humeDavid Hume’s moral theory is of lasting importance in the history of moral philosophy both for its originality and for its influence on later moral theories. Hume introduced the term “utility” into our moral vocabulary, and his theory is the immediate forerunner to the classic utilitarian views of Bentham and Mill. Hume is famous for the position that we cannot derive ought from is — that is, the view that statements of moral obligation cannot simply be deduced from statements of fact. Some contemporary moral philosophers see Hume as an early proponent of the metaethical view that moral judgments principally express our feelings. What is perhaps less well-known is that Hume’s moral theory is the first in modern philosophy to be completely secular, without reference to God’s will, a divine creative plan, or an afterlife. Hume also directly argues that key moral values are matters of social convention. These views spawned both praise and indignation in writings of commentators over the years.
1. Agent, Receiver, and Spectator in Moral Sense Theories
The details of Hume’s moral theory hinge on a distinction between three psychologically distinct players: the moral agent, the receiver, and the moral spectator. The moral agent is the person who performs an action, such as stealing a car; the receiver is the person affected by the conduct, such as the owner of the stolen car; and the moral spectator is the person who observes and, in this case, disapproves of the agent’s action. This agent-receiver-spectator distinction is the product of earlier moral sense theories championed by Anthony Ashley Cooper, better known as the Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), Joseph Butler (1692-1752), and Francis Hutcheson (1694-1747). Most generally, moral sense theories maintained that humans have a faculty of moral perception, similar to our faculties of sensory perception. Just as our external senses detect qualities in external objects, such as colours and shapes, so too does our moral faculty detect good and bad moral qualities in people and actions. The parallel with sense perception is important since it presupposes two distinct players: an external thing, such as an apple, and a spectator who perceives a quality in that thing, such as the colour red. In the case of moral perception, the two distinct players are the agent who performs an action, and the spectator who perceives the virtuous conduct within the agent.
Shaftesbury clearly compares moral judgments with sense perception, and specifically uses the term “spectator” in reference to the role of the perceiver: “The Mind, which is Spectator or Auditor of other Minds, cannot be without its Eye and Ear…” (Inquiry, 1699). In his second Sermon, Butler also compares a spectator’s moral approval to sense perception. Butler argues further, though, that the psychological factors that motivate an agent’s conduct are not identical with the psychological factors of the spectator’s approval: “These principles, propensions, or instincts which lead people to do good [as agents], are approved of by a certain faculty within [as spectators], quite distinct from these propensions [of the agent] themselves”(Fifteen Sermons, 1726, 2).
Hutcheson pushes the parallel between sense perception and moral judgment even further. For Hutcheson, our external senses involve an object that we perceive, such as an apple, and a mental perception that we form in response, such as the visual image of the apple. Similarly, our moral sense involves an object that we perceive, specifically and agent’s benevolent action, and a mental perception in response, specifically a feeling of pleasure. Like Butler, Hutcheson drives a wedge between the psychological factors behind an agent’s benevolent motivation and the spectator’s sense of approval. We see this distinction in the following, particularly in items two and three; we also see in the following that Hutcheson uses the term “agent” in contrast with the role of the moral observer:
These three Things are to be distinguished, 1. The Idea of the external Motion, known first by Sense, and its tendency to the Happiness or Misery of some sensitive Nature, often inferred by Argument or Reason, which on these Subjects, suggests as invariable eternal or necessary Truths as any whatsoever. 2. Apprehension or Opinion of the Affections in the Agent, inferred by our Reason: So far the Idea of an Action represents something external to the Observer, really existing whether he had perceived it or not, and having a real Tendency to certain Ends. 3. The Perception of Approbation or Disapprobation arising in the Observer, according as the Affections of the Agent are apprehended kind in their just Degree, or deficient, or malicious. [Illustrations Upon the Moral Sense, Sect. 4]In addition to articulating the differing roles of the agent and spectator, Hutcheson also focuses on the people affected by the agent’s conduct. For convenience, the term “receiver” may be used to pick out the affected parties. For Hutcheson, our moral sense focuses on how many receivers are beneficially affected by an agent’s conduct. This comes across clearly in a famous passage in which Hutcheson speaks of “the greatest Happiness for the Greatest Numbers”:
In comparing the moral Qualitys of Actions, in order to regulate our Election among various Actions propos’d, or to find which of them has the greatest moral Excellency, we are led by our moral Sense of Virtue to judge thus; that in equal Degrees of Happiness, expected to proceed from the Action, the Virtue is in proportion to the Number of Persons to whom the Happiness shall extend; … so that, that Action is best, which procures the greatest Happiness for the greatest numbers; and that, worst, which, in like manner, occasions Misery. [An Inquiry Concerning Moral Good and Evil, 1725, Sect. 3.8]Hutcheson continues noting that, when making moral judgments as a spectator, we should compute the consequences of an agent’s conduct upon others.
Within the context of these moral sense theories, Hume developed his own moral theory, relying on the previously established distinction between the agent, receiver, and spectator. This distinction continued after Hume, as we see in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). In describing the process of sympathy in the spectator, Smith makes the following statement, which implicitly distinguishes between the roles of the agent, receiver, and spectator:
It is to be observed, however, that, how beneficial soever on the one hand, or how hurtful soever on the other, the actions or intentions of the person who acts may have been to the person who is, if I may say so, acted upon, yet if in the one case there appears to have been no propriety in the motives of the agent, if we cannot enter into the affections which influenced his conduct, we have little sympathy with the gratitude of the person who receives the benefit: or if, in the other case, there appears to have been no impropriety in the motives of the agent, if, on the contrary, the affections which influenced his conduct are such as we must necessarily enter into, we can have no sort of sympathy with the resentment of the person who suffers. [Theory of Moral Sentiments, 2.1.3]Adam Smith was perhaps the last of the great moral theorists directly influenced by the moral sense tradition. However, later 18th and 19th century commentators on moral sense theory clearly understood the differing psychological roles of the agent, receiver, and spectator. For example, John Bruce notes the agent-spectator distinction with respect to Hutcheson’s theory of morality. According to Bruce, Hutcheson “observed, that virtuous actions not only afford complacency to the actor, but excite love and esteem in the spectator, and that vicious actions have opposite tendencies and effects” (Elements of the Science of Ethics, 1786, pp. 68-69). Reid, in summarising Hume’s view of the moral sentiments, also recognises this division:
As beauty is not a quality of the object, but a certain feeling of the spectator, so virtue and vice are not qualities in the persons to whom language ascribes them [i.e., agents], but feelings of the spectator. [Essays on the Active Powers of Man, 1788, Essay 5.7]In his discussion of Hume’s moral theory, Thomas Brown gives perhaps the clearest account of the differing roles of the agent and the spectator:
In every moral action that can be estimated by us, these two sets of feelings may be taken into account; the feelings of the agent when he meditated and willed the action; and the feelings of the spectator, or of him who calmly contemplates the action at any distance of space or time. [Lectures, 1820, Lect. 77]With the distinctions between the agent, receiver and spectator as background, we can turn to a summary of Hume’s moral theory.
