Chapter 8 - Sympathy and the Sources of Moral Sentiment

Summary

In this chapter, I analyze the connections that Hume draws between utility as a source of merit, the principle of humanity as that which elicits our approval of useful mental qualities and blame for pernicious ones, and the role of reason, both in determining usefulness and in reaching just evaluations of merit or demerit. I contrast this set of connections with another set of moral sentiments that have as their object the immediately agreeable or disagreeable qualities. I reconstruct the argument meant to establish the principle of humanity as the foundation of morality, in part with the aim of showing that the sentiment of humanity gains force through our collective participation in the common point of view from which we form a general standard of virtue.