, could be discoverable through evidence and empirical thinking. One of David Hume’s greatest contributions to philosophy is his skepticism in challenging what people think by proposing that even “fundamental truths” could be subjective and caused by our limitations as humans. In his Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, he claims that all matters of fact are developed through people’s experience in life (Hume, David. Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding in Readings in Modern Philosophy, edited by Roger Ariew and Eric Watkins, 336-349. Indianapolis: 11-1, 2000.) In this paper, I will argue that David Hume’s argument for the reduction of matters of fact into experience is faulty since his framework contradicts with itself. In the first section, I will construct Hume’s reasoning for empiricism. To do this, I summarize his argument that what people believe in all come from their