G. J. Mattey’s Notes on Hume’s Treatise, Book 3, Part 1, Section 1

Notes on Hume’s Treatise

by G. J. Mattey

Book 3
Of MORALS
PART 1
Of virtue and vice in general.

Sect. 1. Moral distinctions not deriv’d from reason.

Book III was published nearly two years after the first two Books. The author notes in the “Advertisement” that it can be understood independently of them, except that the distinction between impressions and ideas will continue to be observed. The topic of virtue and vice had been discussed in Book II, Part I, Section 7, where they were treated as the qualities that most obviously produce the passions of pride and humility. The author puts off until Book III the discussion of whether the distinction between virtue and vice arises from natural principles or from custom and education. He argues, however, that either way it arises, virtue and vice are productive of the passions because of the pleasure or pain which result from beholding them. If virtue and vice are the result of custom and education, then their essence is to produce pleasure and pain, which the author regards as proof of his own account of the passions. On his system, the original pleasures and pain are forwarded, so to speak, to the pleasure and pain in the passions themselves. On the other hand, if morality is derived from natural principles, it may be that pleasure and pain only accompany the experience of virtue and vice. This is at least consistent with his system, because these accompanying pleasures and pains are sufficient to generate the passions. In Book III, the author will develop his own explanation of the nature of the distinction we make between virtue and vice.

One English proponent of the view that the distinction between virtue and vice can be discovered by reason alone was Samuel Clarke. He argues for this claim in his Discourse upon Natural Religion, Sections 1 to 3. He assumes that the will of God “always and necessarily does determine it self, to choose to act only what is agreeable to Justice, Equity, Goodness and Truth, in order to the Welfare of the whole Universe.” This he takes to be obviously fitting for God to do, so that there is “a natural and eternal difference of Good and Evil.” He then argues that the same thing that makes it fit for God to act also makes it fit for rational creatures (including human beings) to act. However, he notes that distinguishing between good and evil is difficult in some cases, which leads some thinkers (such as Hobbes) to hold that there is no natural and eternal difference between the two. He addresses this problem by claiming that in certain “flagrant Cases,” the differences “cannot but be confessed to be plainly and undeniably evident.” This he takes to prove that there are natural and eternal moral differences. Humans know what these differences are through the use of reason because they are made in the likeness of God, who is able to distinguish good from evil in this way. Given that it is fitting for God to do so, it is all the more fitting that his creatures should. “[I]t appears thus from the abstract and absolute Reason and nature of things, that all rational Creatures Ought, that is, are obliged to take care that their Wills and Actions be constantly determined and governed by the eternal rule of Right and Equity.” Clarke frequently compares assent to clear cases of good and evil to assent to obviously true geometrical propositions.

William Wollaston, in The Religion of Nature delineated, made a connection between reality and truth that is the target of the author’s criticism in the footnote to paragraph 15 below. Wollaston held that certain actions are declarations of truth or falsehood. “[W]hoever acts as if things were so, or not so, doth by his acts declare, that they are so, or not so; as plainly as he could by words, and with more reality. And if the things are otherwise, his acts contradict those propositions, which assert them to be as they are” (Section 1, Proposition III). For example, someone who acts as if he has a fortune but does not is “living a lye.” He continues that no act, to which moral good or evil could be imputed, is right if it declares a falsehood or interferes with a true proposition (Section 1, Proposition IV). One basis for this claim is that what interferes with truth is unnatural, and if nature is a creation of God, it is against God’s will. Every violation of truth is an impious declaration:

John Locke conjectured that “morality is capable of demonstration as well as mathematics” (An Essay concerning Human Understanding, Book IV, Chapter XI). According to Locke, moral notions refer to what he called “mixed modes,” which are “scattered and independent ideas put together by the mind” (Essay, Book II, Chapter XXII. Since the mind creates these ideas, it may know perfectly their “real essences” and reason upon them with certainty (Book III, Chapter IX). The certainty of this reasoning is the same as that of mathematical reasoning, according to Locke. An example given by Locke is that “Where there is no property there is no injustice,” which is “as certain as any demonstration in Euclid” (Book IV, Chapter III). Once we have created the mixed mode that is signified by the ideas of property and justice, we may reason in the following way. The idea of property implies that of a right to have something, and the idea of injustice is that of “the invasion or violation of that right.” Thus, injustice depends on property, in which case there is no injustice without property, which was to be demonstrated. The author criticizes the claim that morality is subject to demonstration, beginning at paragraph 18.

