Abstract
In light of the phenomenon of the “coexistence of the non-contemporaneous” [Gleichzeitigkeit des Ungleichzeitigen] every periodic division is problematic, for usually the old exists simultaneously with the new, that which looks to the past exists beside that which points to the future. This is also true for the beginning of “modern times”: Beside the first modern attempts to define the fundamentals of moral conduct without recourse to metaphysical assumptions, the “old dictates” remained in effect for whose truth divine revelation was claimed. Some theoreticians of modernity held a conciliatory position in which they clung to God’s existence, but they no longer looked to infer His attributes from the Book of Books but, rather, out of creation — from the book of nature. Nevertheless the project of the Enlightenment, to find a secular foundation for morality, was worked on more and more self-consciously, and the greatest radicals even went a step further: They held the traditional form of religion, under which in the following is always meant: the Christian-theistic form of religion, to be morally threatening. David Hume was one of them. His provocative reflections on this subject are the object of the following comments.
It is as if we have started with Moore and then worked back from him to Hume.
(Philippa Foot)
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Notes
Cf. John Mackie: Hume’s Moral Theory,London: Routledge 1980, pp.120ff.
Of all the animals, with which this globe is peopled, there is none towards whom nature seems, at first sight, to have exercis’d more cruelty than towards man, in the numberless wants and necessities, with which she has loaded him, and in the slender means, which she affords to the relieving these necessities. In other creatures these two particulars generally compensate each other. If we consider the lion as a voracious and carnivorous animal, we shall easily discover him to be very necessitous; but if we turn our eye to his make and temper, his agility, his courage, his arms, and his force, we shall find, that his advantages hold proportion with his wants. The sheep and ox are depriv’d of all these advantages; but their appetites are moderate, and their food is of easy purchase. In man alone, this unnatural [!] conjunction of infirmity, and of necessity, may be observ’d in its greatest perfection. Not only the food, which is requir’d for his sustenance, flies his search and approach, or at least requires his labour to be produc’d, but he must be possess’d of cloaths and lodging, to defend him against the injuries of the weather; tho’ to consider him only in himself, he is provided neither with arms, nor force, nor other natural abilities, which are in any degree answerable to so many necessities.
Tis by society alone he is able to supply his defects, and raise himself up to an equality with his fellow-creatures, and even acquire a superiority above him. By society all his infirmities are compensated […]. By the conjunction of forces, our power is augmented: By the partition of employments, our ability encreases: And by mutual succour we are less expos’d to fortune and accidents. ‘Tis by this additional force, ability and security,that society becomes advantageous.“ (David Hume: A Treatise of Human Nature [1739/40], Oxford: Oxford University Press 1978, pp.484f. Subsequent citations from this work to be abbreviated by THN.)
IHN,pp.520f.
“I have never call’d Justice unnatural, but only artificial. Atque ipsa utilitas justi prope mater aequi. Says one of the best Moralists of Antiquity [= Horace].” (Letter from Hume to Hutcheson, September 17, 1739, published in: The Letters of David Hume,Oxford: Oxford University Press 1932, Volume I, p.33. Subsequent citations from this work to be abbreviated by LETTERS.
David Hume: An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals [1751], in: Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals,Oxford: Oxford University Press 1975, pp.169–343. Quotation from p.272 (similar in: IHN,p.472). Subsequent citations from this work will be abbreviated by EPM.
Since Hume’s metaethical position can best be characterized as “cognitivist non-descriptivism” (cf. Bernd Gräfrath: Moral Sense and Praktische Vernunft,David Humes Ethik and Rechtsphilosophie, Stuttgart: Metzler 1991), moral judgments - in a strict sense - are not capable of truth. For that reason the term intersubjectivity should be used instead of “objectivity”.
Judgments which are passed from the standpoint of morality or from a “general consent of moral discourse” are able to claim intersubjective validity.
Hume’s ideal observer theory is attractive, in so far as it probably represents the only possibility of solving the famous free-rider problem - the problem that it is best for purely egoistically motivated participants in community projects, when they profit from the established conventions and secretly break them themselves.
THN,p.472 [italics mine].
THN,pp.581f.
THN,p.583.
Of course, here the question arises whether immoral human beings are actually unhappy, whether they have a conscience at all. One of the themes of classical tragedy is exactly calling into question this contention.
EPM,p.229.
THN,pp.499f. The original motive for ethical conduct in the “emotional distance” [Fernbereich] is thus, according to Hume, not fellow-feeling but rather self-interest: Action which ought to be performed is conscious action of the rational. But pleasure in respect to ethical conduct in the “emotional distance” rests on a sympathy with the public interest, which evolves in the course of time, namely, as a result of contact with strangers; this is the utopian element in flume’s moral theory.
EPM,p.227.
But ’tis certain, that self-love, when it acts at its liberty L..1, is the source of all injustice and violence. “(IHN,p.480)
David Hume: Essays Moral, Political, and Literary [1741ff.], Indianapolis: Liberty Press 1987, p.73. Subsequent citations from this work to be abbreviated by ESSAYS.
TTIN,p.272.
Concerning those in part dramatic confrontations between David Hume and the different orthodox Christians of his time, see Gerhard Streminger: David Hume. Sein Leben and sein Werk, Paderborn: Schöningh 1994.
TTIN,p.198.
