MORAL REASON VERSUS MORAL FEELING

From Moral Philosophy through the Ages (2nd edition), by James Fieser

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2001, updated 9/1/2024, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

 

CONTENTS

Introduction

Against Clarke's Moral Theory

Clarke and Eternal Moral Relations

Hume's First Criticism: Reason does not Discover Moral Truth

Hume's Second Criticism: Reason does not Morally Motivate Us

Hume's Moral Theory

Early Moral Sense Theories

The Moral Spectator's Sympathetic Feelings

Morality Without God

Criticisms of Hume

Smith's Criticism: Moral Approval requires an Impartial Spectator

Reid's First Criticism: Hume Abuses Common Moral Language

Reid's Second Criticism: Reporting Feelings Differs from Approving

Bentham's Criticism: Only Utility Matters, not the Agent's Virtues or the Spectator's Feelings

Lingering Issues with Hume's Theory

Solutions to the Is-Ought Problem

References

Study Questions

 

INTRODUCTION

Currently, over 10 million children die each year from diseases and hunger-related illnesses. Most are from developing countries that lack adequate social structures and tend to be overpopulated. International charitable organizations try to reduce the number of casualties by providing food and health supplies to needy families. The success of these charities owes to the heart-wrenching descriptions it provides of needy and abused children around the world, such as this:

Sarah was born in a poor agrarian village, where her family relied on a shallow stream that began to dry up three years ago after a relentless drought. As the water dwindled, it grew stagnant, becoming a breeding ground for bacteria and parasites. But with no other option, her family continued to drink from it. Her younger brother was the first to fall ill, suffering from fever and intense stomach pain. Now, Sarah walks for hours each day to reach the nearest functioning well, leaving at dawn and returning only by dusk. She endures the trek barefoot, her feet raw and cracked, carrying a container that holds just enough for her family s basic needs. At first, she tried to continue her schooling, carrying her books alongside the heavy jug. But exhaustion forced her to give it up; now, each day is a fight for survival, and Sarah knows that without her daily journey, her family would have no water at all.

The story continues that, after the charitable organization installed a clean water system in her village, Sarah was able to return to school and her siblings recovered their health. Such narratives form the cornerstone of charitable campaigns, often delivered by celebrity spokespeople who tell us that for only a few dollars a month we can help these children. The appeals are convincing, and our hearts go out to the young victims. When we feel sufficient compassion for them, we might be moved to donate money to support their efforts.

These charitable appeals deliberately target our emotions, suggesting that there is a connection between sympathetic feelings and moral obligation. However, many philosophers have objected to such approaches, arguing that they bypass rational judgment and manipulate people into acting on emotion rather than moral reasoning. These critics maintain that true morality must be rational and independent of emotional considerations. While we naturally feel sympathy for people in need, critics argue that proper moral judgment requires setting these feelings aside in favor of the cool and impartial dictates of reason. Consider now an alternative pitch by a charitable organization that appeals only to reason, and not to emotion:

It is a fact that around 1 million people die annually from diseases directly attributable to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation, and poor hygiene practices. It is a fact that $50 donated to our charity can provide clean water to one person for life. It is a fact that individuals earning above $70,000 annually (the median household income in developed nations) can donate $50 without experiencing any measurable reduction in their quality of life. Therefore, if your annual income exceeds $70,000, making a $50 donation is reasonable since it maximizes utility: it saves a life while causing you no significant deprivation.

This purely rationalist approach also has its critics who argue that moral judgments are really emotional reactions rather than logical deductions. On their view, morality is about feelings, not reasoning. This stark contrast between emotional and rational approaches raises a fundamental question: which better represents what true morality demands of us? The issue isn't so much of which pitch would be more effective at getting donors, but which is a better account of what our purest moral assessments are really like.

This tension between reason and emotion in moral philosophy came to a head in eighteenth-century Britain. Samuel Clarke (1675 1729), an Anglican clergyman and philosopher, championed the view that morality must be purely rational. His chief opponent, David Hume (1711 1776), argued instead that moral approval stems not from rational judgment but from the pleasing emotions we experience when observing someone's conduct. Their debate shaped moral philosophy for generations, and remains relevant today in how we think about the roles of reason and emotion with moral assessments.

AGAINST CLARKE'S MORAL THEORY

Since the time of Plato, philosophers have frequently argued that absolute moral truths exist in an eternal spiritual realm and that we access these moral truths through a special rational faculty. Such philosophers are often called "moral rationalists". This is the basic position held by Clarke, and it is the principal view that Hume attacked. We will first look at Clarke's rationalist theory, then Hume's critique of it.

Clarke and Eternal Moral Relations

Clarke was an advocate of natural law theory, but he gave it his own unique rationalistic spin. Aquinas held that natural laws were grounded in the purpose we could discern in human instincts, such as the inclination to be sociable. Pufendorf grounded natural laws in a pragmatic awareness of our inclination for self-preservation. Clarke, though, grounds natural law squarely on what he calls the "eternal reason of things" (Discourse, Introduction, Prop. 12, p. 105). This eternal reason is not an abstract concept floating in the realm of the Forms as Plato might see it. It is also not simply the mind of God, as Augustine might see it, since, as Clarke argues, God willfully obliges himself to follow it (Ibid. Evidences, Prop 1, p. 170). Rather, drawing on Cicero and the Stoic notion of the logos, this eternal reason of things is woven into reality itself. Like a crystal whose molecular structure determines its shape from within, this rational order permeates and shapes the nature of everything that exists. As such, it establishes not simply what things are, but also how they ought to be. This is Clarke's notion of the eternal reason of things. Most importantly, this eternal reason contains within it several fundamental "laws" that govern how we should behave. Clarke also refers to these laws as "truths", "relations" or "proportions" interchangeably. For convenience we will call them eternal relations here, since this is Clarke's signature insight. In a nutshell, these eternal relations are general laws that govern the entire universe, and when we comply with them our actions are "fit" and when we don't they are "unfit".

