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Philosophy E166: Ethical Theory. Week Seven: Hume on Threats to Ethics from Naturalism, Atheism and Relativism. Hume’s “Fideism of Nature”.
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Philosophy E166: Ethical Theory Week Seven: Hume on Threats to Ethics from Naturalism, Atheism and Relativism
Hume’s “Fideism of Nature” • “Since both skepticism and naturalism are prominent in Hume’s text, an interpretation that succeeds in making them work in tandem is to be preferred, other things being equal…. The view that results I shall sometimes refer to as Hume’s fideism of nature, for reasons that will become clear as we proceed.” (LHMP, p. 22)
Hume on Staying Skeptical • “But this skepticism cannot, as Rawls writes, “be sustained except by solitary philosophical reflection, and then not for long, reveal[ing] to us that for the most part other psychological forces such as custom and imagination regulate our everyday beliefs and conduct” (LHMP, p. 23).
The Outcome for Hume of Radical Skepticism • . “The upshot of this philosophical pilgrim’s progress [toward Hume’s radical skepticism] … is someone who shares the beliefs of ordinary people on everyday matters, and who when going beyond this does so with circumspection guided by probability and the weight of the evidence. As for matters beyond experience, belief is suspended” (LHMP, p. 24)
Hume’s Epistemological Skepticism • Rawls’s definition: “accepts a scheme of beliefs as meaningful and intelligible but questions the grounds and reasons for them.” • The skepticism comes in because all Adam has to go on in accounting for his predictions is simply his past experience. • There is an early rock bottom in the explaining process. • There’s nothing that justifies the inference other than habit and custom.
Reason Does Not Penetrate, Yet We Get on Quite Well • There is a bedrock to our explanation that comes very early. • Reason does not penetrate very far into the nature of the world. • All that we have before us are these patterns of experience. • And yet we get on quite well in the world. We get on with the expectations, even though those expectations are the mere result of past patterns.
Hume: We Are Freed from Superstitions • For Hume a fundamental objective of philosophical reflection ought to be freedom from the “enthusiasms” and “superstitions” of religion, which lead to social differences and political corruption (LHMP, p. 14) • To be free of those superstitions is to live in a better world. The one thing that philosophy can do is contribute to that.
How Hume Arrives as This View • Hume, on Rawls’s interpretation, does not defend his view by reason. • It appears not as the result of reason but rather as the result of these two psychological forces – • the skepticism created by reflection and the natural, nonreflective “psychological propensities” (Rawls’s term) of custom and • the imagination (LHMP, p. 24)
Hume Differs from the Modern Positivist Faith in Science • Not based on an alleged contrast between moral judgment and judgments in science. • Not based on typical view that science is rational and based on sound evidence but morals not rational or based on evidence. • He thinks morals not based on reason. • Hume extends his skepticism to science as well. • Moral skepticism part of “fideism of reason.” (LHMP, p. 14.)
Summary of Hume’s Conclusions about Reason and Passion • “I shall endeavor to prove first, 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.” (Treatise, II.iii.3.1)
Hume: The Surface of the Mind • For Hume, the mind consists of its surface. • There are patterns in the way that the elements of the mind interact or deploy or co-occur. • There is nothing to know of the internal mechanics of the mind. • All that we can know directly is what we experience. • The main constituents of the mind are the perceptions of the mind. • There are two kinds of perceptions: • 1) impressions and • 2) ideas.
The Makeup of Impressions • Of impressions, in The Treatise, there are two sorts: • those of sensation and • those of reflection. • Reflections are categorized into • passions, • desires, and • emotions. • The sensations we have are sensory, bodily, and pleasure/pain.
Distinctions Among Passions: How They Arise • Firstly, there are distinctions among passions according to how they arise. • a) direct passions: the passions that arise immediately from pleasure or pain, or from good and evil (which makes Hume look like somewhat of a hedonist) • b) indirect passions: the passions that arise from pleasure or pain, but involve complicated conditions, usually involving some mixture of ideas and impressions • Think, for example, of malice. Malice is ordinarily directed at a particular person and arises in a particular context. Love is likewise. Love arises contextually in a way that requires certain impressions and certain ideas. • c) original passions: the passions that do not arise from pleasure or pain directly or indirectly, but do produce pleasure or pain
Distinctions Among Passions: How Constituted • There is the important distinction made according to how the passions are constituted— • whether they are turbulent or not, or, in other words, whether they are felt in an intense way or not. • We, therefore, make the distinction between • calm and • violent passions
Distinctions Among Passions: Their Effects • This is a focus on what the passions’ effects are. • We want to make the distinction between • strong and • weak. • There’s a natural tendency to confuse the calm with the weak. A calm passion can be a strong passion and, thus, have many effects.
Demonstrative Reason • Demonstrative reason, also called ‘deductive inference’ • Conclusions are arrived at on the basis of “the principle of contradiction.” • Hume has the idea that mathematical proofs are based on reductio ad absurdum. • Contradiction is the main feature of mathematical proof. • If you have a contradiction from a proposition, then there is a loss of interest in the proposition.