2. Summary of Hume’s Moral Theory
Hume’s moral theory appears in Book 3 of the Treatise of Human Nature (1740) and in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). In both of these works, his theory involves a chain of events that begins with the agent’s action, which impacts the receiver, which in turn is observed by the spectator. To begin with the agent, for Hume, all actions of a moral agent are motivated by character traits, specifically either virtuous or vicious character traits. For example, if you donate money to a charity, then your action is motivated by a virtuous character trait. Hume argues that some virtuous character traits are instinctive or natural, such as benevolence, and others are acquired or artificial, such as justice. As an agent, your action will have an effect on a receiver. For example, if you as the agent give food to a starving person, then the receiver will experience an immediately agreeable feeling from your act. Also, the receiver may see the usefulness of your food donation, insofar as eating food will improve his health. When considering the usefulness of your food donation, then, the receiver will receive another agreeable feeling from your act. Finally, I, as a spectator, observe these agreeable feelings that the receiver experiences. I, then, will sympathetically experience agreeable feelings along with the receiver. These sympathetic feelings of pleasure constitute my moral approval of the original act of charity that you, the agent, perform. By sympathetically experiencing this pleasure, I thereby pronounce your motivating character trait to be a virtue, as opposed to a vice. Suppose, on the other hand, that you as an agent did something to hurt the receiver, such as steal his car. I as the spectator would then sympathetically experience the receiver’s pain and thereby pronounce your motivating character trait to be a vice, as opposed to a virtue.
That, in a nutshell, is Hume’s theory. There are, though, some important details that we should also mention. First, it is tricky to determine whether an agent’s motivating character trait is natural or artificial, and Hume decides this one virtue at a time. For Hume, the natural virtues include benevolence, meekness, charity, and generosity. By contrast, the artificial virtues include justice, keeping promises, allegiance and chastity. Contrary to what one might expect, Hume classes the key virtues that are necessary for a well-ordered state as artificial, and he classes only the more supererogatory virtues as natural. Hume’s critics were quick to point out this paradox. Second, to spark a feeling of moral approval, the spectator does not have to actually witness the effect of an agent’s action upon a receiver. The spectator might simply hear about it, or the spectator might even simply invent an entire scenario and think about the possible effects of hypothetical actions.
Third, although the agent, receiver, and spectator have psychologically distinct roles, in some situations a single person may perform more than one of these roles. For example, if I as an agent donate to charity, as a spectator to my own action I can also sympathise with the effect of my donation on the receiver. Finally, given various combinations of spectators and recipients, Hume concludes that there are four irreducible categories of qualities that exhaustively constitute moral virtue: (1) qualities useful to others, which include benevolence, meekness, charity, justice, fidelity and veracity; (2) qualities useful to oneself, which include industry, perseverance, and patience; (3) qualities immediately agreeable to others, which include wit, eloquence and cleanliness; and (4) qualities immediately agreeable to oneself, which include good humour, self-esteem and pride. For Hume, most morally significant actions seem to fall into more than one of these categories.
3. Hume’s Moral Theory in the Treatise
The first and most detailed account of Hume’s moral theory is in Book 3 of the Treatise, titled “Of Morals.” This Book itself is in three parts, the first of which wrestles with the nature of a spectator’s moral approval. Hume begins Part 1 considering whether moral distinctions are derived from reason. Specifically the question concerns whether our moral approval is (a) a rational judgment about conceptual relations and facts, or (b) an emotional response. Hume believes that it is an emotional response. To make his case he criticises Samuel Clarke’s rationalistic account of morality, which is that we rationally judge the fitness or unfitness of our actions in reference to eternal moral relations. Hume presents several arguments against Clarke’s view, the most famous of which is an argument from arboreal parricide: a young tree that overgrows and kills its parent exhibits the same alleged relations as a human child killing his parent; if morality is a question of relations, then the young tree is immoral, which is absurd. Hume also argues that moral assessments are not judgments about empirical facts; for any immoral action that we examine, we will never find a fact that we call “vice”. In this context Hume makes his point that we cannot deduce statements of obligation from statements of fact. Since moral approval is not a judgment of reason, Hume concludes that it must be an emotional response. Specifically, a spectator’s moral approval is a type of pleasure that we experience when considering an agent’s qualities. Based on his theory of the passions in Book 2 of the Treatise, Hume explains that this pleasure produces additional feelings of love or pride within the spectator.
In Part 2, Hume examines the nature of justice and injustice. He begins arguing that justice is an artificial virtue. For Hume, virtues are the motives that lead to an agent’s action. By examining what motivates us to act in certain ways, we can thereby determine the nature of a virtue, specifically whether it is natural or artificial. As to the nature of justice — particularly justice relating to property ownership — Hume considers some possible natural motivations for justice, such as self-love, public interest, and private benevolence. For various reasons these all fail as explanations and Hume concludes that our sense of justice is not naturally grounded, but artificially derived from education and human convention. Like Hobbes and Pufendorf, Hume describes how our sense of justice emerges within primitive societies and develops within more advanced societies. Hume argues that we depend on society to survive and, being motivated by self-love, we want to advance society. To this end, we train ourselves to respect each other’s acquired possessions and to view the stability of possessions as a necessary means of keeping society intact. Slowly, this gives us a sense of common interest, a regard for rules, and a sense of confidence in the consistent behaviour of others. This process, then, is the basis of justice as well as the notions of property, right, and obligation. Hume notes that single acts of justice are commonly contrary to public good; however, our experiences tell us that the public good is served when we follow justice as a rule.
