Element contents
Series: Elements in Ethics
Hume on the Nature of Morality
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 January 2022
Summary
David Hume's moral system involves considerations that seem at odds with one another. He insists on the reality of moral distinctions, while showing that they are founded on the human constitution. He notes the importance to morality of the consequences of actions, while emphasizing that motives are the subjects of moral judgments. He appeals to facts about human psychology as the basis for an argument that morality is founded, not on reason, but on sentiment. Yet, he insists that no “ought” can follow from an “is.” He thinks that our motivation to justice must derive from our nature. Yet, he wonders how to explain why anyone would be motivated to follow rules when doing so does not further their personal interests. As an empiricist, his approach is descriptive, yet morality is prescriptive. This Element addresses these puzzles in Hume's moral theory, with reference to historical and contemporary discussions.
- Type
- Element
- Information
- Series: Elements in EthicsOnline ISBN: 9781108587952Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication: 10 February 2022
References
Ainslie, Donald C. (1999). Scepticism about Persons in Book II of Hume’s Treatise. Journal of the History of Philosophy 37:3, 469–92.Google Scholar
Ainslie, Donald C. (2015). Hume’s True Skepticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Árdal, Páll (1966). Passions and Value in Hume’s Treatise. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Baier, Annette (1991). A Progress of Sentiments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Baier, Annette (2010a). The Cautious Jealous Virtue: Hume on Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Baier, Annette (2010b). Hume’s Own “Ought” Conclusions. In Pigden, Charles, ed., Hume on Is and Ought. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 49–64.Google Scholar
Barnes, Winston Herbert Frederick (1933). A Suggestion about Value. Analysis 1, 45–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bentham, Jeremy (1776). A Fragment on Government. In Fieser, James, ed., Early Responses to Hume’s Moral, Political and Literary Writings, vol. 1. Bristol, UK: Bloomsbury, 2005, 151–52.Google Scholar
Bentham, Jeremy (1789/1823). An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907.Google Scholar
Bentham, Jeremy (1827). The Rationale of Judicial Evidence. In Fieser, James, ed., Early Responses to Hume’s Moral, Political and Literary Writings, vol. 1. Bristol, UK: Bloomsbury, 2005, 303.Google Scholar
Besser-Jones, Lorraine (2006). The Role of Justice in Hume’s Theory of Psychological Development. Hume Studies 32:2, 253–76.Google Scholar
Black, Max (1964). The Gap between “Is” and “Should.” Philosophical Review 73:2, 165–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blair, Robert James, R., Peschardt, Karina S., Salima Budhani, Derek G. Mitchell, V., and Pine, David S. (2006). The Development of Psychopathy. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 47:3/4, 262–75.Google Scholar
Boyle, Deborah (2019). Hume and Animal Ethics. In Coventry, Angela M. and Sager, Alexander, eds., The Humean Mind. Oxford and New York: Routledge, 470–80.Google Scholar
Brown, Charlotte (2001). Is the General Point of View the Moral Point of View? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 42:1, 197–203.Google Scholar
Buckle, Stephen (1991). Natural Law and the Theory of Property: Grotius to Hume. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Buckle, Stephen (2001). Hume’s Enlightenment Tract: The Unity and Purpose of an Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Butler, Joseph (1726). Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel. London: J. and J. Knapton.Google Scholar
Clarke, Samuel (1706). A Discourse concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion. In Selby-Bigge, Lewis Amherst, ed., The British Moralists, vol. II. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897, 482–525.Google Scholar
Clarke, Samuel (1724). The Government of Passion, A Sermon Preach’d before the Queen, at St. James Chapel, on Sunday the 7th of January, 1710–11. In XVII Sermons on Several Occasions. London: printed by William Botham, for James Knapton.Google Scholar
Cohon, Rachel (1997). Hume’s Difficulty with the Virtue of Honesty. Hume Studies 23:1, 91–112.Google Scholar
Cohon, Rachel (2008a). Hume’s Indirect Passions. In Radcliffe, Elizabeth, ed., A Companion to Hume. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 159–84.Google Scholar
