Page 17 - GALIET THE HEROIC SPECTACLE OF MORALS: Hume IV

Galiet & Galiet
The virtues are distinguished two’s-in-two’s given two criteria:
1. Those related to others or self, and
2. Those appreciated in virtue of a reflection, thought, or lack of it.
That is to say, in regard to their utility or in virtue of their approbation.
Rooted on these moral distinctions, Hume defines personal virtue as:
“every quality of the mind, which is useful or agreeable to the person himself or to others, that communicates a pleasure53 to the spectator, engages his esteem, and is admitted under the honourable denomination of virtue or merit...promoting the interest and happiness of their possessor.”54
Inevitably, just as Nietzsche55 would later reiterate, “celibacy, penance, mortification, self- denial” and the entire procession of monkish virtues are neither agreeable nor useful, “they stupefy and sour the temper... they neither advance one’s fortune nor make one valuable to society nor entertain others nor increases self-jubilation.”56
Self-Love &
(Vice &) Virtue: Indifference vs. Sympathy. Hume links the Wolf and Serpent to
the Dove. Given the aforementioned understandings, Hume proceeds to relate self-love to both vice and virtue. The bond between negative self-interest and vice, concludes Hume, generally results in socio-moral indifference when removed from the principle of humanity,57 while the liaison between positive self-interest and virtue, never removed from humanity’s principle, always ends in socio-moral deference and impact. A constant moral mirror or “analogy exists, posits Hume, amid sentiments of positive self-love-approbation-
53 For Hume, the distinction between these sentiments is so great and evident (self-interest and public interest) that language has to mould them, inventing terms to express universal sentiments of censure or approbation arising from humanity, social utility and its contrary [self-interest]. Hence, Virtue and vice are known, morals recognized, universal ideas are framed as to human conduct. This conforms to abstract rule (reason), that other, sentiment and taste. Ibid. Section 223. 98
54 Ibid. Section 227. 100
55 Nietzsche. The Genealogy of Morals. Essay III. The Ascetic Priest. Trans. Douglas Smith. USA: Oxford University Press, 1996.
56 9.3. Conclusion.
57 Hume gives an example of himself being flattered by praise and mortified by contempt of others.
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