1. An inconvenience with abstruse reasoning is that it takes great pains to understand, and its conclusions vanish when we engage in the common affairs of life, so that any conviction we manage to attain through abstruse reasoning is hard to retain. Another problem with it is that in long chains of reasoning, we lose track of the original premises and even lose our grip on “all the most receiv’d maxims, either of philosophy or common life.” The author hopes that in spite of this, his treatment of morals will corroborate that of the understanding and the passions. Morality is the subject in which we have the greatest interest, as we believe that the peace of society depends decisions about morality. Because of this interest, our reasonings on the topic seem more solid than in those where the subject is one about which we are mostly indifferent. Because our passions are engaged on one side or the other, we think that we can comprehend the questions involved. This alone convinced the author of some hope of success in writing a third volume of his Treatise, “in an age, wherein the greatest part of men seem agreed to convert reading into an amusement, and to reject every thing that requires any considerable degree of attention to be comprehended.”

2. The author had claimed in the earlier Books that “nothing is ever present to the mind but its perceptions, and that all the actions of seeing, hearing, judging, loving, hating, and thinking, fall under this denomination.” Since acts of distinguishing moral good and evil are actions of the mind, they too fall under the category of perceptions. “To approve of one character, to condemn another, are only so many different perceptions.”

3. To make the investigation of moral distinctions “something precise and exact,” the author will begin with the question of whether the perceptions involved are impressions or ideas (fainter copies of impressions).

4. The author begins with ideas. There are philosophers (such as Clarke, as described above) who believe that “virtue is nothing but a conformity to reason; that there are eternal fitnesses and unfitnesses of things, which are the same to every rational being that considers them; that the immutable measures of right and wrong impose an obligation, not only on human creatures, but also on the deity himself.” These philosophers hold that, like truth, morality is discovered by juxtaposing and comparing ideas. [Since ideas are the sole domain of reason,] it follows that we can evaluate these systems by considering whether it is possible to distinguish between good and evil by the use of reason alone, or whether some other “principles” allow us to do this.

5. The first step in showing that the use of reason alone cannot distinguish between moral good and evil is to note that morality has an influence on human passions and actions. [The second step will be that reason alone does not have such influence.] If morality were not to have such an influence naturally, there would be no reason to go to such trouble as we do to convince people to become moral. And the many rules and precepts of morality would be to no purpose. A second consideration is that morality is said to fall into the practical part of philosophy, as opposed to the speculative. It is classified in this way because it is supposed to influence our actions, unlike the mere “calm and indolent judgments of the understanding,” which are the domain of speculative philosophy. Moreover, common opinion also supports this view: the actions of people are in fact governed by duty. People avoid doing things they think to be unjust, and do things out of obligation.

6. It has been shown in Book II, Part III, Section 3 that reason alone can have no influence on our actions. Since morals do influence our actions and reason alone does not, the author concludes that morals cannot be derived from reason, which “of itself is utterly impotent” to excite passions or influence any actions. “The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of reason.”

7. The author is satisfied that everyone will agree that this is a valid argument, and the only question is whether its key premise, that reason has no influence on our passions and actions, is true. The other premise of the argument is that “[a]n active principle can never be founded on an inactive.” So, if a “deduction of reason” is an inactive principle, and morality an active one, morality cannot be based on a deduction of reason. The author claims that reason is inactive “in itself,” and he claims that in this case, “it must remain so in all its shapes and appearances, whether it exerts itself in natural or moral subjects, whether it considers the powers of external bodies, or the actions of rational beings.”

8. The arguments of Book II, Part III, Section 3 will not be repeated here, for the reason that to do so would be tedious, and the arguments are easy to remember. However, the author wishes to single out one argument, “which I shall endeavour to render still more conclusive, and more applicable to the present subject.”

9. The argument proceeds as follows. The object of reason is truth and falsehood, and its function is to discover these. Truth and falsehood, in turn, are agreement [between intuition or conclusions of reasoning] and what is real: either relations of ideas [as in demonstrative reasoning] or existences [as in probable reasoning]. Whatever cannot stand in these relations of agreement or disagreement “can never be an object of our reason.” What is capable of truth and falsehood [are ideas] that make reference to something beyond themselves. Passions, volitions and actions, however, do not refer to anything beyond themselves: they are “original facts and realities, compleat in themselves, and implying no reference to other passions, volitions and actions.” [Note, however, that the passions of pride and humility, and love and hatred, have “objects” to which they are directed in some way.] So, passions, volitions and actions cannot be true or false. And since only truth or falsehood can be conformable or contrary to reason, passions, volitions and actions cannot conform to or oppose reason.

