An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals Morality and Ethics

Here we have it folks—the perfect summary of Hume's moral theory. Hume isn't down on facts and reason, he just thinks that we use both our head and our heart when making moral judgments. Reason is cool and clinical, which is fine (it never did Sherlock Holmes any harm, right?), but it's our natural sentiment that spurs us on and shapes our ideas about what's right and good.

So, imagine what it would be like if we didn't use sentiment in our moral judgments. Could we even make moral judgments? Hume suggests that we could discuss morality in theory but it would be detached from real life. In other words, it'd be pretty much useless. It's only when we feel a reaction to virtues/vices that morality comes to life.

Some philosophers (especially religious ones) may believe that self-denial is a virtue. Even outside philosophy, people sometimes admire those who embark on periods of fasting, silence, or solitude. Hume, however, isn't on board with this idea. In his eyes, these things aren't useful or agreeable to anyone, so how can they be virtues? Hello?

We shouldn't overlook the importance of reason, as it helps us size up whether something's useful or harmful. But what next? If we only used reason then we'd be like robots—we wouldn't feel anything and wouldn't care about anything. This is hardly the ideal way to view humanity, and that's why sentiment is so important: it gives us our motivation.

When we're calculating a sum, we're dealing with hard facts and our answer is either right or wrong. Some folks have acted as though we can take the same approach to morality, but Hume sees this as a big no-no. Morality is way more complex and doesn't always stay the same in different eras and places. There are no grey areas in math but philosophy's a whole different ball game.

Here, Hume recaps and builds on his main ideas. He's already argued that morality is a matter of sentiment (rather than reason alone) and that virtue is swell; now, we need to look at real-life examples. By doing this, we can come up with some more general thoughts and remarks on the wide world of morality.

This quote highlights why we need start out by getting the facts. In any criminal case, it's important to try to find out exactly what went down rather than be ruled by our emotions. But once we've done that, there's no more to understand: intellectual inquiry hits a brick wall and our sense of humanity comes to the rescue.

Hume takes a moment here to show how reason can only go so far. If we ask someone why they exercise and they tell us it's for health reasons, that's our question answered. But if we start asking why they want to be healthy and why they hate pain, they're gonna struggle to answer (and get pretty cheesed off). C'mon, you don't have to be Einstein to see that hating pain is a natural response—not an intellectual thing.

Reason and taste work in different ways, with reason giving us the lowdown on what's true/false and taste guiding our overall moral outlook. Reason focuses on things as they are but taste brings something new to the table. Hume conjures up the image of a paint brush sweeping across the landscape, adding color to the world. Like a finished artwork, sentiment builds on reason to create something new.

Okay, so we know there are virtues and vices, but are there different kinds of virtues and vices? Hume's answer is a definite "yep." Take virtues: some varieties are useful to society and are valued because of this. By using the heading "social virtues" for this category, Hume gives us a heads-up that there are other kinds of virtue worth checking out, too. Makes sense, right?