Some of these eternal relations are mathematical, others religious, and still others moral. The eternal mathematical relations include general notions of "greater than," "less than," or "equal to". He writes,

That there are differences of things; and different relations, respects or proportions, of some things towards others; is as evident and undeniable, as that one magnitude or number, is greater, equal to, or smaller than another. [Ibid. p. 157]

Now, down here on earth, we regularly employ mathematical reasoning, such as when I say "the money in my bank account is less than the money in my attorney's bank account." This expresses a particular relation between the quantities of money in the two accounts. According to Clarke, my statement is true if it lives up to the eternal mathematical relation of "less than." That is, my statement will be fit or proportioned with respect to the mathematical eternal relation of "less than. Just as mathematical assessments are grounded in eternal mathematical relations, so too are moral assessments grounded in eternal moral relations. One of these is the eternal moral relation of equity, that is, justice. Suppose, for example, that I own a lawnmower; my relationship of ownership, then, is fit with respect to the broader eternal moral relation of equity. Next you come along and take my mower without my permission; your relation of non-ownership, then is unfit with respect to the eternal moral relation of equity. This eternal moral relation of equity requires us to follow the Golden Rule: "Whatever I judge reasonable or unreasonable for another to do for me; that, by the same judgment, I declare reasonable or unreasonable, and I in the like case should do for him" (Ibid. p. 180). That is, it would be unreasonable for me to steal your lawnmower, since I would find it unreasonable for you to steal mine. When I follow the Golden Rule, my actions are fit with respect to the eternal relation of equity.

For Clarke, this eternal relation of equity demands only that we avoid harming others in ways that we ourselves would not want to be harmed. However, he argues that there is a second eternal relation of morality, that of benevolence, which moves beyond the issue of harm and instead mandates that we more actively promote the well-being of others. He calls this the "law of benevolence," which requires us to help others in need and, more generally, to strive to make the world a better place.

He mentions yet one more eternal relation, that of "infinite greatness," which requires us to worship and adore God. Combined, these three eternal relations of equity, benevolence and worship are what he calls the "laws of righteousness". Clarke did not think that his list of the laws of righteousness was particularly original, and he states that a more detailed list of our various duties "may easily be supplied abundantly out of several late excellent writers" (Ibid. p. 178). What is unique to Clarke, though, is his notion of eternal moral relations that parallel mathematical relations. Just as even God cannot alter mathematical laws and their relations, Clarke argues, God cannot alter the three laws of righteousness and their relations. Further, just as our knowledge of mathematical relations is self-evident and purely rational, so, too, is our knowledge of moral relations. In fact, Clarke says, eternal moral relations are so self-evident that it would be ridiculous to deny them:

These things are so notoriously plain and self-evident, that nothing but the extremest stupidity of Mind, corruption of Manners, or perverseness of Spirit can possibly make any Man entertain the least doubt concerning them. For a Man endued with Reason, to deny the Truth of these Things, is the very same thing, as if a Man that has the use of his Sight, should at the same time that he beholds the Sun, deny that there is any such thing as Light in the World; or as if a Man that understands Geometry or Arithmetic, should deny the most obvious and known Proportions of Lines or Numbers, and perversely contend that the whole is not equal to all its parts, or that a Square is not double to a triangle of equal base and height. [Ibid., p. 159]

That is, it is as stupid for a rational person to deny the existence of moral relations as it is for a person with eyes to deny that the sun shines.

Like other rationalist philosophers, Clarke holds that there are essentially two distinct functions that moral reasoning plays in our lives:

(1) Moral reasoning has us discover moral truths, and,

(2) Moral reasoning motivates us to follow moral standards in our actions

Regarding the first function, it is moral reasoning that first tells us that, for example, donating to charity is morally obligatory, which parallels the way that mathematical reasoning informs me of the truth that 1+1=2. Regarding the second function, once I know the moral truth that charity is obligatory, as a rational person my moral reasoning will make me want to actually donate to some charitable cause. This is in much the same way that after a carpenter calculates that he needs a board that is 8 feet long, he will actually cut a board to 8 feet, rather than 7 feet or some other size. Clarke makes this motivational aspect of reasoning especially clear here: " So far, therefore, as men are conscious of what is right and wrong, so far they are under an obligation to act accordingly" (Ibid. p. 171). Thus, according to Clarke, these moral relations are binding on all beings who can rationally intuit them, including God. For, as a supremely rational being, God can flawlessly intuit these moral relations and he will subsequently carry them out in practice. As such, he will "act constantly according to the eternal rules of infinite goodness, justice, and truth" (Ibid. p. 166). Humans are rational as well, and so we can perceive moral relations and are bound by them. However, our reason is limited, and we are distracted by our human emotions. Also, through improper upbringing, our rational abilities might become corrupted. So, unlike God, we are morally fallible.

These are the main points of Clarke's theory:

There is an eternal reason of things that rationally governs the universe through several eternal relations (or laws).

There are eternal mathematical relations, such that our particularly mathematical tasks are correct when they are fit with these relations.

There are three eternal laws of righteousness: relations of equity, benevolence, and worship of God; our behavior is correct when it is fit with these relations.

Knowledge of the eternal relations is self-evident to all rational beings, including God and humans.

Moral reasoning both intuitively discovers moral relations and motivates us to behave morally.

 

Hume's Criticism of the Claim that Reason Discover Moral Truth

Turning now to Hume, he begins his own theory of morality by criticizing Clarke's moral rationalism and its dual claim that human reason first discovers moral truths and then motivates us to behave morally. According to Hume, human reasoning does neither of these two things. Regarding the claim that reason discovers moral truths, Hume gives two distinct arguments against Clarke's theory of eternal moral relations. In the first of these, Hume argues that moral assessments cannot be judgments about relations since we find exactly the same relations in both moral and nonmoral situations. As an illustration, Hume compares the case of a young tree killing its parent tree to that of the Roman emperor Nero killing his mother. By Clarke's reasoning, both cases would be unfit and thereby immoral, which is an absurd thing to say about a tree. Hume writes,

Let us chuse any inanimate object, such as an oak or elm; and let us suppose, that by the dropping of its seed, it produces a sapling below it, which springing up by degrees, at last overtops and destroys the parent tree: I ask, if in this instance there be wanting any relation, which is discoverable in parricide or ingratitude? [A Treatise of Human Nature, 3.1.1]

Again, clearly there is no moral crime when a young tree overgrows and kills its parent tree, but there is indeed a moral crime when Nero kills his mother. Since both of these situations exhibit the same relation, then moral assessments must be different from rational judgments about relations. Stated more precisely, Hume's argument is this:

1. Anything that exhibits a given moral relation should be judged good or bad accordingly. (Clarke's target supposition)

2. A young tree overgrowing and killing its parent exhibits the same relation as Nero killing his mother.

3. Since Nero's act is morally bad, then so, too, is that of the young tree.

4. Clearly, this is absurd; hence, it is false that anything that exhibits a given moral relation should be judged good or bad accordingly.

How might Clarke respond to this argument? He might start by rejecting premise 2 on the grounds that there is a big difference between Nero killing his mother and a young tree overgrowing and causing the death of its parent. Nero acted with a motive, but young trees are not the kind of things that can have motives. But Hume anticipates this problem and challenges us to specify exactly the kind of relation exhibited between Nero and his mother. Suppose that Clarke says that the relation involves ill will in Nero's motive regarding his mother. However, according to Hume, that particular relation will not work since we would all be guilty of a moral crime anytime we felt ill will toward another person, even when we never actually acted on that feeling. Suppose, instead, that Clarke locates the relation in Nero's physical action toward his mother rather than his motive. For Hume, that relation will not work either since it would apply to nonhuman things that do not have motives, such as trees that overgrow and kill their parent tree, and we are back where we started.

