Context

The author has argued in the previous section that moral distinctions are not derived from reason alone. Given the indisputable fact that we make moral distinctions, he must explain their origin. In the present section, he locates it in our “sense of virtue.”

Background

Francis Hutcheson claimed that all humans possess a moral sense, “by virtue of which we perceive virtue or vice in ourselves, and others” (Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions, Section 1). For Hutcheson, a sense is a natural power of perception, and more specifically, a “Determination of our minds to receive Ideas, independently on our Will, and to have Perceptions of Pleasure and Pain.” There are two kinds of “moral” perceptions, approbation and dislike, the former being agreeable and the latter disagreeable. These perceptions are occasioned by “Affections, Tempers, Sentiments, or Actions, reflected upon in ourselves, or observed in others.” What distinguishes the moral sense from the “public sense,” which gives us pleasurable and painful perceptions upon consideration of the condition of others, is that the moral sense requires reflection on virtue or vice, either in ourselves or in others. We call objects, actions, or events morally “good” or “evil,” insofar as they cause or occasion moral approbation or dislike. Moral good and evil must be distinguished from private good and evil, i.e., the pleasure or pain of the agent, which may be in conflict with public or moral good and evil. Thus Hutcheson rejected ethical egoism, which he traced from its origins in Epicureanism to the seventeenth century moral theory of Hobbes “and many better writers” of his own day (Essay, Treatise II: Illustrations upon the Moral Sense).

The Treatise

1. What allows us to distinguish virtue from vice can only be different impressions occasioned by them, since it has been shown that the difference is not found by comparing ideas, as it would be if it could be discovered by reason alone. But it has been established in Section 1 that reason alone cannot discover the difference between virtue and vice by comparing ideas. When we decide whether something is morally right or morally wrong, and hence approve or disapprove of it, this decision is a “perception,” and the only two kinds of perception are ideas and impressions. [That approval and disapproval are perceptions is claimed in Section 1.] So by disjunctive syllogism, we exclude ideas as the basis of our judgments of virtue and vice and are left only with impressions. Given that impressions are kinds of feelings, “Morality, therefore, is more properly felt than judg’d of.” However, the impressions that compose the feeling are ordinarily “soft” and thus easily mistaken for ideas. Because the relative lack of vivacity of the impressions approaches that of ideas, the two closely resemble each other, and we commonly [though incorrectly] take things that are nearly resembling to be the same. So we mistakenly believe that we judge virtue and vice by comparing ideas.

2. Having shown that it is impressions which mark the difference between moral virtue and vice, the author inquires into the nature of these impressions and their manner of operation on us. He immediately concludes that the impression accompanying virtue is agreeable, and that accompanying vice uneasy. “Every moment’s experience must convince us of this.” The remainder of this paragraph is devoted to illustrations of the pleasures produced from virtuous acts and the pain produced by vicious ones. Thus, a noble and generous act is the most “fair and beautiful” we can behold. On the side of vice, “the greatest of all punishments is to be oblig’d to pass our lives with those we hate or contemn.” [This is the theme of Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous play, No Exit.] The author notes that literary works such as plays can give us the kind of pleasure associated with virtue when virtue is merely represented, and we can be pained through the portrayal of vice.

3. Because our means of detecting virtue and vice are particular pleasures and pains, what remains in the investigation of moral distinctions is to discover “the principles, which make us feel a satisfaction or uneasiness from the survey of any character, in order to satisfy us why the character is laudable or blamable.” What makes a person’s character, or an action or sentiment of a person, virtuous or vicious is the fact that viewing it causes a particular impression of pleasure or pain, respectively. So, if we can give a reason why the particular pleasure or pain exists, “we sufficiently explain the vice or virtue.” The “sense of virtue” is nothing more than the feeling of satisfaction we have in contemplating someone’s character or action. “The very feeling constitutes our praise or admiration.” We do not inquire into the cause of the satisfaction, nor do we infer that a character which pleases in just any way is virtuous. The pleasure must be of a specific kind. “In feeling that [a character] pleases after such a particular manner, we in effect feel that it is virtuous.” An analogy is made between our judgments of virtue and vice and “our judgments concerning all kinds of beauty, and tastes, and sensations.” The immediate pleasure we get from beauty, tastes and sensations implies our approval of them. So moral and aesthetic approbation are on exactly the same footing, with the only difference being the particular kind or manner of pleasure which constitutes them.

