Where does morality come from? One possible source is God. Morality is a system of laws governing our conduct that do not come from human lawgivers. Where could such a law come from? God is the obvious answer. This is known as a divine command theory of morality.
Hume’s chapter, “Of a particular providence and of a future state,” is about this kind of argument. More specifically, it is about a conclusion that is sometimes drawn by people who believe this argument, namely, that if God were not the source of morality, there would be no reason to be moral since the ultimate reason to comply with the moral rules is fear of punishment in the afterlife. And if you believe that, you will also believe that atheists cannot belong to your society. They do not fear God, after all, so they will not have compelling reasons to abstain from doing immoral things, like killing, stealing, or stealing, when they can get away with it.
To be even more specific, Hume tackles one specific account of how we know what God wants us to do that I am going to call “natural religion.” According to natural religion, we can draw conclusions about God’s existence and nature on the basis of what we observe about the world. For instance, we can observe that everything has a cause and infer that the universe must have a cause too. Any cause of the universe would have to be different from the universe itself; if the universe encompasses nature, then the cause would have to be non-natural. What is outside of nature? The supernatural! That is God.
Hume proposes to grant that this a good reason for believing in God. He argues that it gives us no reason to believe that God is provident, meaning that he cares about human affairs, or that he will offer specific rewards or punishments in the afterlife. Roughly speaking, the most we can infer about what God wants on the basis of what we can observe is that he likes the world exactly as it is. If so, there is no reason to think he cares about injustice or other immoral behavior.
The chapter breaks down into six parts.
Stage setting. Hume and a “friend” discuss the relationship between religion and philosophy. The friend proposes an argument to show that philosophy does not threaten the social order. Why would it do that? Well, some people think that philosophers sow doubts about God and, thereby, undermine fear of punishment in the afterlife. If you think that fear of punishment in the afterlife is what keeps people in line down here on earth, that would threaten the social order. This is paragraphs 1-8.
The friend’s imagined argument on behalf of Epicurus. Epicurus was an ancient Greek materialist philosopher, meaning he believed that everything is made of matter and, consequently, there is no life after our bodies die. Paragraphs 9-23.
Hume objects to the argument by pointing out that we can draw inferences on the basis of incomplete projets, such as a half-built house. By extension, perhaps we can assume that God wants the world to be better than it is now. Paragraph 24.
The friend replies to Hume’s objection in paragraphs 25-27.
Hume notes that even if the friend’s argument is correct, atheism might still be dangerous if people believe that fear of God is the only reason to be moral. He proposes a different defense of philosophy: no one takes it seriously. This is in paragraphs 28-29.
Finally, in paragraph 30, Hume withdraws an assumption that had been granted at the beginning of Epicurus’s argument, namely, that we can use our observations of the world to infer that God exists.
Here are two arguments for the conclusion that God exists.
There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. (John 3:1–2)
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: (Romans 1:18–20)
The first passage says that only God could cause a miracle to happen, that is, something with no possible natural cause. So a miracle, that is, a departure from the regular order of the natural world that cannot be explained as the result of natural causes, is evidence that God exists. The second says that the order of the natural world is proof that God exists, since only God could have made it that way. So your observations of the natural world, in all its regularity, are also proof that God exists.
This chapter is devoted exclusively to the second kind of argument; Hume had taken on miracles in an earlier chapter of the same work.
More specifically, Hume is interested in the proposition that religious faith is a necessary condition of morality on the grounds that the fundamental motivation for moral behavior must be concern for what will happen in the afterlife: eternal rewards for good behavior or eternal punishment for bad.
He notes at the outset that the ancient Greeks tolerated philosophers, such as Epicurus, who did not accept the established religion. By contrast, in Hume’s time, philosophical speculation is part of religious thinking and those who have unorthodox opinions are not tolerated.
The largest part of the chapter is a speech that the friend imagines Epicurus could have given to defend himself if his society were more like Hume’s. This is a very indirect way for Hume to talk about his own society, needless to say!
Here are a few examples of the kind of thinking that Hume was concerned to rebut.
First, here is Hugo Grotius arguing that those who deny the existence and providence (“care of human affairs”) of God should be punished because they are a threat to social order (Grotius [1625] 2005).
That there is a Deity, (one or more I shall not now consider) and that this Deity has the Care of human Affairs, are Notions universally received, and are absolutely necessary to the Essence of any Religion, whether true or false. (Bk 2, chap. 20, sect. 64, par. 1, p. 1035)
It is my Judgment therefore, that those who first attempt to destroy these Notions, ought, on the Account of human Society in general, which they thus, without any just Grounds, injure, to be restrained, as in all well-governed Communities has been usual: It is what we read was practised towards Diagoras of Melos, and towards the Epicureans, who were expelled and banished all Cities that had any Regularity and good Manners amongst them. Himerius, an antient Rhetorician, in his Pleadings against Epicurus, Do you punish me then for my Opinion? No; but for your Impiety: You may propose your Sentiments, but you must not be impious. (Bk 2, chap. 20, sect. 64, par. 4, pp. 1037-38)
Intellectuals say stuff all the time. But did anyone actually act on it? Yes indeed! Consider the case of Thomas Aikenhead, a college student in Edinburgh.
On January 8, 1697, at some time between two and four in the afternoon, an eighteen-year-old student named Thomas Aikenhead was hanged in Edinburgh. Aikenhead had been found guilty of a serious charge: the previous year he had several times told other young men that the doctrines of Christian theology were “a rapsodie of faigned and ill-invented nonsense.” Aikenhead’s friends, testifying against him, told the court that he had spoken of “the Imposter Christ” and had rejected the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Redemption. Aikenhead recanted all these sentiments—he said he had fallen under the spell of atheistical tracts—but no one defended him, and the jury voted for death. On the scaffold, Aikenhead declared that he had come to doubt the objectivity of good and evil, and that he believed moral laws to be the work of governments or men. … James Buchan … maintains that Aikenhead’s execution “haunted” the century that followed. Just six decades after the student’s rant to his friends, an Edinburgh ecclesiastical assembly attempted to excommunicate the freethinking Scottish philosopher David Hume. (Denby 2004)
Our imagined Epicurus starts by stating what he means to prove: that questions about the “origin and government” of the universe are irrelevant to the “peace of society.” (par. 9)
Then he identifies his opponents. They believe that conclusions about God can be established by observations of the natural world. They assume that God is the cause of the natural world and everything we observe in the natural world is the effect of God’s actions. We are able to observe the effects, that is, the natural world, directly. We draw inferences about the thing we cannot observe, namely God, because God is the cause of the things that we can observe. (par. 10-11)
Epicurus says he will grant that this is a valid way of knowing about the existence and qualities of God. What he will deny is that it can show that God especially cares about humanity or that he will punish or reward human beings after death. That is what the terms “provident” and “future state” refer to, respectively. (also par. 10)
Then Epicurus gets into the heart of his argument.
He asserts a principle of reasoning: “when we infer an particular case from an effect, we must proportion the one to the other, and can never be allowed to ascribe to the cause any qualities but what are exactly sufficient to produce the effect” (par. 12; the principle is discussed in pars. 12-13).
He applies this principle to what we can infer about God based on our observations of the natural world. (Remember, God is supposed to be the cause of the natural world; the natural world is the effect of God’s act of creation.) (par. 14-18)
Then he draws his conclusion about the relationship between religious belief and morality, that questioning the existence of God does not undermine anyone’s reasons for morally good behavior. (par. 19-23)