Page 13 - GALIET THE HEROIC SPECTACLE OF MORALS: Hume IV

Galiet & Galiet
The Wolf, The Serpent & The Dove
“He must be more or less than man who kindles not in the common blaze.”27
“One man’s ambition is not another’s ambition, nor will the same event or object satisfy both; but the humanity of one man is the humanity of every one, and the same object touches this passion in all human creatures.28
Then I ask, if every object is generally the source of pleasure or pain (in any degree), every object does not give rise to approbation or blame; and the number of things and situations are morally indifferent.
ACT II. Self-Love.and.Virtue: Milonga
Self-Love’s Contradiction: Moral Indifference. Hume strikes. Experience, Hume claims, allows us to distinguish between moral pleasure and pain by any particular trait. “Tis only when a character is considered in general, without reference to our particular interest, that it causes such a feeling or sentiment, as denominates it morally good or evil,”29 says Hume. Only as impartial spectators, we can thus approve of our enemy’s courage. The sole spectacle of his heroism sparks pleasure before we even reflect on his virtue’s consequences. “The pleasures are different,”30 says Hume, neglecting to explain differently or to debate this point. Hence, reason imparts this view that we are not morally indifferent to our heroic enemy even when self-love is morally indifferent. Why? Because the heroic enemy’s moral valuation depends on impartial, universal, common sentiments triggered by the principle of humanity.
Negative Self-Love or Self-Interest. Hume lays open the wolf and the serpent. For Hume, only negative self-love is morally indifferent: it does not engage widespread approbation or blame. On one hand, Hume excludes from his comprehensive moral-origin theory all negative (and vulgarly-joined) self-loving passions and labels, such as enemy,
27 Virtue Ethics. Section 224. 96-97 28 Virtue Ethics. Section 222. 97
29 Hume. Treatise. III, I, 2
30 Hume. Treatise. III, I, 2
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