But Clarke might still have a response: instead of looking at either motives or actions, suppose that we look at what philosophers call "intentional actions." Some of our actions are non-intentional, such as seizures, sneezes, and coughs; they just happen without any planning or purpose on our part. Other actions, though, are intimately connected with some intended goal, such as when I brush my teeth or when Nero kills his mother. Although trees might exhibit non-intentional movements, such as swaying in the wind or growing toward the sun, they certainly do not exhibit intentional action. Based on this understanding, Clarke could say that Nero's act is wrong since it displays the relation of an intentional act of killing an innocent person. This relation will not apply to people who simply have bad thoughts, nor will it apply to young trees. Thus, we should reject premise 2 in Hume's argument. It seems that Clarke's side wins the debate here.

Although Hume's young-tree argument may not successfully refute Clarke, Hume's second argument appears stronger, which is this. He asks us to consider whether moral assessments are more like rational judgments, such as "4 is greater than 3," or more like aesthetic pronouncements, such as "This painting is beautiful," which involves feelings. Hume believes that moral assessments are clearly more like aesthetic pronouncements which involve feelings, and not rational judgments. He writes,

Euclid has fully explained all the qualities of the circle; but has not in any proposition said a word of its beauty. The reason is evident. The beauty is not a quality of the circle. It lies not in any part of the line, whose parts are equally distant from a common centre. It is only the effect which that figure produces upon the mind, whose peculiar fabric or structure renders it susceptible of such sentiments. [An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Appendix 1]

Hume's point is that we can easily see the emotional component of moral assessments, but we cannot so easily articulate morality's rational component. Although a diehard rationalist like Clarke might still insist that the rational component is obvious, most of us will probably agree that the emotional component is more apparent. Thus, we have some grounds to question the rationalist's position that reason discovers moral truths.

Hume's Criticism of the Claim that Morally Motivate Us

We turn next to Hume's critique of the rationalist's second point, that reason motivates us to behave morally. Again, for Clarke, by merely knowing the moral truth that we should be benevolent, this knowledge by itself should rationally motivate us to donate to charities. According to Hume, though, for any action that you perform as an agent, you are only motivated to act from emotion, and never from reason. Reason is inert and will not by itself incline us to do anything even if our lives depend on it. Hume illustrates his view here:

It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger. It is not contrary to reason for me to chuse my total ruin, to prevent the least uneasiness of an Indian or person wholly unknown to me. It is as little contrary to reason to prefer even my own acknowledged lesser good to my greater, and have a more ardent affection for the former than the latter. [A Treatise of Human Nature, 2.3.3]

Although a little extreme, Hume's basic observation is correct: something must motivate us to prefer one thing over another, but even a truckload of reasons will not by themselves motivate us. According to Hume, human reason addresses only issues of truth and falsehood, such as whether it is true or false that children are starving in developing countries. However, reason is completely indifferent to what it determines, and reason will not get us to act in one way or another. So, without emotion, there is nothing to keep me from preferring the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.

Hume summarizes his attack on moral rationalism in what has become one of the most famous passages in Western moral philosophy, in which he lays out what is called the is-ought problem:

In every system of morality which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs. When [all] of a sudden I am surprised to find that, instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought or an ought not. The change is imperceptible, but is, however, of the last [and greatest] consequence. For as this ought or ought not expresses some new relation or affirmation, it is necessary that it should be observed and explained. And at the same time, [it is necessary] that a reason should be given for (what seems altogether inconceivable) how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. [Ibid., 3.1.1]

Hume's point is that rationalistic discussions of morality all begin with statements of fact, such as "Sarah is starving," and then conclude with statements of obligation, such as "We should help feed Sarah." According to Hume, we cannot simply rationally deduce statements of obligation from statements of fact. Even if it is a fact that Sarah is starving, we need our emotions to make the assessment that we should help feed Sarah. Clarke's blunder is that he claims as a point of fact that there are eternal moral relations and then concludes that we ought to follow these relations as laws of righteousness. Contemporary moral philosophers encapsulate Hume's point with the slogan that "We cannot derive ought from is." That is, we cannot rationally deduce statements of obligation from statements of fact. They also sometimes call this the "fact-value gap".

For Hume, then, no collection of facts will ever entail a value, so values must come from another source. Even though reason cannot discover moral truths and motivate us to behave morally, Hume concedes that reason plays a minor role as an information gatherer. That is, reason helps us discover facts that we might emotionally respond to, such as facts about the specific countries in which people are starving. But I still need emotions to make me prefer to do something about it. In Hume's words, "Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them" (Ibid. 2.3.3).

 

HUME'S MORAL THEORY

Hume thus rejects Clarke's contention that morality is grounded in reason. As Hume summarizes it, when we closely examine the contents of any morally significant action, such as a murder, we will never locate any special moral fact or moral relation about which we can make a rational judgment. The only alternative, he concludes, is that morality is grounded in feelings: "in which-ever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts" (Ibid. 3.1.2). Hume's explanation of moral feelings was influenced by several earlier British moral philosophers who proposed that we have a moral sense that enables us to perceive and assess right and wrong conduct. We will look at some of these theories next.

 

Early Moral Sense Theories

The first British writer to use the term "moral sense" was Anthony Ashley Cooper (1671 1713), better known as the Earl of Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury maintains that our moral sense perceives moral qualities in much the same way that our eyes perceive colors:

The case is the same in mental or moral subjects, as in [our sense perceptions of] ordinary bodies, or the common subjects of sense. The shapes, motions, colors, and proportions of these latter being presented to our eye, there necessarily results a beauty or deformity, according to the different measure, arrangement and disposition of their several parts. So in behavior and actions, when presented to our understanding, there must be found, of necessity, an apparent difference, according to the regularity or irregularity of the subjects. [Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit, 2.1.2.3]

Although Shaftesbury does not give a detailed description of our moral sense, he apparently takes the notion of "sense" literally and is willing to classify it as a sixth sense. This literal understanding of the moral sense is in part based on a broad definition of "sense perception." For example, British philosopher John Locke (1632 1704) broadly defines the notion of sense perception here:

When I say the senses convey into the mind, I mean, they from external Objects convey into the mind what produces there those Perceptions. [Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 2.1.3]

Based on Locke's definition, any mental faculty that can convey external qualities may be called a "sense."