Hume continues in Part 2 by describing how more complex social rules and institutions develop from our initial sense of justice. The three main rules of justice that emerge are those of the stability of possessions, transference by consent, and performances of promises. Although these rules are inventions, Hume follows the vocabulary of the natural law tradition and refers to these as laws of nature. Governments emerge as tools to both protect us in our agreements and to force us to make some agreements for our common end. Just as we invent the rules of justice to help serve our desire to live in a peaceful society, we also invent the civil duties that constitute political allegiance as well as the international laws of diplomacy. Paralleling the obligations of international law, Hume notes how women’s obligations of chastity emerged. To justify the labour involved in supporting a family, men must believe that their children are their own. To assure this, society imposes rules of chastity on women, and, once established, we rigidly apply the rules even for women past child-bearing age.
In Part 3, Hume discusses the components of natural virtues. Hume implies that purely natural virtues are those that (a) are not artificially instilled in the agent, and (b) are naturally approved of by the spectator. However, he notes that all virtues have the second of these natural components, including artificial virtues such as justice. That is, a spectator is naturally predisposed to sympathetically approve of any course of action that is useful or agreeable to the receiver. From the spectator’s standpoint, the only difference between natural and artificial virtues is that every act arising from natural virtues may bring about a spectator’s sympathetic pleasure. By contrast, acts arising from artificial virtues bring about sympathetic pleasure only to the extent that they reflect a general scheme of advantageous action. Hume continues by describing how we sympathetically approve of all virtues because of either their utility or their immediate agreeableness. He focuses particularly on self-esteem, generosity, and love. He argues that natural abilities, such as genius, wit, and cleanliness, are also virtues since they are either useful or immediately agreeable.
4. Hume’s Moral Theory in the Moral Enquiry
All three volumes of Hume’s Treatise sold poorly. In his autobiography, Hume writes that “I had always entertained a notion, that my want of success in publishing the Treatise of Human Nature, had proceeded more from the manner than the matter, and that I had been guilty of a very usual indiscretion, in going to the press too early.” Hume began composing his moral Enquiry in 1749, with the intention of presenting his theory of morality more informally. The work was published shortly after in 1751 and, in his autobiography, he gives his opinion of the work:
In the same year was published at London, my Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals; which, in my own opinion (who ought not to judge on that subject), is of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best. It came unnoticed and unobserved into the world.Keeping with the emphasis on informality, the work draws heavily on classic literature for examples, and it minimises technical psychological distinctions. Within the moral Enquiry itself, Hume explains the reason for his non-technical approach:
Throughout this enquiry, we always consider in general, what qualities are a subject of praise or of censure, without entering into all the minute differences of sentiment, which they excite. … These sciences are but too apt to appear abstract to common readers, even with all the precautions which we can take to clear them from superfluous speculations, and bring them down to every capacity. [Moral Enquiry, Appendix 4, note]The lack of technical psychological distinctions is perhaps the single feature of the moral Enquiry that differentiates it from Book 3 of the Treatise. The detailed psychological discussions of the Treatise focused on two themes: (1) the moral agent’s psychological motivations to act, and (2) the moral spectator’s sentiments of approval or disapproval. With these components minimised, the unifying and dominating theme in the moral Enquiry is that virtue consists of qualities useful and agreeable to oneself and others.
Section One: Of the General Principles of Morals. Hume argues that a spectator’s moral approval is a feeling, similar to an aesthetic feeling, and not an act of reason, like a mathematical inference. Also, Hume says that he will draw is conclusions about moral virtue by generalising from particular observations.Section Two: Of Benevolence. Hume argues that (1) moral spectators approve of benevolence, and (2) benevolence is approved of because it has utility.
Section Three: Of Justice. Hume argues that (1) justice is approved of because it has utility, and, (2) justice is artificial and not natural.
Section Four: Of Political Society. Hume argues that political allegiance and chastity are approved of because of utility.
Section Five: Why Utility Pleases. Hume argues that a spectator morally approves of useful actions, such as charitable ones, because of the spectator’s ability to sympathise.
Section Six: Of Qualities Useful to Ourselves. Hume lists various actions (or virtues) of an agent that are useful to the agent himself, such as industry, perseverance and patience. In the 1751 edition, Part 2 of this section contained a controversial passage describing the qualities of “those we call good Women’s Men.”
Section Seven: Of Qualities Immediately Agreeable to Ourselves. Hume lists various actions (or virtues) of an agent that are immediately agreeable to the agent himself, such as self-esteem and pride.
Section Eight: Of Qualities Immediately Agreeable to Others. Hume lists various actions (or virtues) of an agent that are immediately agreeable to everyone, such as wit, eloquence and cleanliness.
Section Nine: Conclusion. Hume draws his conclusion that all actions of an agent, which the spectator morally approves of, are useful or agreeable. He also argues that his theory of utility and agreeableness is an easy moral theory to follow.
Appendix One: Concerning Moral Sentiment. Hume argues more strongly that a spectator’s moral approval is a feeling of pleasure, and not a rational judgment about relations of ideas or matters of fact. This appendix was originally the first of only two appendices.
Appendix Two: Of Self-Love. Hume argues against Hobbes, showing that we do not approve of benevolence because of self-interest. This appendix was added in the 1777 edition, the material from that was taken from Section 2, Part 1.
Appendix Three: Some Farther Considerations with regard to Justice. Hume notes some differences between artificial virtues such as justice, and natural virtues such as benevolence. This appendix was originally the second of only two appendices.
Appendix Four: Of Some Verbal Disputes. Critics of Hume’s theory have argued that talents, such as wit, should not be included among virtues such as charity. Hume responds that all virtues are on equal footing since all produce the same type of pleasure (or moral approval) in the spectator. This appendix was added in the 1764 edition, the material from which came from Section 6, Part 1.
