Page 10 - GALIET THE HEROIC SPECTACLE OF MORALS: Hume IV

Galiet & Galiet
No to Socially-Conditioned Origins. Hume dissects. By observing our natural tendencies and distinguishing the four main causes of moral approval according to useful or agreeable qualities for oneself or others, Hume points out that, beginning from the obvious utility of social virtues such as justice, integrity and honesty, the skeptical philosophers, ancient and modern, affirmed that the origin of moral distinctions arose, first, from education;11 second, from education-fomenting politicians who wished to subdue people’s natural selfishness and aggressiveness;12 and third, from the necessity to enable human beings to live in society.13 Highly criticical that these causal accounts neglect natural sentiments of sympathy and affection, Hume rejects in great part, the education hypothesis.14
Yes to Language. Hume appeals. Pondering whether affection is self-love or something else,15 Hume appeals to language’s binarism to deduce a natural rather than a conventional origin of morals. “Had nature made no such distinction, founded on the original constitution of the mind, the words honourable and shameful, lovely and odious, noble and despicable, had never had place in any language.”16 It would have been equally impossible, he adds, for politicians to have made them citizen-friendly had they invented these distinctions themselves.17 Supposing it established, then, that the social virtues are favored for their utility, independent of education and the exaltation by authorities, Hume deduces that these virtues “must be allowed to have a natural beauty and amiableness, which, at first, antecedent to all precept or education, recommends them to the esteem of uninstructed mankind and engages their affections.”18 From this observation, it follows that social utility, the end to which all social virtues aspire towards, gains our natural approbation and affection: they delight us regardless whether they be motivated by egoism or altruism.
11 Ibid. 5.3.
12 Ibid. 5.4.
13 Ibid. 5.4.
14 Ibid. 5.4. Yet Hume remain deeply aware that the influence of education in fomenting moral distinctions cannot be fully denied
15 Ibid. 5.4.
16 Ibid. 5.3.
17 Ibid. 5.3.
18 Virtue Ethics. 5. 68
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