Page 16 - GALIET THE HEROIC SPECTACLE OF MORALS: Hume IV

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displays a sublimity and daring confidence exciting the admiration and sympathy of every spectator.47 Likewise, the sublime spectacle of philosophical serenity belongs to same class of virtue as courage. The sage elevates himself above every accident of life,48 scorning frivolous pursuits of honor, reputation and riches. Similarly, the pure and enjoyable spectacle of benevolence, causing a considerable part of universal esteem, fondness, love and friendship, promotes social utility and social good.49
On Virtue (& Vice). Hume tests, catharts at the Dionysia and defines. For Hume, all moral judgment is fundamentally aesthetic: a character-trait verdict. Hume’s enquiries show that while symmetry and decorum are agreeable, their contraries are disagreeable to spectators. At mind at heart, then, our approbation makes P virtuous, and our disapprobation P vicious. Yet, Hume clarifies this order of events. “We don’t infer a character to be virtuous because it pleases: but in feeling that it pleases after such a particular manner, we in effect feel that it is virtuous.”50 Moral distinctions, thus deciphered in Hume’s most audacious and fabled thesis, are not derived from reason51 alone, but also from standards of sentiment and taste 3⁄4 that “general sentiment of blame or approbation” that inclines “to the objects of the one and aversion to those of the other.”52 In Hume’s moral spectacle, consequently, one can distinguish four types of virtues:
Those That:
1. Concur with public utility
2. Serve private utility
3. Immediately please ourselves
4. Immediately please others
47 Thus, Demosthenes praises Philip’s noble valour, the Mars-driven Romans declare courage a virtue, and the Scythians feel pride for their brave scalping carnage. Courage is most celebrated in uncivilized nations where notions of benevolence, justice and social virtues are not fully developed.
48 Ibid. Section 206. 84
49 Ibid. Section 207. 85
50 Hume. Treatise. 471
51 Hume shares the Aristotelian view that reason controls and orders our passions and emotions. Hume fuses intellect and desire, since reason makes fine distinctions. Hence, Hume is not necessarily an irrationalist or emotivist. Nietzsche goes a step further, he declares that reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions.
52 Virtue Ethics. Section 220. 96
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