A Dialogue. In this fictitious dialogue between a narrator and his cosmopolitan friend, Palamedes, Palamedes discusses moral customs of foreign countries that run contrary to the narrator’s moral customs. Palamedes argues that “fashion, vogue, custom, and law [are] the chief foundation of all moral determinations.”
5. Overview of the Early Responses
The early responses to Hume’s moral theory cover a wide range of issues within his theory. Few if any commentators wrote on Hume’s theory merely for the sake of elucidating Hume’s views in and of themselves. Instead, they analysed and critiqued his theory with an eye towards defending their own visions of morality. By and large, the more interesting responses are those that boldly put forward their vision, even when portraying Hume somewhat inaccurately. The early responses to Hume’s moral theory, then, mirror the history of British moral theory during the 18th and 19th centuries. These theories variously focus on moral concepts including eternal fitness, God’s will, moral sense, selfishness, common sense, utilitarianism, intuition, and evolution.
The very first written response to Hume’s moral theory was probably a letter written to Hume by Francis Hutcheson in reaction to Hume’s manuscript draft of Book 3. Hutcheson’s letter does not survive, but from Hume’s letter of reply, which does survive, we can make out three distinct criticisms. First, Hutcheson argued that Hume’s theory “wants a certain Warmth in the Cause of Virtue”; that is, Hume’s analysis was too technical. Second, Hutcheson challenged Hume’s position that justice is artificial. Instead, Hutcheson suggested that justice is natural in the sense that it serves a human purpose or end. Third, Hutcheson criticised Hume for classifying many qualities of an agent as virtues which, instead, should be classified as natural abilities, such as wit.
After Book 3 of the Treatise appeared in 1740, few published responses followed. The review from the French journal Bibliothèque Raisonnée (1741) focused on comparing Hume’s theory with earlier ones, particularly with Hutcheson’s moral sense theory and Hobbes’s account of justice. We also find a brief critique of Hume’s moral theory in “Specimen of the Principles concerning Religion and Morality,” commonly thought to be written by clergyman William Wishart (d. 1752), and included in Hume’s pamphlet A Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend in Edinburgh (1745). In this piece Wishart charges Hume
With sapping the Foundations of Morality, by denying the natural and essential Difference betwixt Right and Wrong, Good and Evil, Justice and Injustice; making the Difference only artificial, and to arise from human Conventions and Compacts…Regular responses appeared to Hume’s moral theory after the publication of the moral Enquiry in 1751. The first of these was William Rose’s review in the Monthly Review. A key concern for Rose was whether Hume’s moral theory displayed the scepticism of his earlier writings. According to Rose, it is “free from that sceptical turn which appears in his other pieces.” However, respondents shortly after took a different view and argued that Hume’s theory was dangerous and risked undermining morality. A common criticism was that our perception of morality is far more than simply a spectator’s feelings of approval. Following Clarke, critics commonly argued that morality involves rationally grasping immutable and eternal moral laws. They argued further that, contrary to Hume, we have a natural sense of justice, and that Hume classifies too many qualities as virtues. These remained the principle criticisms of Hume’s moral theory for a half century.
Several early critics also linked Hume’s theory with that of Henry Home, Lord Kames, and discussed the two together. Critic George Anderson, in particular, attempted to have Hume and Kames excommunicated. Other notable critics were James Balfour, John Leland, and James Beattie who all criticised Hume for the same reason, namely, the wide scope of the virtues in Hume’s theory. Amidst the negative attacks, in A Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) Adam Smith praised Hume’s view of utility. In A Fragment on Government (1776), Jeremy Bentham explains that, when reading Hume’s account of utility in the Treatise “I felt as if scales had fallen from my eyes.” Hume’s account inspired Bentham’s own conception of utility, which appeared in The Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789).
The most significant turning point in the early reception of Hume’s moral theory came with the publication of William Paley’s Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785). In this work Paley openly endorses utility as the criterion of moral evaluation. Unlike Bentham’s endorsement of utility, which went virtually unnoticed for decades, Paley’s Principles was widely read and his conservative theology made Hume’s initial theory seem less dangerous. After Paley, most early commentators on Hume’s theory discussed Hume in the context of Paley and other advocates of utility, including Samual Johnson, William Godwin, and later Bentham and Mill. Criticisms against Hume’s theory were often criticisms about the utility approach in general. A major exception to this new genera of critics is Thomas Reid who, in his Essays on the Active Powers of Man (1788), presents the lengthiest sustained criticism of Hume’s moral theory that would appear for the next 100 years.
After Paley, discussions of Hume regularly appeared in textbooks by philosophy professors, typically based on their lecture notes. Some nonprofessional philosophers published essays in moral philosophy in which Hume figures prominently. And, during the second half of the 19th century, several lengthy books appeared on the history of philosophy or ethics, which contain substantial entries on Hume. Regardless of the format, the authors all felt strongly about Hume one way or another. Some writers harshly criticised Hume for religious or methodological reasons, such as John Bruce, Thomas Brown, Daniel Dewar, Dugald Stewart, John Abercrombie, and James McCosh. Others found some merit in Hume’s views of utility, but argued that Hume failed to acknowledge the importance of divine punishment, or emphasised benevolence too much, or ignored the larger flow of social development. Still some voiced strong support for Hume, such as Robert Blakey, Thomas Belsham, and Ernest Albee, and Henry Sidgwick.
Other noteworthy 19th century discussions of Hume are these. James Mackintosh’s The Progress of Ethical Philosophy (1836) contains a brief section on Hume, which is devoted to Hume’s life and writings, with a few unsystematic comments on parts of Hume’s moral Enquiry. William Whewell’s Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy (1852-1862) contains a two page tangential comment about Hume in the context of two chapters on Paley and his critics. T.H. Green’s 400 page introduction to Hume’s Treatise in the edition of Hume’s Works (1874), edited by Green and Thomas Grose, contains a 70 page critical discussion of Hume’s moral theory. Green’s discussion is the most detailed and sustained analysis since Reid’s Essays on the Active Powers of Man (1788). Chapter 11 of Thomas Huxley’s Hume (1879), titled of “The Principles of Morals,” contains excerpts from the moral Enquiry with little commentary. William Knight’s Hume (1886) includes a chapter on Hume’s moral theory with detailed discussions of each section of the moral Enquiry. James Hylsop’s Hume’s Treatise of Morals (1894), an edition of Treatise Book 3, contains a 50 page introduction with little detailed analysis. It is worth noting that Henry Calderwood’s David Hume (1898) contains no discussion of Hume’s moral theory.
