Excerpts from David Fate Norton's chapter on Hume in Ethics in the History of Western Philosophy Ed. Cavalier, Gouinlock and Sterba (MacMillan/St. Martin's Press, 1990).

Hume begins the second Enquiry (as it is now commonly called) by remonstrating against those sceptical, or at least disingenuous, moralists who deny the reality of moral distinctions. It is even difficult to imagine, he suggests, a person so insensitive or benighted that he or she is unable to distinguish between right and wrong. There are differences between men that arise from nature, and further differences that arise from custom and education. No sceptic no matter how doubting, can sincerely maintain that there are absolutely no moral distinctions. Indeed, if we ignore these would be sceptics, we find that they eventually give up their unconvincing claims and 'come over to the side of common sense and reason'.(5: 169-70.)

There has been discussed of late, Hume goes on to say, an important question, that 'concerning the general foundation of Morals'. It has been argued -- and Hume in the Treatise was obviously a party to this argument -- that our moral distinctions derive either from reason or from sentiment. Here Hume suggests that there are sound arguments to support both positions, and thus that in the end we will find that reason and sentiment concur in most of our moral conclusions. Although he does not explicitly say so, it appears that Hume adopts this placating attitude because he thinks that the debate over reason and sentiment is at least partially misguided. The answer to the question regarding the general foundation or 'true origin of morals' is to be found by less abstract considerations, and when that answer has been found out the respective roles of reason and sentiment will be readily apparent. (5: 170-73.)

In the meantime Hume proposes to follow what he considers 'a very simple method'. He will 'analyze that complication of mental qualities, which form what, in common life, we call Personal Merit'. He will, that is, survey those mental qualities, the possession of which causes us to praise or blame the possessor. Such an analysis should be relatively easy to complete, for language itself 'guides us almost infallibly' in forming our judgements of the matter, as every language includes a set of terms by which we express such praise or blame. All that we need is to discover the circumstances which govern the use of these terms -- to discover the common feature(s) of the qualities that are esteemed, on the one hand, or thought to be reproachable, on the other. 'As this is a question of fact, not of abstract sciences', success can be expected provided only that we follow the 'experimental method [of] deducing general maxims from a comparison of particular instances'. (5: 173-74.)

The particular instances on which Hume first focuses are those relating to two social virtues, benevolence and justice. It is obvious, he says, that our benevolent qualities are esteemed. To say of a person that he or she is sociable, good_natured, humane, merciful, grateful, friendly, generous, or the equivalent is to 'express the highest merit, which human nature is capable of attaining'. It is equally obvious, he suggests, that these qualities are esteemed because of 'their tendency to promote the interests of our species, and bestow happiness on human society'. The usefulness of these forms of benevolence is at least a necessary condition of the esteem we give to them, a conclusion that is confirmed by the fact that, once acts of a particular type cease to be useful, they cease to be esteemed. (5: 176-82.)

Hume's analysis of justice and four related virtues -- allegiance, veracity, fidelity, and chastity -- shows these to be slightly different from benevolence and its cognates. Justice and the virtues like it are not merely useful; their origin can be traced entirely to their general usefulness, and the praise we give them derives entirely from our recognition of their beneficial consequences. These virtues depend for their existence on the particular circumstances of mankind. Alter these conditions -- provide a profuse abundance of all we need, or make such items so scarce as to defy an adequate share to all who have need -- and the foundation of justice would be wiped away. Had one of these conditions prevailed at the beginning of society, the rules for the distribution of property would never have arisen; should one prevail in the future, our present rules, proving useless, would atrophy, disappear. It is in this sense, then, that 'tine necessity of justice to the support of society is the sole foundation of that virtue', and it is this 'circumstance of usefulness' that causes us to praise those actions and qualities that contribute to a well-ordered society. (5: 18-204.)

Why, Hume goes on to ask, does utility please -- why is it that we esteem those qualities that are beneficial to society? Before answering the question he notes that it does not concern inanimate objects. We obviously find many such objects to be useful, but that is no reason to suppose that we are to call them virtuous, nor do we, except in odd, non_moral ways, attribute virtues to them: 'the sentiments, excited by utility, are, in the two cases, very different'. Those sentiments directed towards 'thinking rational beings' include esteem or approbation, while the sentiments directed towards mere things are clearly not the same. Our concern, then, is with our approbation of those distinctly human acts that benefit (or harm) man and society. (5: 213n.)

Hume supposes that two answers have been given to his question, Why does utility please? Some have said that acts useful to society receive our approbation because, and only because, we see them as benefiting ourselves personally. Others believe that these acts receive our approbation on some or even many occasions because, although they give us no personal benefit, they are recognised as beneficial to others. Hume again aligns himself with the second group. He grants that human nature is marked by a strong tendency towards self-interest, and that the claim that we support the principles of morality and social order out of self-love or private regard has creditable supporters, but he goes on to argue that the selfish theory is quite unable to account for crucial aspects of our experience, and hence cannot be correct. (5: 214-15.)

There is first the fact that we have and competently use moral language itself. Some of the moral sceptics have argued that our moral vocabulary owes its origin to skilful manipulators who, wanting to control the less sophisticated, invented a moral vocabulary and its use. According to this theory, while it is true that there are such terms as virtue and vice, honour and dishonour, bravery and cowardice, chastity and infidelity, these mark no real differences in things (actions or characters) themselves, and the use of the terms derives entirely from artifice and custom. Hume finds this claim less than credible, analogous, one might say, to the claim that, although there is absolutely no objective foundation for the discriminations of colour we do in fact make, one could nonetheless teach a race of sightless creatures to use, competently, the terms blue, green, red, yellow white, black, and so on. Or, as he more directly puts it: 'Had nature made no such [moral] distinction, founded on the original constitution of the mind, the words, honourable and shameful, lovely and odious, noble and despicable, had never had place in any language; nor could politicians, had they invented these terms, ever have been able to render them intelligible, or make them convey any idea to the audience'. (5:214.)