Shaftesbury's suggestion took hold, and other moral philosophers developed the notion of the moral sixth sense in greater detail. The most influential of these was Irish philosopher Francis Hutcheson (1694 1747), who interpreted the notion of moral sense literally:

[The] power of receiving these [moral] perceptions may be called a moral sense, since the definition [of "sense"] agrees to it, viz. a determination of the mind, to receive any idea from the presence of an object which occurs to us, independent on our will. [Inquiry Concerning Moral Good and Evil, 1.1]

According to Hutcheson, all of our senses involve two things: (1) an object that we perceive and (2) a mental perception that we form in response. For example, with my sense of sight, I am presented with a physical object, such as a chair, and I form a visual perception of that object in my mind. Similarly, the objects of my moral sense are benevolent actions that people perform, such as donating to charity; the mental perception that I form is a feeling of pleasure. For Hutcheson, then, my moral sense enables me to detect benevolence in an action, and my subsequent feeling of pleasure constitutes my approval of that benevolent action.

The Moral Spectator's Sympathetic Feelings

Hume not only read Hutcheson's description of the moral sense, but knew Hutcheson personally and corresponded with him. In his own moral theory, Hume downplays the literal notion of "moral sense" proposed by Hutcheson, but he nevertheless agrees with Hutcheson's main point: moral approval is a pleasing feeling, and not a rational judgment. Most simply, Hume's theory is that moral approval is only a pleasing feeling that we experience when we observe good conduct. When I see someone donate to charity, I sympathetically feel pleasure for the receiver of that donation. And if I see someone steal a car, I sympathetically feel pain for the car owner. The experience of pleasure is my moral approval, and the experience of pain is my moral disapproval. There is nothing more to morality than that: no eternal more truths, no rational judgments, just sympathetic feelings of pleasure and pain. Hume states his basic view here:

Moral distinctions depend entirely on certain peculiar sentiments of pain and pleasure, and that whatever mental quality in ourselves or others gives us a satisfaction, by the survey or reflexion, is of course virtuous; as every thing of this nature, that gives uneasiness, is vicious. [Treatise, 3.3.1]

Hume's account of morality involves a complex chain of events featuring three players: a moral agent, a receiver, and a moral spectator. The moral agent is the person who performs an action, such as donating to charity or stealing a car. The receiver is the person directly affected by the agent's action, such as the person who receives charity or the victim who gets his or her car stolen. The moral spectator is the person who observes or imagines the receiver and makes a moral assessment about the agent. All moral assessments start with an agent's motivated action, extend through the consequences to a receiver, and end with sympathetic feelings of pleasure or pain in the mind of a spectator.

When moral spectators pass judgment on the actions of moral agents, there are distinct psychological events going on in the minds of all parties involved, which we can chart in this way:

 

To illustrate these various psychological components, suppose that you (the agent) donate to an international charity organization specifically to help improve the life of Sarah (the receiver). I (the spectator) judge your act of charity to be morally good. According to Hume, my feelings of moral approval are in response to your character trait as reflected in your action. Hume also argues that your character trait is the motive behind your action, and your trait either will be instinctive or will have been acquired through social conditioning. In this case, your act of charity is motivated by benevolence, which, according to Hume, is largely an instinctive character trait.

If we suppose that the charity organization does its job properly, then your act of charity will have a direct impact on Sarah's life. Specifically, you will make her happier than she would otherwise be. For, Sarah be pleased by the result of your donation that she and her family will have clean water to drink. Hume's full account of the receiver has a few more psychological layers than this, and involves four potentially pleasing consequences (usefulness or agreeableness to a third-party receiver or to you yourself who are both a receiver and spectator). But we will keep it simple here and restrict the consequences to ones that are only useful to a third-party receiver such as Sarah in this case.

As a spectator, I can personally witness or at least imagine the pleasure that Sarah experiences through your act of charity. Once I observe Sarah's pleasure, I, too, will experience pleasure for her vicariously or, in Hume's words, "sympathetically." Hume uses the term "sympathy" in a literal sense, as a human instinct by which a receiver's emotions are transferred to a spectator. An illustration from physics helps explain this literal notion of sympathy. Imagine that I have two acoustic guitars side by side. If I pluck the low E string on one guitar, then the low E string on the second guitar will automatically vibrate, without me even touching the second guitar. Physicists refer to this phenomenon as the "sympathetic vibration of strings." Analogously, Hume describes what we may call a "sympathetic transference of emotion." If Sarah experiences pleasure because of your donation, then that pleasure will be transferred to me, and I will be pleased as well. My sense of pleasure, then, constitutes my moral approval of your benevolent motive. That is, my feeling of pleasure is my moral approval of you. I then deem that your initial character trait is a virtue as opposed to a vice.

According to Hume, all moral assessments follow the preceding formula, even when we decide that a person is morally bad. Suppose you steal your neighbor's car. Again, you are the agent, but this time you are motivated to steal because you have an unjust character trait concerning property rights. Your unjust act of stealing will have at least these two negative consequences for your neighbor's life. First, your neighbor will be immediately outraged simply because you took something of hers; second, she will be inconvenienced. For both of these reasons, she will experience emotional pain. And when I, as the spectator, see your neighbor's pain, I will experience her pain sympathetically. My pain, then, constitutes my moral condemnation of your unjust character trait, which I thereby deem to be a vice.

The innovative part of Hume's theory is that moral assessments are not rational judgments, as Clarke and other moral rationalists believed, but only feelings in the mind of the spectator. Hume boldly makes this point here:

To have the sense of virtue, is nothing but to feel a satisfaction of a particular kind from the contemplation of a character. The very feeling constitutes our praise or admiration. We go no farther; nor do we enquire into the cause of the satisfaction. [Ibid, 3.1.2]

For Hume, the spectator's feelings are the final authority in moral assessments, and we cannot seek for a further explanation of moral assessment beyond these.

Morality without God

Hume was one of the first writers in the modern period of philosophy to separate morality from religion. We can see this clearly in his account of morality that we've just sketched. The concept of God, religion, or a higher eternal realm does not appear at all, and his entire theory is grounded in secular human psychology. This was certainly no accident since Hume personally was not a religious believer, although he never publicly advertised himself as such. Personal beliefs aside, he felt that there was good reason to exclude religion from moral evaluations and we will look at four of his rationales.

First, Hume argues that our purely philosophical conceptions of God do not entitle us to ascribe to God the moral attributes that we see in human nature. Human moral sentiments are linked to our biological nature and our survival. Since God's nature, as traditionally understood, infinitely surpasses that of human nature, then our human notions of morality cannot apply to him. Hume argues that human sentiments like love, friendship, and blame are specific to our nature and circumstances, making it "unreasonable to transfer such sentiments to a supreme existence" (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Sect. 3).