10. The direct result of this argument is that actions cannot conform to or oppose reasons, and therefore cannot derive what merit or demerit they have from their conformity or opposition to reason. There is a second, more indirect, way that this conclusion is proved by the argument. It shows that because reason is inactive, it cannot be the source of the distinction between moral good and evil. [And if reason cannot be the source of the distinction between good and evil, the merit or demerit of an action cannot be derived from reason.] Because actions may be the subjects of praise or blame and cannot be reasonable or unreasonable, being praiseworthy or blameworthy is not the same as being reasonable or unreasonable. There is potential conflict between merit and demerit, and our “natural propensities,” and sometimes these propensities are even controlled by our views of merit and demerit. Since reason has no influence at all over our propensities, “[m]oral distinctions, therefore, are not the offspring of reason. Reason is wholly inactive, and can never be the source of so active a principle as conscience, or a sense of morals.”

11. It can be objected that although there may not be any direct conformity or conflict between the will or its actions and reason, this may take place in an indirect manner. That is, either the cause of the action or its effect may contradict reason. The effect of an action might be a judgment [which is capable of conflicting with reason], or it may be that a judgment may, in an “oblique” way, be the cause of an action. The second way would be when “the judgment concurs with the passion [that produces the action].” [An example from Book II, Part III, Section 3 that illustrates this concurrence is when we falsely believe that an object, say a ghost, exists, there is an accompanying passion, say fear.] The author notes that this sense of reasonableness is “an abusive way of thinking, which philosophy will scarce allow of.” So the question is whether this way of thinking of the relation between truth and falsehood and action “may be the source of morals.”

12. Strictly and philosophically, reason can influence our conduct in only one of two ways: 1) when it excites a passion by informing us that the object of the passion exists, or 2) when it discovers a causal relation which gives us the means to act upon the passion. These judgments may be erroneous, as, for example, when we place the source of pleasure or pain in an object that has no tendency to produce either. And we may take measures to attain our end which actually frustrate its attainment. We may then call the passions and actions “unreasonable” (though “in a figurative and improper way of speaking”). But such errors are generally not the source of immorality, since they are “commonly very innocent, and draw no manner of guilt upon the person who is so unfortunate as to fall into them.” They are mistakes of facts, which because involuntary are taken by moralists to be blameless. “I am more to be lamented than blam’d, if I am mistaken in regard to the influence of objects in producing pain and pleasure, or if I know not the proper means of satisfying my desire.” It is not a defect in my moral character to be “unreasonable” in this sense. There is one error, like the error in believing that a piece of fruit in the distance would taste good, even though in fact it tastes bad. And there may be a second error, as in choosing the wrong means to attain it. But there is no third, moral, error “which can ever possibly enter into our reasonings concerning actions.” It is hard to imagine that someone who has committed these two errors should be considered “vicious and criminal,” and even if he were, “that these errors are the sources of all immorality.”

13. At this point, the author adds an observation about a further unacceptable consequence of the view that moral distinctions are derived from the truth-value of judgments. [As truth and falsehood are binary notions,] any action would have to be either good or evil, period. Then it will not matter how important the action is (concerning “an apple or a kingdom”), or whether the falsehood was avoidable or not avoidable. [If it were not avoidable, would we want to count it as vicious?] Since “the very essence of morality,” is supposed to consist in the agreeableness or disageeableness of an action to reason, any other factor [such as the importance of the action or its avoidability] would have to be irrelevant to whether the action is or is not virtuous or vicious. A final point along these lines is that because agreeing or disagreeing with reason is not a matter of degree, “all virtues and vices wou’d of course be equal.”

14. Given that factual error is not criminal, it may still be that “a mistake of right often is.” This may be thought to be the source of immorality [in that the immoral person errs about the right thing to do]. The author’s response is that such a mistake could not be a source of immorality because it presupposes that there are already facts about morality, “a real right and wrong; that is, a real distinction in morals, independent of this judgment.” So while a mistake of right of this kind might be a kind of immorality, the mistake would be have to secondary and based on a more fundamental kind of morality.