The more common claim of the selfish theorists is that we approve the social virtues only because we ourselves are dependent on society, and thus have an interest in their promulgation and observance. Take away that interest, the theory runs, and you remove the support and the approbation given these virtues. Here Hume echoes Francis Hutcheson in arguing that the facts contradict the egoist's claim: We very often, he says, 'bestow praise on virtuous action, performed in very distant ages and remote countries', and by no stretch of the imagination can these approbations be accounted for by self-interest or be supposed to have any connection to our present well-being. By the same token, we may recognise as virtuous the act of an enemy despite the fact that this act is at the same time seen to be contrary to our interest. Private interest may often enough combine with public, and support the same ends and assessments, but there is more than that to the matter. Our approbation goes beyond our own interest to 'the interest of those, who are served by the character or action approved of', or to the interests of our fellow men, which, 'however remote, are not totally indifferent to us'. Hume supposes that he has here carried out a Baconian experimentum crucis, or an experiment that eliminates 'any doubt or ambiguity'. The selfish hypothesis maintains that public interest or benevolence can always be reduced to private interest. He believes that he has shown us 'instances, in which private interest was separate from public; in which it was even contrary', and yet those involved performed the publicly interested act. On other occasions, he finds, private and public interests concur, and thereby work together to produce a regard for virtue greater than that which would have been produced by self_interest alone. 'Compelled by these instances', he concludes, 'we must renounce the theory, which accounts for every moral sentiment by the principle of self-love.' (5: 215-19.)22

In the following sections of the Enquiry Hume focuses his attention on some of the non-social virtues, and thereby expands his account of the qualities that constitute personal merit in such a way that the claims of the selfish theory are further weakened. In Section VI he takes up those qualities which, while useful to their possessors, and approved of by those others who recognise them, are of no benefit to these approving non-possessors. Such qualities as discretion, industry, frugality, prudence, and discernment (the 'selfish virtues') tend only to the usefulness of their possessors, and yet we praise them and their possessors, a fact entirely inexplicable by the selfish hypothesis. Section VII treats of qualities immediately agreeable to ourselves, and Section VIII of those immediately agreeable to others. It is important to note that to each of these last two kinds of qualities our response is immediate. Thus, prior to any calculation regarding usefulness or useful tendencies, we praise such qualities as cheerfulness, greatness of mind, dignity and tranquillity, or wit, politeness, eloquence, decency and cleanliness. These qualities are approved of by those who observe them in others, and even those who only hear of a person endowed with such qualities find themselves responding with approbation. (5: 233_67.)

Although Hume suggests that these conclusions may have a certain philosophical novelty, it is difficult for him to resist the view that they are obvious and obviously correct. It is surely surprising, he says, that anyone would think it necessary to prove that 'Personal merit consists altogether in the possession of mental qualities, useful or agreeable to the person himself or to others'. Fortunately, although 'systems and hypotheses have perverted our natural understanding', or at least those of philosophers, ordinary individuals accept implicitly the view of merit that has been sketched. There is, however, a problem. It must be shown how this finding, obvious and important though it may be, provides us with a foundation for morality, assuming, as Hume himself appears to assume, that a further step must be taken to reach or understand this fundamental point. (5: 268_ 70.)

Hume's final point of departure in the Enquiry is the factual concomitant of the account of personal merit that he has completed. Humans are not entirely selfish creatures: 'there is some benevolence, however small, infused into our bosom; some spark of friendship for the human kind'. These altruistic or generous sentiments, however weak they may be, are at least sufficiently strong to lead us to prefer that which is 'useful and serviceable to mankind, above what is pernicious and dangerous'. (5: 271.) Moral distinctions are founded on this one fact, the fact that we have a sentiment of humanity, or that we desire, even weakly, what is beneficial for our fellow humans. The presence of this sentiment means that we respond with approval or disapproval to certain actions or qualities that we experience others to have. There are genuine and significant differences between characters and the actions resulting from them. Some are beneficial to mankind, and some are pernicious. Witnessing these actions and characters, we respond with approbation or disapprobation, and in doing so we make moral distinctions, and call actions or characters resulting in public benefit morally good, and those intending injury morally evil.

This way of putting the matter is, Hume points out immediately, too general. It is not enough that we respond to the actions and characters of others with approval or disapproval. Some responses, those directed by the passions of avarice, ambition, vanity and the like, 'are here excluded from our theory concerning the origin of morals' because they 'have not a proper direction for that purpose'. The very idea of morality presupposes both a 'sentiment common to all mankind, which recommends the same object to general approbation', and a sentiment 'so universal and comprehensive' as to extend even to those persons the most remote from any given moral assessor. Hume's formulation of this point does not permit one to be sure that he means here to speak of two distinguishable sentiments, or merely of 'two requisite circumstances' that are specifically different. But whether we have sentiments of one kind or two, these sentiments derive from a single constitutive principle of human nature, or what Hume calls a 'universal principle of the human frame'. It is this principle of humanity, he says, that 'can alone be the foundation of morals', and he adds that the sentiments that derive from this principle: (1) are the same for all humans; (2) produce in each of us the same moral assessments; (3) have as their scope all humans; (4) produce moral assessments, in each of us, of all other humans. (5: 271-73.)