Cohon, Rachel (2008b). Hume’s Morality: Feeling and Fabrication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Costelloe, Timothy M. (2018). The Imagination in Hume’s Philosophy: The Canvas of the Mind. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Coventry, Angela and Hiller, Avram (2014). Hume on Animals and the Rest of Nature. In Hadley, John and Aaltola, Elisa, eds., Animal Ethics and Philosophy: Questioning the Orthodoxy. London and New York: Rowman & Littlefield International, 165–84.Google Scholar
Cudworth, Ralph (1731/1838). A Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality with a Treatise of Freewill. Hutton, Sarah, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
D’Arms, Justin (2005). Two Arguments for Sentimentalism. Philosophical Issues 15, 1–21.Google Scholar
Dodge, Kenneth A., Pettit, Gregory S., Bates, John E., and Valente, Ernest (1995). Social Information-Processing Patterns Partially Mediate the Effect of Early Physical Abuse on Later Conduct Problems. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 104, 632–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Driver, Julia (2004). Pleasure as the Standard of Virtue in Hume’s Moral Philosophy. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 85, 173–94.Google Scholar
Eze, Emmanuel Chukwudi (2000). Hume, Race, and Human Nature. Journal of the History of Ideas 61:4, 691–98.Google Scholar
Farrington, David P. and Loeber, Rolf (2000). Epidemiology of Juvenile Violence. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Clinics of North America 9, 733–48.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Foot, Philippa (1978). Hume on Moral Judgment. In Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 74–80.Google Scholar
Freeman, Samuel (2007). Foreword to John Rawls, Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy. Freeman, Samuel, ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Garrett, Don (1997). Cognition and Commitment in Hume’s Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Don (2007). The First Motive to Justice: Hume’s Circle Argument Squared. Hume Studies 33: 2, 257–88.Google Scholar
Gauther, David (1979). David Hume, Contractarian. Philosophical Review 88:1, 3–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gauthier, David (1992). Artificial Virtue and the Sensible Knave. Hume Studies 18:2, 401–28.Google Scholar
Greco, Lorenzo (2013). Toward a Humean Virtue Ethics. In Peters, Julia, ed., Aristotelian Ethics in Contemporary Perspective. New York: Routledge, 210–23.Google Scholar
Greco, Lorenzo (2015). The Self as Narrative in Hume. Journal of the History of Philosophy 53:4, 699–722 (esp. section 7).Google Scholar
Haakonssen, Knud (1981). The Science of a Legislator: The Natural Jurisprudence of David Hume and Adam Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Harris, James A. (2010). Hume on the Moral Obligation to Justice. Hume Studies 36:1, 25–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, James A. (2015). Hume: An Intellectual Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henry, John (1986). Occult Qualities and the Experimental Philosophy: Active Principles in Pre-Newtonian Matter Theory. History of Science 24:4, 335–81.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas (1651). Leviathan. Gaskin, John Charles Addison, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Homiak, Marcia (2000). Hume’s Ethics: Ancient or Modern? Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 81:3, 215–36.Google Scholar
Hume, David (1739–40). A Treatise of Human Nature. Norton, David Fate and Norton, Mary J., eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Hume, David (1748). Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Beauchamp, Tom L., ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Hume, David (1752). An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals. Beauchamp, Tom L., ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Hume, David (1777). Essays, Moral, Political, Literary. Miller, Eugene F., ed. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987.Google Scholar
Hume, David (1779). Dialogues concerning Natural Religion and Other Writings. Coleman, Dorothy P., ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Hutcheson, Francis (1725). An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue. Revised ed. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2008.Google Scholar
Kail, Peter J. E. (2007). Projection and Realism in Hume’s Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kames, Lord (Home, Henry ) (1751). Essay on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion. Second revised ed., 1779. In Fieser, James, ed., Early Responses to Hume’s Moral, Political and Literary Writings, vol. 1. Bristol, UK: Bloomsbury, 2005, 11–26.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine M. (1996). The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine M. (1999). The General Point of View: Love and Moral Approval in Hume’s Ethics. Hume Studies 25, 3–41.Google Scholar