15. In paragraph 11, the author had noted that there are two ways in which reason might be tied to action: as its cause or as its effect. Paragraphs 12 through 14 have shown that the “reasonableness” of actions as effects is not the source of morality. The author now turns to the question of whether the reasonableness of actions as causes could be the basis of morality. Then his contention is that in fact our actions never have judgments as effects in ourselves, but only in others. At issue are false judgments, which are thought by some to be the source of immorality. But the author finds that there is only a very tenuous connection between an action and some else’s false judgment, and certainly not in a way that would have any consequences for morality. His example is one in which he is engaged in a lewd act with another man’s wife, which leads to the false judgment of his neighbor, who views it through the window, that the woman must be the author’s own wife. The action in this respect “resembles somewhat a lye or falsehood,” but it is materially different in that his end in performing the action was to satisfy his passion of lust, not to deceive anyone. Because the act causes a false belief in another, it could be described as a false action, “by some odd figurative way of speaking.” He concludes that he is unable to see how “the tendency to cause such an error is the first spring or original source of all immorality.”

Footnote. The treatment of this topic might be thought useless (since false judgment is so obviously not a basis of immorality) except that, according to the author, “a late author, who has had the good fortune to obtain some reputation” [William Wollaston] had “seriously” claimed “that such a falsehood is the foundation of all guilt and moral deformity.” [See the account of Wollaston above for the view that he actually defended.] The author begins his attack on this view by noting that the “falsehood” of an action lies in the mind of the witness, who draws a false conclusion from the action. What he misses is the contrary causes that are in secret operation to produce the action. [In the case of person who acts as if he were wealthy, the cause of his action is a desire to be thought to be wealthy.] But there are many natural (as opposed to “moral” or human) actions which can be mis-interpreted in this way, and if the “falseness” of the action per se were the source of its morality, the actions would be immoral as well, which is absurd. [So, the “falseness” of an action is not by itself the source of its morality or immorality.]

One could object to the author’s reductio on the grounds that natural objects do not act out of liberty when they deceive. The author takes this to be irrelevant, since the thesis is that it is the “falsehood” of actions themselves that is supposed to make them immoral, and he does not see what liberty or constraint has to do with that. “If the tendency to cause error be the origin of immorality, that tendency and immorality wou’d in every case be inseparable.”

A further reductio is that if the “falseness” were removed, the morality would be removed as well. But it is clearly not the case that if the author had shut the blinds while committing adultery with his neighbor’s wife, he would have removed the source of the immorality of his act, and that because my action, being perfectly conceal’d, wou’d have had no tendency to produce any false conclusion.”

Yet another example is that of a thief, who climbs a ladder to enter a room by an open window but is stealthy enough not to be noticed in the commission of his crime. His act does not thereby become moral. Moreover, suppose he is observed. Since he is clearly trying to burglarize the room, there is no deception in his action, and so, according to the account, there is no immorality, either.

There are many “false” actions on the part of the near-sighted, who intend to do one thing but act as if they are doing something else.

The source of the “falsehood” in the case of the appropriation of someone else’s goods that are used as one’s own is that they are someone else’s property. But the notion of property depends on the larger notion of morality, while the claim is that morality is to be explained by the “falsehood.” So the reasoning here would have to be circular.

A further case is someone who receives benefit from another but shows no gratitude. This could be understood as a “false act,” in the sense that the beneficiary acts as if he has received no benefit at all. But why should his action be interpreted in this way? One answer is that he has violated a duty to be grateful. But this presupposes a notion of duty which would have to be derived from morality, but again, this would be question-begging, because the “falseness” of an act is supposed to be the basis of morality. Another possibility is that by his ingratitude, the beneficiary has harmed his benefactor. We are then supposed to believe that his acting as if he had received no benefit is “false,” because “human nature is generally grateful.” But this latter claim is simply false: human nature is not generally grateful, so this is no basis for claiming that the ingratitude is “false.”

The final, and clinching, argument against this “whimsical system” is that were we to make truth and falsehood the standard of moral virtue and viciousness, we must first understand why truth and falsehood have normative value. [This portends the claim made in the concluding paragraph, that writers on morality move insensibly from an “is” to an “ought.”] If one simply assumes that falsehood is immoral, then one is faced with the original difficulty of explaining what makes actions immoral.

The argument from the lack of apparent immorality of falsehood “is very conclusive.” If falsehood does not appear immoral, it will have no influence on our action. “For who ever thought of forbearing any action, because others might possibly draw false conclusions from it? Or who ever perform’d any, that he might give rise to true conclusions?”