Second, setting aside our philosophical conceptions of God, Hume argues that in our more popular conceptions of God we actually see God as an immoral being. Religious fear, he says, conjures images of "vengeance, severity, cruelty, and malice" in the minds of believers, which they, "without scruple apply to their deity" (The Natural History of Religion, Sect. 8.). Further, popular religions often depict deities as demonic, with their power and knowledge inversely related to their goodness and benevolence.

Third, Hume argues that in our attempts to gain God's favor, we are not content to simply be moral, but we fall back on absurd religious rituals. A religious person who aims at pleasing God, then, will not have morality on his mind. Believers, he says, often prefer extreme acts like fasting or self-flagellation, seeing these as a direct service to God. Other religious devotees seek divine favor "not by virtue and good morals," but through "frivolous observances" or "rapturous ecstasies" (Ibid. Sect. 13).

Finally, Hume attacks the moral character of the clergy who set themselves up as models of religious holiness. His list of their flaws is lengthy. Clergymen fake their religious convictions much of the time to persevere appearances, and they feel that "everything is lawful to the saints." They are driven by ambition which "can often be satisfied only by promoting ignorance and superstition and implicit faith and pious frauds." Further, they are abnormally conceited, and tend to band together more tightly than other professions, since they collectively gain from the "veneration, paid to their common tenets, and by the suppression of antagonists." They are also intolerant to contradiction, and "too often proceed even to a degree of fury" when challenged, since their livelihood depends on others' belief. Hume says that there is even a common expression, "Odium Theologicum" (theological hatred), which refers to the intense and bitter hostility that can arise in theological disputes.

Hume's aim here goes beyond mere character assassination: religious institutions, he believes, are a major psychological cause of religious belief, and by debunking the cause we can help reduce the effect. Hume was so suspicious of the moral behavior of religious people that, as James Boswell reports, "when he heard a man was religious, he concluded he was a rascal" (Boswell, "An Account ", 1777).

There are a lot of moving parts to Hume's moral theory, and he did this to present the most comprehensive and scientific account of morality that he could. In summary, here are the main points of that theory:

Moral agents perform actions that are motivated by either instinctive or acquired character traits and, in either case, are sparked by emotions, not reason.

Receivers experience pleasure (pain) from the usefulness (inconvenience) of that action.

Moral spectators sympathetically experience pleasure (pain) when observing the receiver's pleasure (pain).

The moral spectator's pleasure (pain) constitutes his or her moral assessment of the agent's character trait, thereby deeming the trait to be a virtue (vice).

True morality is a function of human psychology that is independent of conceptions of God, religious belief, or religious institutions.

 

CRITICISMS OF HUME

When Hume's moral theory first appeared, reactions were almost unanimously critical. One opponent accused Hume of "sapping the foundations of morality" insofar as Hume links morality exclusively with human psychological makeup. Most moral philosophers agreed with Hume that feelings play some role in moral assessment, but they criticized him for making moral assessment solely a matter of emotion. We will look at four criticisms by prominent philosophers of his time.

Smith's Criticism: Moral Approval requires an Impartial Spectator

Adam Smith (1723-1790), the famous Scottish economist, was Hume's close friend, and in his book A Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) Smith offers a moral theory very similar to Hume's. However, Smith parts company with Hume in important ways. Smith's main objection is with Hume's account of the moral spectator who merely experiences pleasure from the perceived usefulness of an agent's action upon a receiver. According to Smith, such usefulness-induced pleasure experienced by the spectator is not enough. Rather, for the spectator's response to count as a feeling of genuine moral approval, the spectator must impartially assess the rightness or "propriety" of the action. Smith writes,

it seems impossible that the approbation of virtue should be a sentiment of the same kind with that by which we approve of a convenient and well contrived building; or that we should have no other reason for praising a man than that for which we commend a chest of drawers. [Theory of Moral Sentiments, 4.2]

That is, it is one thing for a spectator to approve of a building because of the pleasure it brings from its usefulness, but the spectator's moral approval of human conduct requires more than that. For, it requires the spectator to have "a sense of propriety quite distinct from the perception of utility" (Ibid.). For Smith, humility, justice, generosity and public spirit are the most useful character traits that we have; nevertheless, we approve of such actions because it is proper to do so from the standpoint of an "impartial spectator". For Smith, the impartial spectator is an internalized observer that allows me to evaluate my actions from an unbiased standpoint, as if seen through the eyes of an informed third party. A key part of the impartial spectator's viewpoint is that it inspects conduct for its moral rightness, and not just for its usefulness. Thus, Hume's account fails to capture the truly "moral" nature of moral judgments by reducing them to mere feelings of pleasure or pain in the spectator. By the same reasoning, we could also accuse Hume's theory of failing to account for why we morally approve of actions that do not necessarily produce usefulness-induced pleasure. Examples would be acts of self-sacrifice or adherence to moral principles when they do us more harm than good.

How might Hume respond to Smith's criticism? First, Hume's position is conceptually simpler than Smith's since it does not postulate an extra psychological capacity for sensing rightness and propriety. Rather, Hume sticks to what everyone already accepts about human psychology, namely, that spectators experience pleasure and pain when observing an agent's conduct that is useful to the receiver. On Hume's account, then, if you help an elderly person cross a busy street, my moral approval of your act consists only of the sympathetic feeling of usefulness-induced pleasure that I experience. Smith would not deny that I have that feeling of usefulness-induced pleasure, but he would add to this the impartial spectator's assessment of the rightness and propriety of your action. Not only is this an extra step, but it is also debatable whether humans in fact psychologically have the mental phenomenon of an impartial spectator. By contrast, it is not debatable whether humans experience feelings of usefulness-induced pleasure in such cases.

Smith's theory of the impartial spectator is an example of moral intuitionism that we examined in the chapter on "Duty Theory and Rights Theory". That is, many moral philosophers have assumed that humans have a special intuitive capacity to self-evidently detect moral principles such as "don't kill" or "be charitable". The difference here in Smith's theory is that the moral spectator intuitively detects moral or immoral actions when we observe them, not principles. While this is a unique spin on moral intuitionism, it does not alter the fundamental problem with intuitionism that the reality of such a mental faculty is psychologically debatable. The full title of Hume's book that contains his moral theory is this: "A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects." Hume's theory better fulfills this goal than does Smith's.