1. Agent, Receiver, and Spectator in Moral Sense Theories
The details of Hume’s moral theory hinge on a distinction between three psychologically distinct players: the moral agent, the receiver, and the moral spectator. The moral agent is the person who performs an action, such as stealing a car; the receiver is the person affected by the conduct, such as the owner of the stolen car; and the moral spectator is the person who observes and, in this case, disapproves of the agent’s action. This agent-receiver-spectator distinction is the product of earlier moral sense theories championed by Anthony Ashley Cooper, better known as the Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), Joseph Butler (1692-1752), and Francis Hutcheson (1694-1747). Most generally, moral sense theories maintained that humans have a faculty of moral perception, similar to our faculties of sensory perception. Just as our external senses detect qualities in external objects, such as colours and shapes, so too does our moral faculty detect good and bad moral qualities in people and actions. The parallel with sense perception is important since it presupposes two distinct players: an external thing, such as an apple, and a spectator who perceives a quality in that thing, such as the colour red. In the case of moral perception, the two distinct players are the agent who performs an action, and the spectator who perceives the virtuous conduct within the agent.
Shaftesbury clearly compares moral judgments with sense perception, and specifically uses the term “spectator” in reference to the role of the perceiver: “The Mind, which is Spectator or Auditor of other Minds, cannot be without its Eye and Ear…” (Inquiry, 1699). In his second Sermon, Butler also compares a spectator’s moral approval to sense perception. Butler argues further, though, that the psychological factors that motivate an agent’s conduct are not identical with the psychological factors of the spectator’s approval: “These principles, propensions, or instincts which lead people to do good [as agents], are approved of by a certain faculty within [as spectators], quite distinct from these propensions [of the agent] themselves”(Fifteen Sermons, 1726, 2).
Hutcheson pushes the parallel between sense perception and moral judgment even further. For Hutcheson, our external senses involve an object that we perceive, such as an apple, and a mental perception that we form in response, such as the visual image of the apple. Similarly, our moral sense involves an object that we perceive, specifically and agent’s benevolent action, and a mental perception in response, specifically a feeling of pleasure. Like Butler, Hutcheson drives a wedge between the psychological factors behind an agent’s benevolent motivation and the spectator’s sense of approval. We see this distinction in the following, particularly in items two and three; we also see in the following that Hutcheson uses the term “agent” in contrast with the role of the moral observer:
These three Things are to be distinguished, 1. The Idea of the external Motion, known first by Sense, and its tendency to the Happiness or Misery of some sensitive Nature, often inferred by Argument or Reason, which on these Subjects, suggests as invariable eternal or necessary Truths as any whatsoever. 2. Apprehension or Opinion of the Affections in the Agent, inferred by our Reason: So far the Idea of an Action represents something external to the Observer, really existing whether he had perceived it or not, and having a real Tendency to certain Ends. 3. The Perception of Approbation or Disapprobation arising in the Observer, according as the Affections of the Agent are apprehended kind in their just Degree, or deficient, or malicious. [Illustrations Upon the Moral Sense, Sect. 4]In addition to articulating the differing roles of the agent and spectator, Hutcheson also focuses on the people affected by the agent’s conduct. For convenience, the term “receiver” may be used to pick out the affected parties. For Hutcheson, our moral sense focuses on how many receivers are beneficially affected by an agent’s conduct. This comes across clearly in a famous passage in which Hutcheson speaks of “the greatest Happiness for the Greatest Numbers”:
In comparing the moral Qualitys of Actions, in order to regulate our Election among various Actions propos’d, or to find which of them has the greatest moral Excellency, we are led by our moral Sense of Virtue to judge thus; that in equal Degrees of Happiness, expected to proceed from the Action, the Virtue is in proportion to the Number of Persons to whom the Happiness shall extend; … so that, that Action is best, which procures the greatest Happiness for the greatest numbers; and that, worst, which, in like manner, occasions Misery. [An Inquiry Concerning Moral Good and Evil, 1725, Sect. 3.8]Hutcheson continues noting that, when making moral judgments as a spectator, we should compute the consequences of an agent’s conduct upon others.
Within the context of these moral sense theories, Hume developed his own moral theory, relying on the previously established distinction between the agent, receiver, and spectator. This distinction continued after Hume, as we see in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). In describing the process of sympathy in the spectator, Smith makes the following statement, which implicitly distinguishes between the roles of the agent, receiver, and spectator:
It is to be observed, however, that, how beneficial soever on the one hand, or how hurtful soever on the other, the actions or intentions of the person who acts may have been to the person who is, if I may say so, acted upon, yet if in the one case there appears to have been no propriety in the motives of the agent, if we cannot enter into the affections which influenced his conduct, we have little sympathy with the gratitude of the person who receives the benefit: or if, in the other case, there appears to have been no impropriety in the motives of the agent, if, on the contrary, the affections which influenced his conduct are such as we must necessarily enter into, we can have no sort of sympathy with the resentment of the person who suffers. [Theory of Moral Sentiments, 2.1.3]Adam Smith was perhaps the last of the great moral theorists directly influenced by the moral sense tradition. However, later 18th and 19th century commentators on moral sense theory clearly understood the differing psychological roles of the agent, receiver, and spectator. For example, John Bruce notes the agent-spectator distinction with respect to Hutcheson’s theory of morality. According to Bruce, Hutcheson “observed, that virtuous actions not only afford complacency to the actor, but excite love and esteem in the spectator, and that vicious actions have opposite tendencies and effects” (Elements of the Science of Ethics, 1786, pp. 68-69). Reid, in summarising Hume’s view of the moral sentiments, also recognises this division:
As beauty is not a quality of the object, but a certain feeling of the spectator, so virtue and vice are not qualities in the persons to whom language ascribes them [i.e., agents], but feelings of the spectator. [Essays on the Active Powers of Man, 1788, Essay 5.7]In his discussion of Hume’s moral theory, Thomas Brown gives perhaps the clearest account of the differing roles of the agent and the spectator:
In every moral action that can be estimated by us, these two sets of feelings may be taken into account; the feelings of the agent when he meditated and willed the action; and the feelings of the spectator, or of him who calmly contemplates the action at any distance of space or time. [Lectures, 1820, Lect. 77]With the distinctions between the agent, receiver and spectator as background, we can turn to a summary of Hume’s moral theory.