16. The author now announces the conclusion of the arguments of the preceding paragraphs. “Upon the whole, ’tis impossible, that the distinction betwixt moral good and evil, can be made by reason.” Moral good and evil influence our action, which reason cannot do by itself. Reason may prompt a passion or direct it [see Book II, Part III, Section 3, paragraph 6]. Such a prompting [by belief in the existence or non-existence of an object] or direction [by causal reasoning concerning the results of the action] may be attended with virtue or vice, but this is independent of whether or not it is true or false. And the judgments that result from our actions have even less relevance to the morality of the actions which give rise to them.

17. The author now turns from consideration of the internal powers of reason, so to speak, to the question of whether there exist objective moral standards, “eternal immutable fitnesses and unfitnesses of things“ [as claimed by Clarke, for example, as described above]. He claims that such fitnesses “cannot be defended by sound philosophy.”

18. The author begins his criticism of the claim that reason can discover objective fitnesses of things by claiming that if this were so, “the character of virtuous or vicious either must lie in some relations of objects, or must be a matter of fact.” This is an “evident” consequence of the ways in which the understanding [or reason] can operate: either by comparing of ideas or by inferring matters of fact. So, if reason can discover the alleged fitnesses, the fitnesses themselves must be“an object of one of these operations, nor is there any third operation of the understanding which can discover it.” At this point, the author describes the view of Locke and others, that morality is capable of demonstration. He first complains that this claim, which puts moral demonstration on the same footing as mathematical, is made despite the fact that no such demonstrations have been forthcoming. Then he begins his main criticism by noting that because it is agreed that no matter of fact can be demonstrated, any demonstration would be restricted to relations of ideas. So he asks for the relations which are objects of moral demonstrations to be pointed out distinctly, “that we may know wherein they consist, and after what manner we must judge of them.”

19. The search for the relevant relations begins with the author’s own catalogue of “philosophical relations,” which were laid out in Book I, Part I, Section 5. Of the seven such relations, only four were singled out as being “susceptible of certainty and demonstration.” These are:

Footnote. The author recognizes that the advocates of the view that morality is demonstrable do not assert “that morality lies in the relations, and that the relations are distinguishable by reason.” [Both of these claims are presumed in the argument.] But this only shows their confusion. What they do say is “that reason can discover such an action, in such relations, to be virtuous, and such another vicious.” [For example, Locke held that reason can discover that an action of stealing the property of another is vicious. The relation here would be between the theft and the property.] But the author declaims that the word ‘relation’ is used here without an explanation of what work it is supposed to do. He counters this claim by “plain argument.” Grant that reason discovers virtue and vice. The only way it could do so is by discovering a relation, as this is the only operation of the understanding. It follows, that what reason discovers must be a relation, and so the essence of morality must consist in a relation, whether this is stated or not. This is the only intelligible way of understanding the claim that reason discovers moral qualities, as reason cannot discover matters of fact and is left only to discover relations. “When we blame any action, in any situation, the whole complicated object, of action and situation, must form certain relations, wherein the essence of virtue and vice consist.” [The remaining question is how these relations are discovered.]

20. It might be responded that the author’s list of relations discoverable by reason is incomplete, which leaves an opening for a relation which is not shared with insentient beings. He replies by asking that the missing relation be produced, because otherwise he is fighting in the dark against an unseen opponent.

21. Since there is no other relation forthcoming, the author maintains that two conditions must be satisfied “in order to clear up this system” [i.e., that moral distinctions are based on relations that can be discovered by reason]. The first condition has to do with what is related when we make moral distinctions. The author asserts that it can only be “actions of the mind” related to “external objects.” The reason is that virtue and vice are only qualities of a mind, and that they “are deriv’d from our situation with regard to external objects.” So, neither relations between internal actions of the mind, nor between external objects, can be the basis of virtue and vice. The author rejects both of these possibilities. If the relata are both actions of the mind, then the mind would be capable of committing crimes against itself, independently of its situation in the universe. [This he apparently takes to be patently absurd.] If the relata are external objects, then even inanimate objects “woul’d be susceptible of moral beauty and deformity. [Again, the author seems to dismiss this possibility out of hand.] So, the only possibility remaining is that morality is based on the relation between internal states and external objects. But it is hard to think of a relation unique to them that does not also apply to relations between internal states themselves or relations between external objects themselves.