4. Having discovered the nature of the impressions that are occasioned by viewing virtue and vice, the author’s next task is to inquire into the way they operate on us. But before turning to this question, the author pauses to consider an objection to the system he has developed to this point. One of his objections in Section 1 to the claim that there are “eternal rational measures of right and wrong” might be turned against his own claim that the measures of right and wrong are certain kinds of pleasurable or painful impressions. If the measure of virtue and vice is pleasure and pain, would not the pleasure or pain we feel on the view of inanimate objects amount to moral judgments about them? If so, then the author’ system is discredited just as is the rationalist system, since “any object, whether animate or inanimate, rational or irrational, might become morally good or evil, provided it can excite a satisfaction or uneasiness.” The author replies that the objection “has by no means the same force, in the one case, as in the other.” He gives two reasons for the disanalogy, the first occurring in the present paragraph and the second in the next. The first point is that the abstract term ‘pleasure’ stands for many different sensations, which although they must have something in common for the term to apply to them, may nonetheless have a very remote resemblance to one another. A good composition of music produces a pleasurable sensation of harmoniousness, and a good bottle of wine produces a pleasurable flavor. But even though their goodness consists in the production of pleasure, the pleasure is not of the same kind, as we do not, for example, say that the music tastes good. In a similar vein, we may compare the character of a person to an inanimate object, and when they are good, in their own way, the kind of satisfaction we get is different, and we deem as virtuous the person but not the object. Further, not all satisfactions that arise from the view of persons are “of that peculiar kind, which makes us praise or condemn.” An example is that an enemy whose good qualities [such as courage] allow him to harm us, but when viewed apart from our self-interest, give us pleasure and invoke our “esteem and respect.” It is only when “a character is considered in general, without reference to our particular interest, that it causes such a feeling or sentiment, as denominates it morally good and evil.” The feelings we get from viewing our self-interest and those comprising moral judgments are easily confused, but they are distinct. Although most of the time we think our enemy to be vicious because he is our enemy and are unable to consider his moral qualities separately, the two sentiments are distinct, and someone with the right temperament and judgment “may preserve himself from these illusions.” The author again makes an analogy with aesthetic judgments. An enemy who is singing is judged by most to have a bad voice just because he is the enemy, but someone with “a fine ear” who is in “command of himself” can appreciate the aesthetic quality of the enemy’s voice.

5. The second response to the objection in the last paragraph, which, like the first, attempts to distinguish moral sentiments from other pleasurable impressions, draws on the explanation in Book 2 of the indirect passions pride and humility, and love and hatred. The explanation there was in terms of a “double relation,” one holding between the cause of the passion and some animate object and a second holding between a sensation produced by the cause and the separate sensation which is the passion itself. The author claims that these passions are in fact produced by the sensation of pleasure or pain we have on viewing the object of a moral judgment. If, for example, the object is myself, and some quality of myself produces a feeling of pleasure in me (which is the moral sentiment), that sentiment will in turn produce a feeling of pride. [This topic is treated in Book II, Part 1, Section 7.] The qualities of inanimate objects, on the other hand, when they produce pleasure or pain when viewed, are not placed in a relation to an animate object. Thus there is missing the first of the two relations, and the view of the animate object does not produce a passion: we do not love or hate the object, for example. The author claims that the production of a passion of love or hatred, pride or humility, by moral sentiments “is, perhaps, the most considerable effect that virtue and vice have upon the human mind.”

6. The author returns to the main thread of his investigation and asks the second question about the basis of our moral approval or disapproval. Pleasure and pain have been shown to be that basis, and it remains to be answered: “From what principles is it derived, and whence does it arise in the human mind?” This question is answered, in part, in this and the next paragraph. The first consideration is that “’tis absurd to imagine” that for each particular instance of such pleasure or pain, there is an original quality and primary constitution in us that produces it. A consequence of the assumption that there are such specific causes of these pleasures is that there would be one for each moral duty that we have. [Presumably we would approve of our moral duties.] But in fact there are in a way infinitely many such duties, so that “’tis impossible that our original instincts should extend to each of them, and from our very first infancy impress on the human mind all that multitude of precepts, which are contain’d in the compleatest system of ethics.” The existence of such a multitude of original qualities in us does not correspond to the principles by which nature operates, with a few principles producing all observed variety, and “every thing is carry’d on in the easiest and most simple manner.” The alleged primary impulses must be “abridged” and “more general principles” found to explain the origin of our moral judgments.

7. The second consideration is not handled so easily, and it occupies four of the last paragraphs of the section. The question itself is simple enough: should the principles governing our moral sentiments be sought in nature or somewhere else? The answer depends on what the word ‘nature’ is taken to mean, since that word is one “than which there is none more ambiguous and equivocal.” Nature could be thought of as what is opposed to miracles. It would be no major revelation to discover that our feelings of virtue and vice are natural in this sense, as not only these sentiments, “but also every event, which has ever happen’d in the world, excepting those miracles, on which our religion is founded” are natural.

