Philosophy 433 History
of Ethics Darwall Winter
2004
HUME IV
I Natural vs. artificial virtues. Hume distinguishes between virtues he
calls natural and those he calls artificial.
The distinction is roughly this:
the artificial virtues require a background of convention in order to be
realized; the natural virtues do not. In
holding that virtue consists of both natural and artificial ones, Hume is
placing himself in the middle between Hobbes and Hutcheson. As against Hobbes, and with Hutcheson, Hume
holds that there can be virtue or moral goodness in a state of nature. Benevolence is to be approved of whether or
not there exists law or custom. But as
against Hutcheson, and with Hobbes, Hume holds that
there are moral traits which do
require human artifice, and which do not reduce to benevolence in any of its
forms, e.g., justice. This latter is an
echo of
II
Why self-love and benevolence aren’t sufficient motives to
justice. Now, while Hume argues
that justice requires convention or artifice, he doesn’t
think that this means that it is at
all arbitrary what this virtue involves.
And he certainly does not follow Hobbes is thinking that it can involve
anything that a powerful sovereign might command. “Tho’ the rules of justice be
artificial, they are not arbitrary.” (484/311)
Still, he
is clear that they are not natural in the sense that they do not “proceed immediately
from original principles, without the intervention of thought or reflexion.” Neither
self-love nor “regard to publick interest” lead us to
be just. As far as the first is concerned,
“’tis certain that self-love, when it acts at its liberty, instead of engaging
us to honest actions, is the source of all injustice and violence; nor can a
man ever correct those vices, without correcting and restraining the natural
movements of that appetite.” (480/309)
And Hume
gives several reasons why regard for the public interest cannot be the motive
to just acts. One is that, like the
object of self-love, the public interest can conflict with justice in
particular cases. Thus a loan may be
secret, and its being kept be contrary to the public
interest. Moreover, Hume thinks we only
have but limited generosity, and “experience sufficiently proves that men, in
the ordinary conduct of life, look not so far as the public interest, when they
pay their creditors, perform their promises, and abstain from theft, and
robbery, and injustice of every kind.” (481/309)
III
The need for justice.
But if justice does not arise in these ways, how does it arise? Hume’s answer is that it arises, as a
mutually advantageous convention, owing to.
(a) limited generosity [here Hume makes two points: (i) “in the original frame of our mind, our
strongest attention is confin’d to ourselves; our
next is extended to our relations and acquaintance; and 'tis only the weakest
which reaches to strangers and indifferent persons;” and (ii) we approve of
this partiality to
some degree: “we blame a person who . . . is so regardless
of [his family] as, in any opposition of interest, to give the preference to a
stranger, or mere
chance acquaintance.” (488-89/314) But justice applies equally to friends and strangers
(b) moderate scarcity of “external goods”
Because of these, our goods will be relatively unstable. We
will not, absent some special remedy, be able to rely on strangers not to take
the benefits of our own industry, nor take their word about their future
conduct, etc. But, while neither
self-love nor benevolence can be relied upon to provide direct motivation to
these ends, “nature provides remedy in the judgment and understanding for what
is irregular and incommodious in the affections.” (489) And here lies the
roots of Hume’s solution. For, he
thinks, it is possible for people, out of self-love, to restrain the very
operation of self-love, by reflecting on the benefits of doing so. Specifically, we can, through self-love be motivated
to restrain the scope of self-love and abide by mutually beneficial
conventions, because of the mutual benefits of the convention.
IV
Origin of conventions establishing rules of justice. Here is how it is supposed to work. Suppose individuals
(i) gain a
“general sense of common interest” in, say, everyone’s abiding by a rule
requiring people to restrain from taking the possessions of friends and
strangers alike, even when it is in
their own interest to do so. That is,
each “observes that it will be for my interest to leave another in the possession
of his goods, provided he will act
in the same manner with regard to me;”
(ii) and then mutually express this common interest. Then
(iii) this will produce a “suitable resolution and behaviour.”
Thus, each knowing that cooperation is in the interests of
each and that each is only willing to cooperate so long as others do, will have
a motive to support the
convention, to encourage everyone
to follow the mutually advantageous rules, and, perhaps to be such that he
follows the rule himself. “There is no
passion, therefore, capable of controlling the interested affection, but the
very affection itself, by an alteration of its direction . . . (492/316)
V
The obligation to justice.
At this point, however, a problem arises, which we can begin to
appreciate by noting Hume’s distinction (at 498/320), between the natural and
the moral obligation to justice.
These
parallel Hutcheson’s distinction between two self-interested and moral
obligations.
A.
First, note the need for the moral obligation.
B. The moral obligation is a
function of moral sentiment. But note
what the object of the moral sentiment is.
Like Hutcheson, Hume makes clear that it is not an “external action” but
a virtuous motive (478/307).
C.
But what, then, is the motive of justice?
Can it be benevolence? Can it be self-interest? Look at what Hume says about the convention
of justice at 490/314-5:
(i) “which
sense all the members of the society express to one another, and which induces
them to regulate their conduct by certain rules.”
(ii) “it
will be for interest to leave another in the possession of his goods, provided
he will act in the same manner with regard to me.”
(iii)
“a suitable resolution and behavior.”
(iv) Just persons “lay themselves under the restraint of
these rules” (499/320,532/341)
(v)
“strictly” “regulate their conduct” by them (490/315,534/342)
(vi)
treat them as “sacred and inviolable” (533/342)
D. This suggests that he is supposing that the
virtue of justice consists in acceptance of the rules of justice as norms of
action.