Ideal spectator approach

1. Ideal spectator approach Lecture 2 “The hypothesis which we embrace is plain. It maintains that morality is determined by sentiment. It defines virtue to be whatever mental action or quality gives to a spectator the pleasing sentiment of approbation; and vice the contrary.” --Hume, Appendix I

2. Topics today: • Hume’s view of moral judgment • His critique of the rationalist position

3. Sec. 5: Why utility pleases • Why do we morally admire those qualities that are socially useful? • Can’t just be a result of education. There must be a basis in human nature. • 2 possibilities: self-regard or humanitarian concern

4. Self-regard or concern for others? • Moral sentiment can oppose our self-interest • Can concern matters that don’t affect our self-interest • far away in space or time • fictional • Concern for self and moral concern feel different • Moral sentiment cannot be a form of self-regard • Must be a concern for others

5. Universal benevolence • Rooted in an innate human capacity for sympathy • Sympathy can take the form of a sentiment of benevolence toward all, a humanitarian concern. • This concern is what drives our moral judgments

6. Objection • Sympathy leads to more concern for those close to us • Our moral judgments do not vary in this way

7. Reply • Unequal concern arises from a biased point of view • An impartial consideration of the situation channels benevolence equally toward all • Correct moral judgments express the attitudes of an impartial, sympathetic observer

8. Role of reason in morality • Reason ascertains facts about what promotes or diminishes pleasure and happiness • So reason plays a role • But reason does not make the moral judgment • Moral judgment expresses a sentiment evoked by consideration of the facts revealed by reason.

9. 1st argument against rationalism • Reason: inductive or demonstrative • Inductive: infers facts from observation • Demonstrative: works with abstract mathematical and logical relations. • Moral judgments don’t pick out such facts or relations • Hence they are not made by reason

10. Example: the “crime” of ingratitude • Observable fact: ill will or indifference in the mind of the ungrateful person • This is not a moral fact because it is not always wrong • Abstract relation: contrariety of attitude • Again, this is not always wrong

11. 2nd argument • Reason operates to infer NEW facts and relations • A moral judgment must be based on all the facts of a situation • Hence moral judgments are not made by reason

12. 3rd argument • Moral judgments are like judgments of beauty • Beauty is not a quality or feature we discover in the object • Rather, a judgment of beauty is an expression of a favorable sentiment toward the object • Moral judgments express a similar kind of sentiment

13. 4th argument • Non-human objects can manifest all the relations that obtain in a moral situation. • But we don’t apply morality to the non-human world • Hence morality is not a matter of relations.

14. 5th argument • Reason alone is never a motive to action • Moral judgments can move us to action • Hence reason by itself cannot give us morality