Context

The author’s system for explaining in general the manner of the production of the passions of pride and humility was developed in Sections 1-5, and limitations of that system were aired in Section 6. In Section 2, the author had listed a number of “valuable qualities” that serve as causes of pride. Sections 7-11 are devoted to an examination of some of those causes. In the present section, the target is a valuable quality of the mind, virtue, which instills pride in the virtuous person, and its contrary, vice, which causes humility in the vicious person.

The Treatise

1. Having explained the limitations of his general account of the passions in terms of a “double relation” of ideas and impressions, the author looks to discover whether that relation can be found upon examination of specific kinds of causes. Should the application of the general theory to specific cases succeed, the theory will have been confirmed. “If we find that all these causes are related to self, and produce a pleasure or uneasiness separate from the passion, there will remain no farther scruple with regard to the present system.” The first point, that these causes are related to the self, the author takes as being “in a manner self-evident.” So he will turn his attention to whether the pleasure produced by a kind of cause and the uneasiness produced by its contrary are identical to or distinct from the respective pleasure and uneasiness that constitute the passions themselves.

2. The “the most obvious causes of the passions of pride and humility” are virtue and vice, respectively, and they will be treated first. The author notes that there is much controversy about the basis of virtue and vice: whether they spring from natural principles or from “education and interest.” He notes that he will have something to say about this controversy in Book III, but that his account of virtue and vice as causes of passions is independent of which way that controversy is decided. [see Part 1, Section 2 for a discussion of whether virtue and vice are natural principles.] Either explanation of the origin of virtue and vice will support the system, “which will be a strong proof of its solidity.”

3. The author begins with the claim that virtue and vice are the products of “self-interest or the prejudices of education,” and not of natural principles. He notes that defenders of this position one and all acknowledge that there is a causal link between the possession of virtue and an agreeableness, and the possession of vice and a disagreeableness. In general, proponents of the position under consideration believe that qualities are esteemed virtues because of their advantage to the virtuous and vices because of their disadvantage to the vicious. It is because of their advantage or disadvantage that we approve or disapprove of these qualities. Thus we approve of generosity in others because it may benefit us, while we disapprove of greed because it may harm us. The same holds for the pairs courage/cowardice (which either defends us or leaves us open to attack) and justice/injustice (which makes society possible or leads to its ruin). Finally we have an agreeable reaction to humility [presumably in others] (exaltation) and a disagreeable reaction to pride [again, presumably in others] (mortification). These reactions are why people call the first item of the pair a virtue and the second a vice. [But see paragraph 8 below, where the author associates pride with an agreeable impression and humility with a disagreeable one. Apparently the difference is that pride is agreeable when it is our own but disagreeable when it is that of others, whereas others’ humility is agreeable to us, while our own humility is disagreeable to us.] “Now since ’tis granted there is a delight or uneasiness still attending merit or demerit of every kind, this is all that is requisite for my purpose.”

4. The author makes a further claim: that if this account of virtue and vice is correct (or “just”), then there is “an absolute and invincible proof” of the author’s system. The passions of pride and humility [in ourselves] are the effects of virtue and vice, respectively. Because virtue and vice are derived from morality, they are derived from the pain or pleasure that attend to disadvantage or advantage resulting from our own character or the character of others. “The very essence of virtue, according to this hypothesis, is to produce pleasure, and that of vice to give pain.” We feel pride or humility only if virtue and vice are part of our character. So the requisite pleasure and pain accompanying virtue and vice are in us, and it is this which gives rise to the passions of pride and humility. “The virtue and vice must be part of our character in order to excite pride or humility. What farther proof can we desire, for the double relation of impressions and ideas?”

5. On the hypothesis that morality “is something real, essential, and founded on nature,” the author applies “the same unquestionable argument.“ On this account, “the very view and contemplation” of certain characters and passions in the mind brings about pain or pleasure. In fact, the uneasiness and satisfaction are the nature and essence of vice and virtue on this account. “To approve of a character is to feel an original delight upon its appearance,” and uneasiness results from disapproval. Since the pain and pleasure are the causes of vices and virtues are the causes of the effects of virtues and vices, including pride and humility, “which are the unavoidable attendants of that distinction.”

6. But even if this naturalistic view of morality is rejected, pain and pleasure remain inseparable from vice and virtue, as is shown from examples. We are always pleased with a generous and noble character, even in fiction, while we are necessarily displeased, from their very nature, treachery and cruelty. “Thus one hypothesis of morality is an undeniable proof of the foregoing system, and the other at worst agrees with it.”

7. Pride and humility are not caused solely by moral virtue and vice (as they are understood in the ethics of the vulgar, or common people). The “talent of pleasing by our wit, good humour, or any other accomplishment” is most flattering to our vanity, while failure to please in this way is the most mortifying. The author notes that we have no theoretical understanding of the nature of wit, but decide that someone has it only on the basis of taste. But this taste that alone allows the detection of wit is “nothing but a sensation of pleasure for true wit,” a pleasure for which we can give no reason. “The power of bestowing these opposite sensations is, therefore, the very essence of true and false wit; and consequently the cause of that pride or humility, which arises from them.”

8. People whose views about pride and humility are based solely on the teachings of the schools and churches may be surprised to read that pride is associated by the author with virtue and humility with vice. They have been taught that pride is a vice and humility a virtue. The author is describing human nature from an independent point of view, and “not to dispute about words, I observe, that by pride I understand that agreeable impression, which arises in the mind, when the view either of our virtue, beauty, riches or power makes us satisfy’d with ourselves,“ and conversely for humility. The author takes it to be evidence that these impressions are not necessarily linked to the moral qualities of vice and virtue, respectively. There is room in “the most rigid morality“ to receive pleasure from reflecting on a generous action we have produced. As well, there is no moral virtue in “fruitless remorses upon the thought of past villainy and baseness.” We should examine these passions in themselves independently of the merit or blame which may attend having the passions.

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