Inductive Reason • Inductive reasoning – what we find outside math – that is, associating a cause with an effect, or vice versa, on the basis of the experience of the constant conjunction of similar events. • One has a pattern of experience and, as a result of that pattern, one draws a conclusion inductively that all subsequent cases will follow the pattern. • Hume recognizes that sometimes these conclusions are probabilistic – never demonstrative – the result only from habit/custom and imagination. • What we have is means-ends reasoning.
Basic Statement of the Relation Between Reason and assion • “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.” Treatise II.iii.3.4.
What Rawls Calls the “Knockdown Argument” for the Basic Statement • “A passion is an original existence, or, if you will, modification of existence, and contains not any representative quality, which renders it a copy of any other existence or modification. When I am angry, I am actually possessed with the passion, and in that emotion have no more a reference to any other object, than when I am thirsty, or sick, or more than five foot high. It is impossible, therefore, that this passion can be opposed by, or be contradictory to truth and reason; since this contradiction consists in the disagreement of ideas, considered as copies, with those objects, which they represent.” Treatise II.iii.3.5.
Rawls on the “Knockdown Argument” • “In this paragraph Hume states his knockdown argument to show that the passions cannot be contrary to reason: a passion is simply an occurrent psychological state, an impression of reflection that occurs under certain conditions, gives rise to certain propensities, and prompts us to action. As such, a passion does not assert anything. Hume says that it has no representative quality since it is not a “copy of any other existence.” The passions assert nothing, and so they cannot contradict a truth established by demonstrative reasoning or experience.” LHMP, p. 29.
The Argument • (a) “Contradiction consists in the disagreement of ideas, considered as copies, with those objects, which they represent” and since • (b) A passion is not “a copy of any other existence” and therefore not an idea or made up of ideas, thus • (conclusion) (c) A passion cannot be “contradictory to truth and reason.”
Sometimes Passions Can Be Contrary to Reason • What may at first occur on this head, is, that as nothing can be contrary to truth or reason, except what has a reference to it, and as the judgments of our understanding only have this reference, it must follow, that passions can be contrary to reason only so far as they are accompanied with some judgment or opinion…. “ [Treatise II.iii.3.6]
Two Senses • “According to this principle, which is so obvious and natural, it is only in two senses, that any affection can be called unreasonable[:]….” • 1. “First, When a passion, such as hope or fear, grief or joy, despair or security, is founded on the supposition or the existence of objects, which really do not exist….” • 2. “Secondly, When in exerting any passion in action, we choose means insufficient for the designed end, and deceive ourselves in our judgment of causes and effects…. [We choose a cause insufficient for the effect.]”
Where a passion neither founded on false suppositions, nor chooses means insufficient • “Where a passion is neither founded on false suppositions, nor chooses means insufficient for the end, the understanding can neither justify nor condemn it….” • 1. “It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger….” • 2. “It is not contrary to reason for me to choose my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me….” • 3. “It is as little contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledged lesser good to my greater, and have a more ardent affection for the former than the latter.”
How Reason Interacts with Passion • “The moment we perceive the falsehood of any supposition, or the insufficiency of any means our passions yield to our reason without any opposition. I may desire any fruit as of an excellent relish; but whenever you convince me of my mistake, my longing ceases.”
Why We Think Wrongly that Reason Controls Passion • “… Reason [and here is means demonstrative reason and the inductive reasoning associated with cause-effect or means-ends] … exerts itself without producing any sensible emotion; and except in the more sublime disquisitions of philosophy, or in the frivolous subtilties of the school, scarce ever conveys any pleasure or uneasiness. Hence it proceeds, that every action of the mind, which operates with the same calmness and tranquillity, is confounded with reason by all those, who judge of things from the first view and appearance. Now it is certain, there are certain calm desires and tendencies, which, though they be real passions, produce little emotion in the mind, and are more known by their effects than by the immediate feeling or sensation.”
Justice and Convention • “It has been asserted by some, that justice arises from HUMAN CONVENTIONS, and proceeds from the voluntary choice, consent, or combination of mankind. If by convention be here meant a promise (which is the most usual sense of the word) nothing can be more absurd than this position. The observance of promises is itself one of the most considerable parts of justice; and we are not surely bound to keep our word, because we have given our word to keep it. But if by convention be meant a sense of common interest; which sense each man feels in his own breast, which he remarks in his fellows, and which carries him, in concurrence with others, into a general plan or system of actions, which tends to public utility; it must be owned, that, in this sense, justice arises from human conventions. For if it be allowed … that the particular consequences of a particular act of justice may be hurtful to the public as well as to individuals; it follows, that every man, in embracing that virtue, must have an eye to the whole plan or system, and must expect the concurrence of his fellows in the same conduct and behaviour. Did all his views terminate in the consequences of each act of his own, his benevolence and humanity, as well as his self-love, might often prescribe to him measures of conduct very different from those, which are agreeable to the strict rules of right and justice.”