2. Summary of Hume’s Moral Theory
Hume’s moral theory appears in Book 3 of the Treatise of Human Nature (1740) and in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). In both of these works, his theory involves a chain of events that begins with the agent’s action, which impacts the receiver, which in turn is observed by the spectator. To begin with the agent, for Hume, all actions of a moral agent are motivated by character traits, specifically either virtuous or vicious character traits. For example, if you donate money to a charity, then your action is motivated by a virtuous character trait. Hume argues that some virtuous character traits are instinctive or natural, such as benevolence, and others are acquired or artificial, such as justice. As an agent, your action will have an effect on a receiver. For example, if you as the agent give food to a starving person, then the receiver will experience an immediately agreeable feeling from your act. Also, the receiver may see the usefulness of your food donation, insofar as eating food will improve his health. When considering the usefulness of your food donation, then, the receiver will receive another agreeable feeling from your act. Finally, I, as a spectator, observe these agreeable feelings that the receiver experiences. I, then, will sympathetically experience agreeable feelings along with the receiver. These sympathetic feelings of pleasure constitute my moral approval of the original act of charity that you, the agent, perform. By sympathetically experiencing this pleasure, I thereby pronounce your motivating character trait to be a virtue, as opposed to a vice. Suppose, on the other hand, that you as an agent did something to hurt the receiver, such as steal his car. I as the spectator would then sympathetically experience the receiver’s pain and thereby pronounce your motivating character trait to be a vice, as opposed to a virtue.
That, in a nutshell, is Hume’s theory. There are, though, some important details that we should also mention. First, it is tricky to determine whether an agent’s motivating character trait is natural or artificial, and Hume decides this one virtue at a time. For Hume, the natural virtues include benevolence, meekness, charity, and generosity. By contrast, the artificial virtues include justice, keeping promises, allegiance and chastity. Contrary to what one might expect, Hume classes the key virtues that are necessary for a well-ordered state as artificial, and he classes only the more supererogatory virtues as natural. Hume’s critics were quick to point out this paradox. Second, to spark a feeling of moral approval, the spectator does not have to actually witness the effect of an agent’s action upon a receiver. The spectator might simply hear about it, or the spectator might even simply invent an entire scenario and think about the possible effects of hypothetical actions.
Third, although the agent, receiver, and spectator have psychologically distinct roles, in some situations a single person may perform more than one of these roles. For example, if I as an agent donate to charity, as a spectator to my own action I can also sympathise with the effect of my donation on the receiver. Finally, given various combinations of spectators and recipients, Hume concludes that there are four irreducible categories of qualities that exhaustively constitute moral virtue: (1) qualities useful to others, which include benevolence, meekness, charity, justice, fidelity and veracity; (2) qualities useful to oneself, which include industry, perseverance, and patience; (3) qualities immediately agreeable to others, which include wit, eloquence and cleanliness; and (4) qualities immediately agreeable to oneself, which include good humour, self-esteem and pride. For Hume, most morally significant actions seem to fall into more than one of these categories.
3. Hume’s Moral Theory in the Treatise
The first and most detailed account of Hume’s moral theory is in Book 3 of the Treatise, titled “Of Morals.” This Book itself is in three parts, the first of which wrestles with the nature of a spectator’s moral approval. Hume begins Part 1 considering whether moral distinctions are derived from reason. Specifically the question concerns whether our moral approval is (a) a rational judgment about conceptual relations and facts, or (b) an emotional response. Hume believes that it is an emotional response. To make his case he criticises Samuel Clarke’s rationalistic account of morality, which is that we rationally judge the fitness or unfitness of our actions in reference to eternal moral relations. Hume presents several arguments against Clarke’s view, the most famous of which is an argument from arboreal parricide: a young tree that overgrows and kills its parent exhibits the same alleged relations as a human child killing his parent; if morality is a question of relations, then the young tree is immoral, which is absurd. Hume also argues that moral assessments are not judgments about empirical facts; for any immoral action that we examine, we will never find a fact that we call “vice”. In this context Hume makes his point that we cannot deduce statements of obligation from statements of fact. Since moral approval is not a judgment of reason, Hume concludes that it must be an emotional response. Specifically, a spectator’s moral approval is a type of pleasure that we experience when considering an agent’s qualities. Based on his theory of the passions in Book 2 of the Treatise, Hume explains that this pleasure produces additional feelings of love or pride within the spectator.
In Part 2, Hume examines the nature of justice and injustice. He begins arguing that justice is an artificial virtue. For Hume, virtues are the motives that lead to an agent’s action. By examining what motivates us to act in certain ways, we can thereby determine the nature of a virtue, specifically whether it is natural or artificial. As to the nature of justice — particularly justice relating to property ownership — Hume considers some possible natural motivations for justice, such as self-love, public interest, and private benevolence. For various reasons these all fail as explanations and Hume concludes that our sense of justice is not naturally grounded, but artificially derived from education and human convention. Like Hobbes and Pufendorf, Hume describes how our sense of justice emerges within primitive societies and develops within more advanced societies. Hume argues that we depend on society to survive and, being motivated by self-love, we want to advance society. To this end, we train ourselves to respect each other’s acquired possessions and to view the stability of possessions as a necessary means of keeping society intact. Slowly, this gives us a sense of common interest, a regard for rules, and a sense of confidence in the consistent behaviour of others. This process, then, is the basis of justice as well as the notions of property, right, and obligation. Hume notes that single acts of justice are commonly contrary to public good; however, our experiences tell us that the public good is served when we follow justice as a rule.