22. The second condition that must be met to show that moral distinctions are based on relations concerns the effects of the alleged relations. Suppose there are eternal fitness of actions discoverable by reason. This supposition has two distinct consequences. First, this fitness would apply to the actions of all rational beings, even God. Second, the fitness would be the basis of the obligation of rational beings to act according to it. Any such obligation would have motivating force, in the sense that knowledge of it would influence the will. (And in fact, the will of God would be more influenced by it than that of humans.) [Clarke held a view of this sort.] So in order to explain moral distinctions, it is not enough to claim that they are relations, it must also be shown how the relations are connected to the will, “and must prove that this connexion is so necessary, that in every well-dispos’d mind, it must take place and have this influence; tho’ this difference betwixt these minds be in other respects immense and infinite.” Two objections are raised to the possibility of such influence. The first is the claim from Book II, Part III, Section 3, that “even in human action, no relation can ever alone produce any action.” The second is the claim from Book I, Part III, Section 3, that causal relations can be discovered only by experience, and not by reason simply considering the objects. “All beings in the universe, consider’d in themselves, appear entirely loose and independent of each other. ’Tis only by experience we learn their influence and connexion; and this influence we ought never to extend beyond experience.”

23. In summary, the first condition (paragraph 21) cannot be fulfilled because it is impossible to show the appropriate relations that can be discovered by reason alone, and the second (paragraph 22) cannot be fulfilled because there is no a priori proof that “these relations, if they really existed and were perceiv’d, would be universally forceful and obligatory.”

24. At this point, the author tries to make the general arguments given above “more clear and convincing” by an examination of cases “wherein this character of moral good or evil is most universally acknowledg’d.” The first case is the viciousness of ingratitude, which both philosophers and ordinary people find to be morally evil. The most extreme case of ingratitude is toward one’s parents, and most especially when their offspring harm or even kill them. For the philosopher, the question is whether this classification of ingratitude as vicious is based on a demonstration of reason or on some other principle. The author himself suggests the alternative, which is being “felt by an internal sense, and by means of some sentiment, which the reflecting on such an action naturally occasions.” [This will turn out to be the author’s own explanation in the next Section.] The case is now made against the first explanation. As has been stated many times previously, the work of reason is to compare ideas with an eye toward discovering their relations. Now suppose that [two objects that stand in] the same relation have “different characters.” This could not be discovered by reason, since all that it can find must be contained in the relation itself. Now we can apply this conclusion to whatever relation is supposed to constitute moral goodness or badness. Reason could not discover how [two objects standing in] the same relation could differ with respect to whether they are good or bad. More specifically, if we find two things standing in the same relation, where one is bad and the other morally indifferent, then this discovery cannot be made by reason. One such relation is that of killing the parent. An inanimate object, say an oak tree, overshadows, crowds out, and eventually kills the oak from which it sprung. No moral value is attached to the tree. But a human being who kills his parent is extremely vicious. So we have the same relation, with different characters, in which case reason cannot detect the difference, which was to be proved. It might be objected that the tree and the human do not stand in the same relation to the being that brought them into existence. Humans act on the basis of will, and trees do not, so they cannot willfully kill their parents, and the relation is really different. The author responds that the relation has not been changed. The reason is that the will is the cause of the action, but the relation itself does not involve the cause, whether will or the laws of matter and motion. “Here then the same relations have different causes; but still the relations are the sake: And as their discovery is not in both cases attended with a notion of immorality, it follows, that the notion does not arise from such a discovery.”

25. The second case is “more resembling” [in the sense that the two objects standing in the same relation resemble each other more than do the tree and the human]. Incest is deemed criminal in humans but not in non-human animals, yet it is “the very same action.” A response can be made that is similar to that in the preceding paragraph. The animals lack something that humans have. In this case it is not will, but reason which is the missing quality. Because the animal lacks reason, it cannot be aware of the viciousness of its actions, but humans, possessed of reason, can recognize the viciousness of that action if undertaken by them. This recognition introduces a prohibition which is lacking in the case of the other. The author replies that this response begs the question. “For before reason can perceive this turpitude [wrongness], the turpitude must exist; and consequently is independent of the decisions of our reason, and is their object more properly than their effect.” Further, if reason can perceive the wrongness of the action for humans, it must also perceive its wrongness for animals resembling humans in the relevant way, i.e., having sense, appetite and will, “ that is, every animal.” The possession of reason by humans only serves to magnify the degree of praise or blame, but what brings about the action is only “will and appetite.” If reason does detect a moral distinction, that distinction may be separated in both thought and reality from reason itself. Since animals and humans stand in the same relations with respect to will and appetite, and if the morality of an action depends on these relations, then animals and humans are subject to the same moral distinctions. “Their want of a sufficient degree of reason may hinder them from perceiving the duties and obligations of morality, but can never hinder these duties from existing; since they must antecedently exist, in order to their being perceiv’d.” The objection was that reason must produce the moral distinctions, but the author’s argument is ”entirely decisive” in showing that at best reason could only discover the distinctions. [If it discovers the distinction, which is the question at hand, the distinction must be there to be discovered, independently of the possession of reason by the beings in which it is discovered.]