The Boat Analogy • “Thus two men pull the oars of a boat by common convention, for common interest, without any promise or contract; thus gold and silver are made the measures of exchange: Thus speech and words and language are fixed by human convention and agreement. Whatever is advantageous to two or more persons, if all perform their part; but what loses all advantage, if only one perform, can arise from no other principle. There would otherwise be no motive for any one of them to enter into that scheme of conduct.” EM, Ap. III, pars. 7-8
Hume’s “Secondary Qualities” View of Moral Properties (Treatise 3.1.1.26) “Nor does this reasoning only prove, that morality consists not in any relations, that are the objects of science; but if examin'd, will prove with equal certainty, that it consists not in any matter of fact, which can be discover'd by the understanding. This is the second part of our argument; and if it can be made evident, we may conclude, that morality is not an object of reason. But can there be any difficulty in proving, that vice and virtue are not matters of fact, whose existence we can infer by reason? Take any action allow'd to be vicious: Wilful 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 which-ever 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. Vice and virtue, therefore, may be compar'd to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind: And this discovery in morals, like that other in physics, is to be regarded as a considerable advancement of the speculative sciences; tho', like that too, it has little or no influence on practice. Nothing can be more real, or concern us more, than our own sentiments of pleasure and uneasiness; and if these be favourable to virtue, and unfavourable to vice, no more can be requisite to the regulation of our conduct and behavior.”
Hume’s Argument Against Deriving “Ought” from “Is” (Treatise 3.1.1.27) • Hume: “I cannot forbear adding to these reasonings an observation, which may, perhaps, be found of some importance. In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark'd, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, `tis necessary that it shou'd be observ'd and explain'd; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this small attention wou'd subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason.”
Rawls’ Take on Paragraph 27 • Rawls is probably correct: that this paragraph does not add very much to the previous paragraph • But that it merely constitutes a summary of the case that Hume has been making against the rational intuitionist (such as Samuel Clarke) who tries to ground morality entirely in reason
Searle’s Famous “How to Derive ‘Ought’ from ‘Is’” (Philosophical Review 73 (1964), pp. 43-58)
The Judicious Spectator • Hume (par. 16, T581): “In order, therefore, to prevent those continual contradictions, and arrive at a more stable judgment of things, we fix on some steady and general points of view; and always, in our thoughts, place ourselves in them, whatever may be our present situation. In like manner, external beauty is determin'd merely by pleasure; and `tis evident, a beautiful countenance cannot give so much pleasure, when seen at the distance of twenty paces, as when it is brought nearer us. We say not, however, that it appears to us less beautiful: Because we know what effect it will have in such a position, and by that reflection we correct its momentary appearance.”
The Common Point of View • EM, sec. 9, par. 6: “When a man denominates another his enemy, his rival, his antagonist, his adversary, he is understood to speak the language of self-love, and to express sentiments, peculiar to himself, and arising from his particular circumstances and situation. But when he bestows on any man the epithets of vicious or odious or depraved, he then speaks another language, and expresses sentiments in which, he expects, all his audience are to concur with him. He must here, therefore, depart from his private and particular situation, and must chuse 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.
The Common Point of View (cont.) • “If he mean, therefore, to express, that this man possesses qualities, whose tendency is pernicious to society, he has chosen this common point of view, and has touched the principle of humanity, in which every man, in some degree, concurs. While the human heart is compounded of the same elements as at present, it will never be wholly indifferent to public good, nor entirely unaffected with the tendency of characters and manners. And though this affection of humanity may not generally be esteemed so strong as vanity or ambition, yet, being common to all men, it can alone be the foundation of morals, or of any general system of blame or praise. One man's ambition is not another's ambition; nor will the same event or object satisfy both: But the humanity of one man is the humanity of every one; and the same object touches this passion in all human creatures.”
Principle-dependent desires connected to rational principles (i) To adopt the most effective means to our ends. (ii) To acquire reasonable beliefs about our ends and objectives. (iii) To select the more probable alternative. (iv) To prefer the greater good …. (v) To order our objectives (by priorities) when they conflict.
Principle-dependent desires connected to principles of “strict reason”
Principle-dependent desires connected to so-called “reasonable principles”
The Ideal of the “Rational Agent” (cont.) By definition, then, a rational agent is one whose character, whose con-
Rawls: Hume never describes the general appetite to good as a rational principle-dependent desire
Similarly, the two principles he endorses, he discusses in the same psychological terms
Rawls’s Idea about Hume’s Explanation for Relying on the Merely Psychological
The Absence in Hume of a Conception of Practical Reasoning as Moved by Principle-Based Desires • The bottom line is that in Hume – and this is Rawls’s point – there is no room for explanation of human behavior in terms of its relying on norms – on principles – of rationality • Notice the contrast in this regard between Hume’s account of our reliance on norms of justice (i.e., conventions) and norms of rationality • But even with the norms of justice, missing is any authority to the norms