Hume continues in Part 2 by describing how more complex social rules and institutions develop from our initial sense of justice. The three main rules of justice that emerge are those of the stability of possessions, transference by consent, and performances of promises. Although these rules are inventions, Hume follows the vocabulary of the natural law tradition and refers to these as laws of nature. Governments emerge as tools to both protect us in our agreements and to force us to make some agreements for our common end. Just as we invent the rules of justice to help serve our desire to live in a peaceful society, we also invent the civil duties that constitute political allegiance as well as the international laws of diplomacy. Paralleling the obligations of international law, Hume notes how women’s obligations of chastity emerged. To justify the labour involved in supporting a family, men must believe that their children are their own. To assure this, society imposes rules of chastity on women, and, once established, we rigidly apply the rules even for women past child-bearing age.
In Part 3, Hume discusses the components of natural virtues. Hume implies that purely natural virtues are those that (a) are not artificially instilled in the agent, and (b) are naturally approved of by the spectator. However, he notes that all virtues have the second of these natural components, including artificial virtues such as justice. That is, a spectator is naturally predisposed to sympathetically approve of any course of action that is useful or agreeable to the receiver. From the spectator’s standpoint, the only difference between natural and artificial virtues is that every act arising from natural virtues may bring about a spectator’s sympathetic pleasure. By contrast, acts arising from artificial virtues bring about sympathetic pleasure only to the extent that they reflect a general scheme of advantageous action. Hume continues by describing how we sympathetically approve of all virtues because of either their utility or their immediate agreeableness. He focuses particularly on self-esteem, generosity, and love. He argues that natural abilities, such as genius, wit, and cleanliness, are also virtues since they are either useful or immediately agreeable.
4. Hume’s Moral Theory in the Moral Enquiry
All three volumes of Hume’s Treatise sold poorly. In his autobiography, Hume writes that “I had always entertained a notion, that my want of success in publishing the Treatise of Human Nature, had proceeded more from the manner than the matter, and that I had been guilty of a very usual indiscretion, in going to the press too early.” Hume began composing his moral Enquiry in 1749, with the intention of presenting his theory of morality more informally. The work was published shortly after in 1751 and, in his autobiography, he gives his opinion of the work:
In the same year was published at London, my Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals; which, in my own opinion (who ought not to judge on that subject), is of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best. It came unnoticed and unobserved into the world.Keeping with the emphasis on informality, the work draws heavily on classic literature for examples, and it minimises technical psychological distinctions. Within the moral Enquiry itself, Hume explains the reason for his non-technical approach:
Throughout this enquiry, we always consider in general, what qualities are a subject of praise or of censure, without entering into all the minute differences of sentiment, which they excite. … These sciences are but too apt to appear abstract to common readers, even with all the precautions which we can take to clear them from superfluous speculations, and bring them down to every capacity. [Moral Enquiry, Appendix 4, note]The lack of technical psychological distinctions is perhaps the single feature of the moral Enquiry that differentiates it from Book 3 of the Treatise. The detailed psychological discussions of the Treatise focused on two themes: (1) the moral agent’s psychological motivations to act, and (2) the moral spectator’s sentiments of approval or disapproval. With these components minimised, the unifying and dominating theme in the moral Enquiry is that virtue consists of qualities useful and agreeable to oneself and others.
Section One: Of the General Principles of Morals. Hume argues that a spectator’s moral approval is a feeling, similar to an aesthetic feeling, and not an act of reason, like a mathematical inference. Also, Hume says that he will draw is conclusions about moral virtue by generalising from particular observations.Section Two: Of Benevolence. Hume argues that (1) moral spectators approve of benevolence, and (2) benevolence is approved of because it has utility.
Section Three: Of Justice. Hume argues that (1) justice is approved of because it has utility, and, (2) justice is artificial and not natural.
Section Four: Of Political Society. Hume argues that political allegiance and chastity are approved of because of utility.
Section Five: Why Utility Pleases. Hume argues that a spectator morally approves of useful actions, such as charitable ones, because of the spectator’s ability to sympathise.
Section Six: Of Qualities Useful to Ourselves. Hume lists various actions (or virtues) of an agent that are useful to the agent himself, such as industry, perseverance and patience. In the 1751 edition, Part 2 of this section contained a controversial passage describing the qualities of “those we call good Women’s Men.”
Section Seven: Of Qualities Immediately Agreeable to Ourselves. Hume lists various actions (or virtues) of an agent that are immediately agreeable to the agent himself, such as self-esteem and pride.
Section Eight: Of Qualities Immediately Agreeable to Others. Hume lists various actions (or virtues) of an agent that are immediately agreeable to everyone, such as wit, eloquence and cleanliness.
Section Nine: Conclusion. Hume draws his conclusion that all actions of an agent, which the spectator morally approves of, are useful or agreeable. He also argues that his theory of utility and agreeableness is an easy moral theory to follow.
Appendix One: Concerning Moral Sentiment. Hume argues more strongly that a spectator’s moral approval is a feeling of pleasure, and not a rational judgment about relations of ideas or matters of fact. This appendix was originally the first of only two appendices.
Appendix Two: Of Self-Love. Hume argues against Hobbes, showing that we do not approve of benevolence because of self-interest. This appendix was added in the 1777 edition, the material from that was taken from Section 2, Part 1.
Appendix Three: Some Farther Considerations with regard to Justice. Hume notes some differences between artificial virtues such as justice, and natural virtues such as benevolence. This appendix was originally the second of only two appendices.
Appendix Four: Of Some Verbal Disputes. Critics of Hume’s theory have argued that talents, such as wit, should not be included among virtues such as charity. Hume responds that all virtues are on equal footing since all produce the same type of pleasure (or moral approval) in the spectator. This appendix was added in the 1764 edition, the material from which came from Section 6, Part 1.
A Dialogue. In this fictitious dialogue between a narrator and his cosmopolitan friend, Palamedes, Palamedes discusses moral customs of foreign countries that run contrary to the narrator’s moral customs. Palamedes argues that “fashion, vogue, custom, and law [are] the chief foundation of all moral determinations.”