8. Another way of regarding nature is as what is opposed to things that are rare and unusual, which is the “common” sense of the word. Unfortunately, many disputes arise over whether something falls under the heading of being natural in this sense, and this because “we are not possess’d of any very precise standard, by which these disputes can be decided.” The lack of a precise standard, in turn, is due to the fact that rarity and unusualness are relative to the number of examples that have been observed. But whatever may be the boundaries of nature in this sense, the moral sentiments are as natural as anything could be. Far from their being rare or unusual, “there was never any nation of the world, nor any single person in any nation, who was utterly depriv’d of them, and who never, in any instance, shew’d the least approbation or dislike of manners.” Moral judgments are ubiquitous. “These sentiments are so rooted in our constitution and temper, that without entirely confounding the human mind by disease or madness, ’tis impossible to extirpate and destroy them.”

9. There is a third conception of nature: that which is opposed to what is artificial. Here it is really disputable whether virtue and vice are natural. A case can be made for both sides. We might view moral sentiments to be natural because of their intimate connection with “designs, and projects, and views of men”, which themselves are “principles as necessary in their operation as [the natural principles] heat and cold, moist and dry.” On the other hand we might regard our moral sentiments as artificial when we think of the designs, projects and views of people as being “free and entirely our own.” It could turn out that our sense of some virtues is natural and of others artificial. The question is postponed to the examination of the particular virtues [i.e., Part 2, which deals with artificial virtues and Part 3, which deals with natural virtues]. In a footnote, the author points out that there are two other ways in which something might be opposed to being natural: it might be civil or moral. He intimates that it will be clear from the context when these senses are being used.

10. Having unraveled the meanings of ’natural,’ the author turns to systems of ethics that equate virtue with what is natural and vice with what is unnatural. He regards these systems as the most “unphilosophical” that a system can be. In the first sense of ‘natural’ (opposed to miracles), virtue and vice are both natural; in the second sense (opposed to the rare and unusual), virtue may actually be found less natural (i.e., more rare) than vice. “At least it must be own’d, that heroic virtue being as unusual, is as little natural as the most brutal barbarity.” In the third sense (opposed to artifice), both virtue and vice could be said to be unnatural, insofar as merit and demerit are only assigned to human actions done with an (artificial) end in mind. “’Tis impossible, therefore, that the character of natural and unnatural can ever, in any sense, mark the boundaries of virtue and vice.”

11. After this second digression, the author again returns to his main question. Given that “virtue is distinguished by the pleasure, and vice by the pain, that any action, sentiment or character gives us by the mere view and contemplation,” we only need to answer the “simple question, Why any action or sentiment upon the general view or survey, gives a certain satisfaction or uneasiness.” This puts the author in position to be able to show the origin of its moral worth, “without looking for any incomprehensible relations and qualities, which never did exist in nature, nor even in our imagination, by any clear and distinct conception.” Just stating the question seems to satisfy “a great part of [the author’s] general present design” in investigating morals, because the question is “so free from ambiguity and obscurity.”

The Enquiry into the Principles of Morals

Appendix I of the Enquiry is entitled “Concerning Moral Sentiment.” Hume had reversed the order of exposition from that of the Treatise and dealt last with the meta-ethical question concerning the relative contributions of reason and sentiment to moral distinctions. As for sentiment, he had described in Section 1 the possibility that morality is derived “by an immediate feeling and finer internal sense” and thus from “the particular fabric and constitution of the human species,“ as is the case with “the perception of beauty and deformity.” The reasons Hume avoids these questions are first, that they are better answered after the nature of morality has been discovered (Section 1), and second, that the question would “involve us in intricate speculations, which are unfit for moral discourses” (Appendix I). The body of the Enquiry seeks to establish that utility is the basis of moral distinctions, but we must still account for our preference for utility over what is harmful. This requires a “sentiment,” which “can be no other than a feeling for the happiness of mankind, and resentment of their misery; since these are the different ends which virtue and vice have a tendency to promote” (Appendix I). Later in the Appendix, Hume connects the sentiment to virtue in this way: “The hypothesis which we embrace is plain. It maintains that morality is determined by sentiment. It defines virtue to be whatever mental action or quality gives to a spectator the pleasing sentiment of approbation; and vice the contrary.” Hume drives his point home by asking about the “ultimate ends of human actions.” There must be such ends on pain of an infinite regress. Virtue is such an end, which is “desirable on its own account, without fee and reward, merely for the immediate satisfaction which it conveys.” This satisfaction is possible only if there is “some sentiment which [virtue] touches, some internal taste or feeling, or whatever you may please to call it, which distinguishes good and evil, and which embraces the one and rejects the other.” Because taste “gives pleasure or pain, and thereby constitutes happiness or misery, [it] becomes a motive to action, and is the first spring or impulse to desire and volition.”

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