26. The foregoing arguments show that moral distinctions are not relations that can be discovered by reason (or “science”) alone. The author claims that the same argument will also show that reason cannot discover moral distinctions as matters of fact. If this can be shown, then the second avenue by which reason might discover them has been cut off, from which it may be concluded “that morality is not an object of reason.” The author asks us to consider any case of moral badness, such as willful murder. If one were to examine fully the act itself, one would not find in it the quality of 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 this case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object.” The only way the vice can be found is by looking into yourself and discovering a sentiment or feeling of disapproval of the action. “Here is a matter of fact; but ’tis the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in yourself, not the object.” To pronounce a person’s character or action as vicious is nothing more than expressing a feeling of blame, a feeling that stems from “the constitution of your nature.” The author now famously compares vice and virtue to “sounds, colours, heat and cold.” Modern philosophy [Book I, Part IV, Section 4] pronounces these to be perceptions in the mind, rather than qualities of objects. This discovery is of great importance to speculation about the origins of morality, just as does the discovery of the subjectivity of some perceived quality has in speculative physics. But in neither case is there an effect 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 virtues, and unfavourable to vice, no more can be requisite to the regulation of our conduct and behaviour.”

27. The present section concludes with an observation that the author cannot resist making in light of the previous discussion. This observation “may, perhaps, be found of some importance.” As they develop their systems of morality, authors usually begin with factual claims about such as the existence of God or the way humans behave. Then, suddenly, the author is surprised to see that these factual claims about what is are replaced with normative claims about what ought to be. “This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence.” The shift from ‘is’ to ‘ought’ demands to be explained, because it is supposed to “express some new relation or affirmation.” However, such an explanation “seems altogether inconceivable.” Facts and obligations are two entirely different things, and it is hard to see how the latter can be deduced from the former. Unfortunately, as this point is lost on the authors of moral systems. So the reader should keep it in mind when examining those systems. He predicts that if this is done, it “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, or is perceiv’d by reason.” [Rather, it is based on our sentiments or feelings of approval or disapproval of how the objects are related.]

The content of the present Section is found in Appendix I of the second Enquiry. The order of exposition of the Treatise is reversed, partly due to the difficulty of the present question (Appendix I) and partly because it is more satisfactorily answered after the nature of morality has been described in the body of the work (Section 1). In paragraph 16 above, Hume described the role of reason as merely to prompt or direct our passions, which themselves are the causes of our actions, as described in Book II, Part III, Section 3. Here, he gives reason a significant role in the making of moral distinctions. He does so because he assigns to utility a central role in morality. “One principal foundation of moral praise being supposed to lie in the usefulness of any quality or action, it is evident that reason must enter for a considerable share in all decisions of this kind; since nothing but that faculty can instruct us in the tendency of qualities and actions, and point out their beneficial consequences to society and to their possessor.” Hume advances five arguments against the view that reason is entirely responsible for our moral judgments. The first is that reason does not judge that there a matter of fact or a relation of ideas therein. And these are the only two things it can discover. The second argument is that in making moral decisions, we must already have all the relevant facts before us, which leaves no further role for reason. The third argument exploits an analogy between decisions of beauty and those of virtue. Reason plays no role in the former, and since the decisions are so much alike, it seems that it plays no role in the latter. Fourthly, if reason were to discover moral relations, it would have to treat them all alike, so that, for example, the act of destroying one’s parent would be equally immoral in a human or a plant. Finally, reason cannot account for the ultimate ends of human actions, they must ultimately grounded in something desirable on its own account, and this desirability is explained by our affection or disaffection for it.