5. Overview of the Early Responses
The early responses to Hume’s moral theory cover a wide range of issues within his theory. Few if any commentators wrote on Hume’s theory merely for the sake of elucidating Hume’s views in and of themselves. Instead, they analysed and critiqued his theory with an eye towards defending their own visions of morality. By and large, the more interesting responses are those that boldly put forward their vision, even when portraying Hume somewhat inaccurately. The early responses to Hume’s moral theory, then, mirror the history of British moral theory during the 18th and 19th centuries. These theories variously focus on moral concepts including eternal fitness, God’s will, moral sense, selfishness, common sense, utilitarianism, intuition, and evolution.
The very first written response to Hume’s moral theory was probably a letter written to Hume by Francis Hutcheson in reaction to Hume’s manuscript draft of Book 3. Hutcheson’s letter does not survive, but from Hume’s letter of reply, which does survive, we can make out three distinct criticisms. First, Hutcheson argued that Hume’s theory “wants a certain Warmth in the Cause of Virtue”; that is, Hume’s analysis was too technical. Second, Hutcheson challenged Hume’s position that justice is artificial. Instead, Hutcheson suggested that justice is natural in the sense that it serves a human purpose or end. Third, Hutcheson criticised Hume for classifying many qualities of an agent as virtues which, instead, should be classified as natural abilities, such as wit.
After Book 3 of the Treatise appeared in 1740, few published responses followed. The review from the French journal Bibliothèque Raisonnée (1741) focused on comparing Hume’s theory with earlier ones, particularly with Hutcheson’s moral sense theory and Hobbes’s account of justice. We also find a brief critique of Hume’s moral theory in “Specimen of the Principles concerning Religion and Morality,” commonly thought to be written by clergyman William Wishart (d. 1752), and included in Hume’s pamphlet A Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend in Edinburgh (1745). In this piece Wishart charges Hume
With sapping the Foundations of Morality, by denying the natural and essential Difference betwixt Right and Wrong, Good and Evil, Justice and Injustice; making the Difference only artificial, and to arise from human Conventions and Compacts…Regular responses appeared to Hume’s moral theory after the publication of the moral Enquiry in 1751. The first of these was William Rose’s review in the Monthly Review. A key concern for Rose was whether Hume’s moral theory displayed the scepticism of his earlier writings. According to Rose, it is “free from that sceptical turn which appears in his other pieces.” However, respondents shortly after took a different view and argued that Hume’s theory was dangerous and risked undermining morality. A common criticism was that our perception of morality is far more than simply a spectator’s feelings of approval. Following Clarke, critics commonly argued that morality involves rationally grasping immutable and eternal moral laws. They argued further that, contrary to Hume, we have a natural sense of justice, and that Hume classifies too many qualities as virtues. These remained the principle criticisms of Hume’s moral theory for a half century.
Several early critics also linked Hume’s theory with that of Henry Home, Lord Kames, and discussed the two together. Critic George Anderson, in particular, attempted to have Hume and Kames excommunicated. Other notable critics were James Balfour, John Leland, and James Beattie who all criticised Hume for the same reason, namely, the wide scope of the virtues in Hume’s theory. Amidst the negative attacks, in A Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) Adam Smith praised Hume’s view of utility. In A Fragment on Government (1776), Jeremy Bentham explains that, when reading Hume’s account of utility in the Treatise “I felt as if scales had fallen from my eyes.” Hume’s account inspired Bentham’s own conception of utility, which appeared in The Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789).
The most significant turning point in the early reception of Hume’s moral theory came with the publication of William Paley’s Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785). In this work Paley openly endorses utility as the criterion of moral evaluation. Unlike Bentham’s endorsement of utility, which went virtually unnoticed for decades, Paley’s Principles was widely read and his conservative theology made Hume’s initial theory seem less dangerous. After Paley, most early commentators on Hume’s theory discussed Hume in the context of Paley and other advocates of utility, including Samual Johnson, William Godwin, and later Bentham and Mill. Criticisms against Hume’s theory were often criticisms about the utility approach in general. A major exception to this new genera of critics is Thomas Reid who, in his Essays on the Active Powers of Man (1788), presents the lengthiest sustained criticism of Hume’s moral theory that would appear for the next 100 years.
After Paley, discussions of Hume regularly appeared in textbooks by philosophy professors, typically based on their lecture notes. Some nonprofessional philosophers published essays in moral philosophy in which Hume figures prominently. And, during the second half of the 19th century, several lengthy books appeared on the history of philosophy or ethics, which contain substantial entries on Hume. Regardless of the format, the authors all felt strongly about Hume one way or another. Some writers harshly criticised Hume for religious or methodological reasons, such as John Bruce, Thomas Brown, Daniel Dewar, Dugald Stewart, John Abercrombie, and James McCosh. Others found some merit in Hume’s views of utility, but argued that Hume failed to acknowledge the importance of divine punishment, or emphasised benevolence too much, or ignored the larger flow of social development. Still some voiced strong support for Hume, such as Robert Blakey, Thomas Belsham, and Ernest Albee, and Henry Sidgwick.
Other noteworthy 19th century discussions of Hume are these. James Mackintosh’s The Progress of Ethical Philosophy (1836) contains a brief section on Hume, which is devoted to Hume’s life and writings, with a few unsystematic comments on parts of Hume’s moral Enquiry. William Whewell’s Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy (1852-1862) contains a two page tangential comment about Hume in the context of two chapters on Paley and his critics. T.H. Green’s 400 page introduction to Hume’s Treatise in the edition of Hume’s Works (1874), edited by Green and Thomas Grose, contains a 70 page critical discussion of Hume’s moral theory. Green’s discussion is the most detailed and sustained analysis since Reid’s Essays on the Active Powers of Man (1788). Chapter 11 of Thomas Huxley’s Hume (1879), titled of “The Principles of Morals,” contains excerpts from the moral Enquiry with little commentary. William Knight’s Hume (1886) includes a chapter on Hume’s moral theory with detailed discussions of each section of the moral Enquiry. James Hylsop’s Hume’s Treatise of Morals (1894), an edition of Treatise Book 3, contains a 50 page introduction with little detailed analysis. It is worth noting that Henry Calderwood’s David Hume (1898) contains no discussion of Hume’s moral theory.