Kroeker, Esther Engels and Lemmens, Willem, eds. (2021). Hume’s An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals: A Critical Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair (1959). Hume on “Is” and “Ought.” Philosophical Review 68, 451–68.Google Scholar
Mandeville, Bernard (1714). The Fable of the Bees: Or Private Vices, Public Benefits. 2 vols. Kaye, Frederick Benjamin, ed. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1988.Google Scholar
McCloskey, Laura Ann, Aurelio Figueredo, Jose, and Koss, Mary P. (1995). The Effects of Systemic Family Violence on Children’s Mental Health. Child Development 66, 1239–61.Google Scholar
McIntyre, Jane (1989). Personal Identity and the Passions. Journal of the History of Philosophy 27:4, 545–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McIntyre, Jane (1990). Character: A Humean Account. History of Philosophy Quarterly 7:2, 193–206.Google Scholar
Miller, Laurie S., Wasserman, Gail A., Neugebauer, Richard, Gorman-Smith, Deborah, and Kamboukos, Dimitra (1999). Witnessed Community Violence and Antisocial Behavior in High-Risk, Urban Boys. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology 28, 2–11.Google Scholar
Charles Kay, Ogden and Richards, Ivor Armstrong (1923). The Meaning of Meaning. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Owen, David (2016). Reason, Belief, and the Passions. In Russell, Paul, ed., The Oxford Handbook of David Hume. New York: Oxford University Press, 333–55.Google Scholar
Passmore, John A. (1951). Ralph Cudworth: An Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pigden, Charles (2009). If Not Non-Cognitivism, Then What? In Pigden, Charles, ed., Hume on Motivation and Virtue. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 80–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitson, Tony (2003). Hume on Morals and Animals. British Journal for the History of Philosophy 11:4, 639–55.Google Scholar
Plato, Euthyphro (c. 399–395 bc). Trans. Grube, George Maximilian Antony. In Cooper, John, ed., Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 1997, 1–16.Google Scholar
Popkin, Richard H. (1978). Did Hume or Rousseau Influence the Other? Revue Internationale De Philosophie 32:124/125 (2/3), 297–308.Google Scholar
Popkin, Richard H. (1992). Hume’s Racism Reconsidered. In Watson, Richard and Forces, James, eds., The Third Force in Seventeenth Century Thought. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 64–74.Google Scholar
Prinz, Jesse (2007). The Emotional Construction of Morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Prior, Arthur Norman (1960). The Autonomy of Ethics. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 38, 199–206.Google Scholar
Purnell, Sonia (2019). A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II. New York: Viking.Google Scholar
Radcliffe, Elizabeth S. (1999). Hume on the Generation of Motives: Why Beliefs Alone Never Motivate. Hume Studies 25, 101–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radcliffe, Elizabeth S. (2007). Moral Naturalism and the Possibility of Making Ourselves Better. In Wilburn, Brad, ed., Moral Cultivation. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 101–24.Google Scholar
Radcliffe, Elizabeth S. (2018a). Hume, Passion, and Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Radcliffe, Elizabeth S. (2018b) How Hume Influenced Contemporary Moral Philosophy. In Coventry, Angela and Valls, Andrew, eds., Hume on Morals, Politics and Society. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 265–89.Google Scholar
Radcliffe, Elizabeth S. (2021). The Nature of Morals Founded on the Human Fabric. In Kroeker, Esther Engels and Lemmens, Willem, eds., Hume’s An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals: A Critical Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 13–32.Google Scholar
Reath, Andrews (2012). Kant’s Moral Philosophy. In Crisp, Roger, ed., The Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 443–64.Google Scholar
Reed, Rubert and Richman, Kenneth, eds. (2014). The New Hume Debate. Revised, ed. Oxford: Routledge.Google Scholar
Robison, Wade (2010). Much Obliged. In Pigden, Charles, ed., Hume on Is and Ought. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 65–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, Paul (2008). The Riddle of Hume’s Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sandis, Constantine (2012). Action, Reason, and the Passions. In Bailey, Alan and O’Brien, Dan, eds., The Continuum Companion to Hume. New York: Continuum, 199–213.Google Scholar