Reid's First Criticism: Hume Abuses Common Moral Language

Shortly after Hume's death, Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid (1710 1796) published a detailed critique of Hume's moral theory, which even today remains one of the most insightful discussions of Hume. Reid agreed with Hume that the moral spectator in fact does have an emotional response to the agent's action. However, for Reid, the emotional reaction is only of secondary importance. Like Clarke, Reid held that true moral assessment is a rational judgment, and our emotional reaction is almost like an afterthought. According to Reid, Hume's theory fails because it blurs the distinction between the spectator's rational assessment and emotional response. This is similar to Smith's critique, but Reid sees the spectator making a distinctly rational judgment about morality, which is different than Smith's impartial spectator who makes a non-rational moral judgment about an actions rightness or propriety.

Reid makes his point with two distinct arguments. Reid's first argument is straightforward: Our common use of moral language shows that moral assessments are really rational judgments, and Hume abuses language by linking moral terms with the spectator's feelings:

When Mr Hume derives moral distinctions from a moral sense, I agree with him in words, but we differ about the meaning of the word sense. Every power to which the name of a sense has been given, is a power of judging of the objects of that sense, and has been accounted such in all ages; the moral sense therefore is the power of judging in morals. But Mr Hume will have the moral sense to be only a power of feeling, without judging: This I take to be an abuse of a word. [Essays on the Active Powers of Man, 5.7]

Reid argues that we all can clearly distinguish between a spectator's report about feelings and his or her rational judgment about an agent's action. And, based on how we in fact use common moral terms, we all clearly understand that moral assessment is a rational judgment, and not a report of feelings. Hume, though, abuses moral language by giving key moral terms an unconventional meaning; specifically, he implicitly defines "moral sense" to mean only a power of feeling, without any rational judgment. Not only does Hume do this with moral sense but, Reid argues, he also does this with the terms "decision," "determination," "approbation," "praise," and several others. So, according to Reid, if Hume had paid attention to how we commonly use moral terms, then he would have seen that moral assessment is a rational judgment, and not a report about feelings.

But if Reid is correct that common language is so clear about moral assessment, then how did Hume manage to even get his theory published? According to Reid, Hume plays a trick with language by carefully selecting specific terms, such as "approval," that in English commonly involve both a rational judgment and an emotional reaction. So, if Hume says, "Moral assessment only involves a spectator's approval," we initially agree, since our common notion of approval has a rational component. However, Hume then pulls the wool over our eyes by explaining that "approval" means only that a spectator feels pleasure. We agree with this, too, since our common notion of "approval" also has an emotional component. As logicians say, Hume equivocates on the term "approval" by secretly playing off two meanings of a single word.

For the sake of argument, let's grant Reid's point that Hume equivocates on key moral terms such as "approval" when Hume claims that moral assessments are only reports of feelings. However, we can accuse Reid and other moral rationalists of doing the same thing. As Reid himself notes, the common meaning of the word "approval" includes both a rational and an emotional component. When Reid and others emphasize the rational component of moral approval, they then ignore the built-in emotional component of this term. Even the term "judgment" has an emotional component in common language. For example, when I "judge" that an apple does not taste as good as an orange, or that the blue curtains do not look as nice as the green curtains, these clearly involve emotional reactions. Almost any similar term that we use for moral assessment will include an emotional component. In our common moral discourse, we rarely use purely rational terms such as "deduce", such as, "I deduce that it is wrong for Smith to kill Jones." Instead, we select terms that have both an emotional and a rational component. So, our common moral language in fact indicates that moral assessment is not purely a matter of rational judgment but also involves an emotional response.

In short, although Reid attacks Hume for restricting moral approval to a spectator's emotions, at best Reid shows only that there is some rational component to morality along with an emotional component. And it is not clear from Reid's observations whether reason or emotion play the dominant role. Perhaps reason plays only a secondary role as a "slave of the passions" just as Hume suggests. Common language alone will not settle this.

Reid's Second Criticism: Reporting Feelings Differs from Approving

Reid's second argument against Hume is that reporting my feelings about an agent's conduct is not logically equivalent to my approving of an agent's conduct. To make his point, Reid asks us to compare two statements such as these:

1. I (the spectator) approve of an agent's conduct.

2. An agent's conduct gave me (the spectator) an agreeable feeling.

According to Hume's theory, these two statements are essentially the same since my approval of an agent's conduct is identical to a specific agreeable feeling that I experience. However, contrary to Hume, Reid argues that the two statements are not at all the same. The first expresses an assessment about the agent, whereas the second merely testifies that the spectator had a feeling. This difference becomes more apparent when we examine the logical relation between the two statements, as Reid describes here:

The first [statement] may be contradicted without any ground of offence, such contradiction being only a difference of opinion, which, to a reasonable man, gives no offence. But the second speech cannot be contradicted without an affront; for, as every man must know his own feelings, to deny that a man had a feeling which he affirms he had, is to charge him with falsehood. [Essays on the Active Powers of Man, 5.7]

Suppose, Reid suggests, that we negate the first sentence and at the same time assert the second:

1. It is not the case that I approve of an agent's conduct.

2. An agent's conduct gave me an agreeable feeling.

If Hume's theory is correct, then we would contradict ourselves if we asserted these two statements at the same time. For Reid, however, it is totally plausible that I could disapprove of an agent's conduct yet at the same time have an agreeable feeling about that agent's conduct. Take Robin Hood, for example, who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. I may disapprove of the fact that he stole, but I may still feel good about Robin Hood's actions if I sympathize with the plight of the poor. So, although Hume believes that statements 1 and 2 are identical, according to Reid they really are not identical since we can meaningfully deny statement 1 even while asserting statement 2.

How might Hume respond? Reid poses a genuine problem that pushes Hume's theory to its limits. If we analyze the Robin Hood case in more detail, we can see precisely how the problem arises. In this situation, Robin Hood is the agent who steals from the rich with the intention of giving to the poor. I am the spectator who feels either pleasure or pain in sympathy with the receivers. Who, though, are the receivers? In this case there are two groups of receivers: the rich and the poor. The rich are victims of Robin Hood's thievery, and the poor are beneficiaries of his benevolence. This explains why I can disapprove of Robin Hood's conduct (on behalf of the rich) yet also feel good about it (on behalf of the poor). To be more precise, then, we must reword the two apparently contradictory statements as follows:

1. I disapprove of (i.e., feel bad about) Robin Hood's conduct on behalf of the rich.

2. I approve of (i.e., feel good about) Robin Hood's conduct on behalf of the poor.

Strictly speaking, statements 1 and 2 are not logically contradictory, since the laws of logic do not prevent me from having mixed and competing feelings about something. So, once we speak more precisely about the object of our disapproval and the object of our agreeable feelings, the contradiction disappears.