THN,p.267.
David Hume: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding [1748], in: Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals,Oxford: Oxford University Press 1975, pp.5–175. Citation from p.162. Subsequent citations from this work to be abbreviated by EHU.
THN,p.272.
Cf. also Hume’s disparaging remarks in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding about the Bible, more specifically, about the Pentateuch: EHU,p.130.
God must be moral so that it is moral to obey his commands. But it is certainly immoral to be omnipotent and nevertheless to allow so much immense suffering in the world. “God’s ways are just unfathomable” is always said in this connection, but this formula only blurts out the truth that the alleged “absolutely benevolent” creates or allows things which moral persons would never create or allow. Therefore we do not know that there is a benevolent God, but if God is not good, then it is also not good to adhere to His laws, just as it is not right to adhere to the laws of a tyrant, who may claim throughout that his deeds are good, but who performs actions which are reproachable under normal circumstances.
David Hume: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1779], Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company 1947, p.219. In subsequent citations to be abbreviated by DNR.
DNR,p.220.
DNR,p.222.
DNR,p.222.
ESSAYS,p.74.
ESSAYS,p.74.
ESSAYS, p.74.
ESSAYS,p.75.
ESSAYS,p.77. A reason for the disorder which enthusiasm creates is the fact that the enthusiast views himself as chosen by God, but with fellow-human beings encounters disbelief and rejection. Through this his vanity is put to a hard test and because he dismisses the “worldly guides, that is experience and reason, as at the least ”insufficient“ if not a tool of Satan, nothing earthly remains that can curb his aggressions and resentments.
This observation by Hume is an interesting example for the “invisible hand mechanism” which is tied to the name of “Adam Smith”: Human conduct occasionally has unintentional positive effects (occasionally it also has, however, unintentional negative consequences, for instance the destruction of the ozone layer).
ESSAYS,p.60.
In the hands of the great theistic persecutors the “objective” values became the spiritual sword with which to send the souls of unbelievers to kingdom come. If it was meant to serve one’s own God, then everything appeared to be allowed.
ESSAYS,p.59.
EPM,p.270.
EPM,p.343.
A gloomy, hair-brained enthusiast, after his death, may have a place in the calendar; but will scarcely ever be admitted, when alive, into the intimacy and society, except by those who are as delirious and dismal as himself.“ (EPM,p.270) To these ”gloomy, hair-brained enthusiasts“ belongs, according to Hume, also the author of the Koran: ”Let us attend to his narration; and as we shall soon fmd, that he bestows praise on such instances of treachery, inhumanity, cruelty, revenge, bigotry, as are utterly incompatible with civilized society. No steady rule of right seems there to be attended to; and every action is blamed or praised, so far only as it is beneficial or hurtful to the true believers.“ (ESSAYS,p.229)
EPM,p.343.
The first meaning of “artificial form of life” is completely compatible along with the concept “artificial virtue”; the second meaning is not.
David Hume: The Natural History of Religion [1757], in: Thomas Hill Green and Thomas Hodge Grose: David Hume. The Philosophical Works, Neudruck: Aalen: Scientia Verlag 1964, pp.309–363. Citation is from p.348. Subsequent citations from this work to be abbreviated by MIR.
NHR,p.354. This process of suppression and repression could be one of the reasons why believers, confronted with the lapses of their own church and the often highly problematic demands of “God”, are downright blind; but then they see with complete clarity the lapses of other religions.
Cf. James King: “Hume on Artificial Lives”, in: Hume Studies XIV/1, 1988, pp.53–92.
As long as there are theistic religions, there will not only be the tendency to instrumentalize the world’s suffering against the background of a message of Salvation, rather there will also be the tendency to condemn worldly pleasures, in order to increase the desire for a future life.
To my knowledge, there is in the whole calendar not one person whose work is thought of for purely social benefit.
THN,p.594.
An act is good precisely then when it increases human happiness or reduces human suffering in this world.
MIR,p.357.
MIR,p.358.
MIR,p.66.
According to Hume morality is social, useful for society and for the actors themselves, and purely concerned with this world; God’s will as well as reward and punishment in a life hereafter play no part.
MIR,p.359.
MIR,p.359.
NHR,p.359. Great faith in God can be particularly dangerous, since it amounts to the hope that “everything will go well”. On God’s expressed command the believer commits a deed which he would otherwise never commit, which he perhaps even found heinous if he does not unwaveringly trust it to be a chosen tool in a divine plan of salvation. Without considering the consequences they roar “God wills it!” or “Allah is great!”.
NHR,p.360.
NHR,p.360.
To the relation between religion and morality in Hume’s philosophy cf. Gerhard Streminger: “Religion a Threat to Morality? An Attempt to throw some new Light on Hume’s Philosophy of Religion”, in: Hume Studies XV/2, 1989, pp.277–293; Joseph Ellin. “Streminger: Religion a Threat to Morality”, in: Hume Studies XV/2, 1989, pp.295–300; Gerhard Streminger: “A Reply to Prof. Ellin”, in: Hume Studies XV/2, 1989, pp. 301–305.
LEITERS,Volume II, pp.331.
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Streminger, G. (1994). David Hume’s Criticism of Traditional Ethics. In: Pauer-Studer, H. (eds) Norms, Values, and Society. Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2454-8_20
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