Page 11 - GALIET THE HEROIC SPECTACLE OF MORALS: Hume IV

Galiet & Galiet
No to Egoism. Hume sketches and denies. Playing with a Hobbessian like deduction of morals, Hume asserts that the principle of self-love or egoism, as the natural foundation of morals, arises from our impossibility to subsist in isolation due to our strong private-public interdependence. Egoism necessarily demands, he argues, that the only pillars of social organization, justice and humanitarism, be approved in the same measure we esteem our own welfare and happiness. Although morality’s deduction from self- interest seems obvious, nature and experience, claims Hume, contradict this theory.
Attack on Hobbes & Mandeville. Hume spits. By refuting egoism’s theory, Hume attacks Hobbes’ and Mandeville’s ideologies. Because pure egoism motivates all actions, reproaches Hume, all egoism-and-altruism distinctions are mere illusions:19
“Every benevolence is a mere hypocrisy; friendship is a deception; the civic spirit is a farse; fidelity is a trick to procure security and trust; and that, though, deeply, every one of us ultimately follows his own private interests, we wear these amiable customs so that others, having their guard down, be more exposed to our manipulations and machinations.”20
Then I ask whether Hobbes denies the principle of humanity or benevolence in Hume’s sense, or merely deems it inconsequential? A just man, for Hobbes, is one who acts justly: that is, one whose actions endeavor to “a certain nobleness or [that rare] gallantness of courage” that rejects the profit or contentment that “fraud or breach of promise” gains.21 In this sense, justice becomes a virtue, and injustice a vice. E.M. Curley declares that Hobbes neither denies that benevolent actions exist nor that they are ‘always driven by ulterior motives,’ though Hobbes is inclined to view “self-interest in any act of charity,”22 he adds.
19 Baillie, J. Hume on Morality. Routledge London, 2000. 145-147
20 Hume, David. Op. Cit. 185.
21 Hobbes. Leviathan. XV. 10. Also compare the following definition: “We see that all men mean by justice that kind of state of character which makes people disposed to do what is just and makes them act justly and wish for what is just...” (Leviathan, V.1) with Aristotle’s: “The man who does not rejoice in noble actions is not even good; since no one would call a man just who did not enjoy acting justly...” (Nichomachean Ethics I.8). Hobbes. Leviathan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
22 Curley, Introduction XV. “Hobbes’ egoism, then, is more moderate (and more defensible) that it sometimes sounds. The answer seems to lie in his conception of what a scientific treatment of political affairs ought to be. He chooses definitions of ‘voluntary action’ (vi, 53) and ‘good’ (vi,7) intended to make it true by definition that wnenever we act voluntarily we are acting for the sake of (what we take to be) our own good.
•11•