Although this solves the apparent logical problem that Reid points out, our solution creates a different problem for Hume. Specifically, we still need to make some definitive moral pronouncement about Robin Hood's conduct: Should we approve of it or disapprove of it? Four options suggest themselves in cases like Robin Hood's, in which a single action has good consequences for one receiver and bad consequences for another receiver:

1. We should side with our feeling of approval (on behalf of the poor).

2. We should side with the feeling of disapproval (on behalf of the rich).

3. We should compare the approval against the disapproval, and side with the strongest one.

4. We should both approve and disapprove of Robin Hood's conduct at the same time.

Hume simply did not address this issue. If we speak on behalf of Hume, though, the best solution seems to be option 3. That is, we should consider all the positive and negative consequences of the agent's action for all receivers affected and then endorse the action if it produces a stronger feeling of approval than disapproval. This would place Hume more in line with classic utilitarian philosophers, which we will look at next.

Bentham's Criticism: Only Utility Matters, not the Agent's Virtues or the Spectator's Feelings

English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was an admirer of Hume. Bentham endorsed social contract theory in his youth but writes that, after reading Hume's account of utility, "I felt as if scales had fallen from my eyes" (A Fragment on Government 1.36). Drawing from Hume's notion of utility, Bentham created his own moral theory, which we now know as "utilitarianism". The problem with Hume's original theory, as Bentham sees it, is that it was too complicated. It unnecessarily drew on the agent's motives and spectator's feelings. As to the spectator's feelings, if you as a spectator, appeal to your feelings as a way of determining morality, then you make right and wrong "just what you please to make them" (Principles, 2.14). According to Bentham, your feelings are too whimsical, and relying on them would make you despotic or dictatorial. Bentham in fact accuses Hume himself of deriving ought from is when using the spectator's moral sense as the standard of morality:

But such is the force of habit and prepossession, after pointing out the cause of error [i.e., deriving ought from is], he continued himself to be led astray by it. On some occasions the principle of utility was recognized by him as the criterion of right and wrong, and in this sense the efficient cause of obligation. But on other occasions the ipse dixit [i.e. self-appointed] principle, under the name of the moral sense, was, with the most inconsistent oscitancy, seated by his own hands on the same throne. [The Rationale of Judicial Evidence, Book 1, Chapter 7]

To Bentham's way of thinking, the moral spectator's sympathetic feeling of pleasure is a psychological fact ("is"), which Hume then transforms into the source of moral obligation ("ought").

As to the agent's motives, Bentham rejects the relevance of agent's virtues and vices in moral decision making. Virtues, according to Bentham, have no intrinsic worth by themselves, but are only valuable to the extent that they promote happiness or prevent pain. He accuses Hume of just inventing what he thinks should count as a virtue or a vice, without a direct appeal to pleasure and pain:

Hume occupies a pulpit whence he deals out his moral dogmas, and speaks as if he were the representative of higher virtues than the man to whom he is speaking. When he gives no examples, it is mere idle trumpetting, tantarara and fiddle-de- dee. He draws no intelligible distinctions between pleasure, passion, and pain: he makes distinctions where there are no differences, and dreams of settling moral points by phrases, such as ' It is becoming,' which are the mere sic volo [i.e., "thus I command"] despotism of an instructor. [Deontology, Ch. 16]

One such useless distinction, according to Bentham, is Hume's division of virtues between the "useful" and "agreeable". In fairness to Hume, a close look at his theory shows that he does attempt to tie all the virtues to pleasure, it's just that he does so through the complex moral psychology that we've discussed above. For Bentham, though, that is still too indirect and leaves too much room for the moralist to despotically pronounce which character traits are virtuous. Rather, we should only use pleasure as the immediate criterion for determining what counts as a virtue. British philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806 1873) also makes a clear argument for rejecting considerations of the agent's mental dispositions:

It is often affirmed that utilitarianism renders men cold and unsympathizing; that it chills their moral feelings toward individuals; that it makes them regard only the dry and hard considerations of the consequences of actions, not taking into their moral estimate the qualities from which those actions estimate [I answer that] These considerations are relevant, not to the estimation of actions, but of persons . . . . [Utilitarianism, 2]

According to Mill, an act is not made right simply because it is performed by someone who has a noble character trait. Instead, it is only the consequences of an act that make it right or wrong.

Bentham concludes his critique of Hume stating that "Pleasure and pain are the only clues for unravelling the mysteries of morality. Fly where you will, fumble about as you please, no other master key shall you find, to open all the doors which lead into the temple of truth" (Ibid.). According to the utilitarianism of both Bentham and Mill, the only things that matter in morality are the consequences of an agent's action on the receiver. The agent's character traits are not themselves foundational to morality, and neither are the spectator's feelings. In essence, utilitarians have snipped off both the agent and the spectator components of Hume's system, leaving only the pleasing and painful consequences as they affect receivers. For utilitarians, we muddle the process of moral judgments when emphasizing the mental states of agents and spectators, the most objective procedure is simply to inspect the balance of pleasure and pain as affects all receivers. The outcome of this inspection then will constitute our moral judgment. This involves only a little observation and a little calculation, which anyone can do objectively. It is roughly the same kind of empirical assessment that I make when I say, for example, that "Smith has more hair on his head than Jones has on his head."

So, where Bentham and Mill right? Maybe not, for time seems to have vindicated Hume in the face of utilitarian efforts to eliminate the roles of agent and spectator from moral theories. In recent years, many moral philosophers have come to the defense of virtue theory, a theory that stresses the importance of the agent's character traits in moral assessment. For virtue theorists, when we judge people's actions, we in fact make pronouncements against their habitual traits, along with all the social history that contributed to forming those traits. Similarly, contemporary philosophers of language maintain that the role of the spectator is central to understanding the meaning of moral assessments. Some philosophers go so far as to say that morality involves only a consideration of the spectator's emotional response to a given situation. The genius of Hume's theory is that it links together the views of the virtue theorist concerning the agent, the utilitarian concerning the receiver, and the language philosopher concerning the spectator.

LINGERING ISSUES WITH HUME'S THEORY

Hume's theory had in important impact on moral theory that lasts until today. We've just seen how a stripped-down version of it led to the utilitarian theories of Bentham and Mill. Also, Hume's emphasis on the spectator's feelings of moral approval inspired the twentieth-century moral theory of emotivism, which we will explore in a later chapter. Yet another lasting impact of his moral theory is his view that we cannot derive ought from is. Today this is sometimes referred to as the "is-ought problem", or the "is-ought gap", or the "fact-value distinction", and we will consider some more recent discussions of this next.