Sayre-McCord, Geoffrey (2008). Practical Morality and Inert Reason. In Shafer-Landau, Russ ed., Oxford Studies in Metaethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 299–320.Google Scholar
Schafer, Karl (2014). Curious Virtues in Hume’s Epistemology. Philosophers’ Imprint 14:1, 1–20.Google Scholar
Schwab-Stone, Mary, Chen, Chuangsheng, Greenberger, Ellen, et al. (1999). No Safe Haven II: The Effects of Violence Exposure on Urban Youth. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 38, 359–67.Google Scholar
Sherblom, Stephen A. (2012). What Develops in Moral Development? A Model of Moral Sensibility. Journal of Moral Education 41, 117–42.Google Scholar
Sidgwick, Henry (1892). The Distinction between “Is” and “Ought.” In Marcus Singer, ed., Essays on Ethics and Method. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000, 59–62.Google Scholar
Sinhababu, Neil (2009). The Humean Theory of Motivation Reformulated and Defended. Philosophical Review 118:4, 465–500.Google Scholar
Sinhababu, Neil (2017). Humean Nature: How Desires Explain Action, Thought, and Feeling. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Adam (1759). The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In Fieser, James, ed., Early Responses to Hume’s Moral, Political and Literary Writings, vol. 1. Bristol, UK: Bloomsbury, 2005.Google Scholar
Sobel, Jordon Howard (1997). Hume’s Utilitarian Theory of Right Action. Philosophical Quarterly 47:186, 55–72.Google Scholar
Strawson, Galen (2011). The Evident Connexion: Hume on Personal Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sturgeon, Nicholas (1976). Nature and Conscience in Butler’s Ethics. Philosophical Review 85:3, 316–56.Google Scholar
Sturgeon, Nicholas (2001). Moral Skepticism and Moral Naturalism in Hume’s Treatise. Hume Studies 27, 3–83.Google Scholar
Sturgeon, Nicholas (2008). Hume’s Metaethics: Is Hume a Moral Noncognitivist? In Radcliffe, Elizabeth S., ed., A Companion to Hume. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 513–28.Google Scholar
Swanton, Christine (2007). Can Hume Be Read as a Virtue Ethicist? Hume Studies 33, 91–113.Google Scholar
Swanton, Christine (2015). The Virtue Ethics of Hume and Nietzsche. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Taylor, Jacqueline (2006). Virtue and the Evaluation of Character. In Traiger, Saul, ed., Blackwell Guide to Hume’s Treatise. Oxford: Blackwell, 276–95.Google Scholar
Taylor, Jacqueline (2008). Hume’s Later Moral Philosophy. In Norton, David Fate and Taylor, Jacqueline, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Hume. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 311–40.Google Scholar
Taylor, Jacqueline (2015). Reflecting Subjects: Sympathy and Society in Hume’s Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Jacqueline, ed. (2020). Reading Hume on the Principles of Morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Valls, Andrew (2005). “A Lousy Empirical Scientist”: Reconsidering Hume’s Racism. In Valls, Andrew, ed., Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 127–49.Google Scholar
Mark, van Roojen (2018). Moral Cognitivism vs. Non-Cognitivism. In Zalta, Edward N., ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/moral-cognitivism/.Google Scholar
Watkins, Margaret (2013). A Cruel but Ancient Subjugation? Understanding Hume’s Attack on Slavery. Hume Studies 39:1, 103–21.Google Scholar
Watkins, Margaret (2017). “Slaves Among Us”: The Climate and Character of Eighteenth-Century Philosophical Discussions of Slavery. Philosophy Compass 12:1, e12393.Google Scholar
Watkins, Margaret (2019). The Philosophical Progress of Hume’s Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tate, Watkins, Margaret, (2005). Obligation, Justice, and the Will in Hume’s Moral Philosophy. Hume Studies 31:1, 93–122.Google Scholar
Widom, Cathy Spatz (1992). The Cycle of Violence. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard (1979). Internal and External Reasons. In Harrison, Ross, ed., Rational Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 17–28. Reprinted in Bernard Williams, Moral Luck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981, 101–13.Google Scholar
Willis, Andre (2016). The Impact of David Hume’s Thoughts about Race for His Stance on Slavery and His Concept of Religion. Hume Studies 42, 213–39.Google Scholar
Wright, John (1983). The Sceptical Realism of David Hume. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press.Google Scholar
- 10
- Cited by