Solutions to the Is-Ought Problem

As we've seen, the is-ought problem is that statements of fact differ in kind from statements of value in such a way that we cannot logically infer a statement of fact from a statement of obligation. For, statements of fact which are based on reason and observation, and can be examined through empirical methods. By contrast, statements of value, such as those of morality and aesthetics, involve judgments that stand apart at least in some important way from the empirical facts surrounding them. Several contemporary philosophers have attempted to meet Hume's challenge and show how we might indeed derive ought from is. We will look at three brief examples.

The first solution is by Richard Mervyn Hare. He agrees with Hume that statements of pure facts will not lead to a moral judgment. However, he argues, not all statements are about pure facts, and they are sometimes embedded with values (Freedom and Reason, 1963). An example from religion will show this clearly. Suppose you say that we all should pray, and as evidence you cite scripture and church authority. Suppose further that you got your facts correct about scripture and church authority on the subject of prayer. What is missing for your argument to work is the unspoken assumption that we want to obey scripture or church authority. It is that hidden value assumption, then, which is the source of the moral recommendation that we should all pray, not the raw facts. A second solution is by John Searle who argues that acts such as promising involve what he calls "institutional facts", where the very act of promising assumes that we ought to do something. When we make promises, for example, we step inside a structure of rules and expectations. Thus, from the institutional fact that "I promised to return your lawnmower", I can derive the statement of value that "I am morally obligated to return your lawnmower" ("How to Derive Ought" from 'Is'" 1964). Third solution is by Philippa Foot argues that evaluative judgments can sometimes emerge from a combination of factual statements even if those statements do not individually contain evaluative terms. Consider the evaluative judgment that "Joe's behavior of wearing a hat is rude". This might follow from a collection of factual statements such as "Joe is attending a funeral", "The funeral is indoors," and "Joe is wearing a hat". ("Moral Arguments", 1967).

All three of these solutions to the is-ought problem share a common strategy by embedding values within the factual context itself that aren't immediately obvious. Hare draws upon implicit value assumptions, Searle upon institutional facts, and Foot upon contextual facts. A multitude of other solutions do something similar. Hume would likely agree with these analyses since they all expose an element of emotion within the facts. Strictly speaking, they are not solutions, but instead they confirm only his point that emotion is needed to generate an obligation that facts by themselves cannot provide.

Hume's discussion of the is-ought problem is not only a concern in moral philosophy, but in the field of sociology as well. Sociologists examine different societies and gather facts about them, including the moral behaviors of such societies, such as polygamy. Traditional sociologists such as Max Weber, took the is-ought problem seriously and maintained that social scientists should just stick to the facts, and not make value judgments about the societies they investigate, such as judging whether a society's adherence to polygamy is a good or bad thing. On this view, social science needs to be a value-free methodology, and interpret the moral conduct of a society as mere group conformity, which remains squarely within the realm of facts. However, in recent years some social scientists reject the is-ought problem, and hold that it is impossible to remove moral norms from observable facts about societies. For example, even describing a society's practice of polygamy requires using concepts like "marriage," "family structure," and "gender roles" that are already loaded with moral assumptions about what these institutions ought to be. The very terminology that we use to describe social facts are shaped by our moral views. In the words of one sociologist, "the idea that the social context can itself be described independently of normative considerations is a fatal illusion" (Davydova, 2003).

REFERENCES

Bentham, Jeremy. A Fragment on Government (1776). Various Editions.

Bentham, Jeremy. Deontology (1834). Various Editions.

Bentham, Jeremy. Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789). Various Editions.

Bentham, Jeremy. The Rationale of Judicial Evidence (1827). Various Editions.

Boswell, James. "An Account of my Last Interview with David Hume, Esq." In Boswell in Extremes 1776 1778. Edited by Charles McC. Weis and Frederick A. Pottle, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1970.

Clarke, Samuel. A Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion. Glasgow: Griffin (1706/1823).

Cooper, Anthony Ashley, Earl of Shaftesbury. Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit (1699). Various Editions.

Davydova, Irina and Wes Sharrock. "The Rise and Fall of the Fact/Value Distinction." The Sociological Review. 2003, Volume 51, Issue 3 p. 357-375

Foot, Philippa. "Moral arguments." Mind 67.268 (1958): 502-513.

Hare, Richard Mervyn. Freedom and Reason. OUP Oxford, 1965.

Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40). Various editions.

Hume, David. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). Various editions.

Hume, David. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779). Various editions.

Hume, David. The Natural History of Religion (1757). Various editions.

Hume, David. "Of National Characters" in Essays, Moral, Political and Literary (1742). Various editions.

Hutcheson, Francis. are from Inquiry Concerning Moral Good and Evil (1725). Various editions.

Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism (1863). Various editions.

Reid, Thomas. Essays on the Active Powers of Man (1788). Various editions.

Searle, John. "How to Derive Ought" from 'Is'." Philosophical Review (1964) 73 (4):512-516.

Smith, Adam. A Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). Various editions.

STUDY QUESTIONS

Please answer all of the following questions.

1. What are Clarke's examples of mathematical relation?

2. What, for Clarke, are the two eternal moral relations?

3. What are the five main points of Clarke's theory?

4. In Hume's first argument against Clarke that reason discovers moral truth, explain Hume's analogy regarding Nero and the young tree.

5. How does the notion of an "intentional action" refute Hume's argument comparing Nero and the young tree?

6. What is Hume's second argument against Clarke's view that reason discovers moral truth?

7. What is meant by the statement "We cannot derive ought from is"?

8. What is Locke's definition of a sense perception?

9. According to Hutcheson, what are the objects and mental perceptions of the moral sense?

10. Describe the roles of the agent, receiver, and spectator in Hume's moral theory.

11. Explain what happens when I (as the spectator) morally approve of your charitable action (as an agent).

12. What does Hume mean by the statement "It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger"?

13. According to Hume, why is morality a purely human phenomenon that has no relation to God?

14. What is Smith's criticism of Hume's theory, and what is the response to this criticism given in the chapter?

15. What is Reid's first criticism of Hume's theory, and what is the response to this criticism given in the chapter?

16. What is Reid's second criticism of Hume's theory, and what is the response to this criticism given in the chapter?

17. What is Bentham's criticism of Hume's theory, and what is the response to this criticism given in the chapter?

18. What reason does Mill give for rejecting the role of the agent's character traits in moral assessments?

19. What is the common strategy used by Hare, Searle and Foot for solving the is-ought problem?

20. How has the field of sociology responded to the is-ought problem?

21. Short essay: pick any one of the following views in this chapter and criticize it in a minimum of 100 words. Clarke: three eternal relations, the self-evidence of moral relations; Hume's criticism of Clarke: the Nero analogy, the aesthetic judgment analogy; Hutcheson's moral sense theory; Hume's view of the roles of agent, receiver, and spectator; Criticisms of Hume by Smith, Reid, or Bentham; current solutions to the is-ought problem.