Today’s reading, “Justice, Whether a Natural or Artificial Virtue?” (3.2.1) introduces one of the most important features of Hume’s moral theory, the distinction between natural and artificial virtues.
Natural virtues are qualities of someone’s character that cause us to have a special kind of positive feeling (to be explained in a moment) by themselves, regardless of human customs or conventions. Artificial virtues are qualities of someone’s character that cause us to have the special kind of feeling only when they work as part of an artificial convention, that is, a practice that human beings create.
Conventions are the subject of Wednesday’s reading; so you are going to have to wait to see how the artificial part is supposed to work. In today’s reading, Hume tries to show that justice is not a natural virtue.
In the section we talked about last time, titled “Moral Distinctions Derived from a Moral Sense” (3.3.2), Hume lays down the beginnings of his moral theory.
At that point, he thinks he has shown that moral thoughts are a matter of feeling rather than reasoning. The thought that someone is good (virtuous) or bad (vicious) is a positive or negative feeling (“sentiment”).
Hume thinks that the task of moral philosophy is to explain why we have these feelings in response to virtue and vice (3.3.2, pars. 3, 11 ). Moral philosophy is theoretical in that it reduces the variety of moral phenomena to some basic, fundamental causes (3.3.2, par. 6).
This is not what you would necessarily expect a moral theory to be. You might think that a moral theory is supposed to explain why you ought to approve of virtuous people or what you ought to do virtuous things yourself. Hume’s theory is more about why there is such a thing as morality than it is about what the morally right thing to do is.
Anyway, we are explaining why we have the feelings that we do. What are the feelings that we are talking about? That is, how do we identify the feelings that are about moral subjects, like vice and virtue, as opposed to other positive and negative feelings? Let’s combine some of what he said last time with what he says this time.
The feelings are felt in response to human behavior and not inanimate objects (3.1.2 pars. 3, 11).
The moral feelings are disinterested: “It is only when a character is considered in general, without reference to our particular interest, that it causes such a feeling or sentiment as denominates it morally good or evil” (3.1.2 par. 4).
They are exclusively concerned with motives. Good or bad actions are only signs of good or bad motives.
when we praise any actions, we regard only the motives that produced them, and consider the actions as signs or indications of certain principles in the mind and temper. The external performance has no merit. … After the same manner, when we require any action, or blame a person for not performing it, we always suppose that one in that situation should be influenced by the proper motive of that action, and we esteem it vicious in him to be regardless of it. If we find, upon enquiry, that the virtuous motive was still powerful over his breast, though checked in its operation by some circumstances unknown to us, we retract our blame, and have the same esteem for him, as if he had actually performed the action which we require of him. (3.2.1, pars. 2-3)1
That is what Hume’s moral theory is about. It is an attempt to explain our moral feelings where those feelings are disinterested responses to the motives that lead people to do the things they do.
The substance of Hume’s theory lies in its attempts to give the relevant explanations. Broadly speaking, these fall into two categories: explanations of why we approve of the artificial virtues and explanations of why we approve of the natural virtues. Today, we are gettings started on the artificial virtues.
The topic of this section: showing that justice is an artificial virtue. What does that mean? Artificial virtues “produce pleasure and approbation by means of an artifice or contrivance” while natural virtues produce pleasure and approbation without an artifice or contrivance. How? That’s what Hume is going to try to show. (3.2.1 par. 1)
The circularity argument. Hume argues that a virtuous person cannot be motivated by a thought like this: “saving the child would be a virtuous thing to do, therefore, I will save the child.” Hume calls this a “sense of duty” and maintains that it is unintelligible on its own (3.2.1, pars. 2-9) I am going to discuss this at greater length after the outline.
There are no motivations that naturally lead to just behavior, where “naturally” means “without an artificial convention.” Hume lists several things that motivate most people and argues that these motivations often clash with justice. (3.2.1 pars. 10-16)
Conclusion: since there is no motive that naturally leads to just behavior (he thinks he has proven this), and justice is a virtue (he takes this for granted), justice must be an artificial virtue (3.2.1 par. 17)
A corollary: we are highly sensitive to what we consider to be normal or usual. We approve of people whose motivations (“passions”) are within the normal range for our social group. (3.2.1 par. 18)
Qualification: justice is artificial, but not arbitrary. All human societies create similar artificial conventions. (3.2.1 par. 19)
The main argument in this section is in paragraphs 2-9. It maintains that what Hume calls a sense of duty is unintelligible. He does not believe that virtuous actions could be motivated by a thought like “it would be right thing to do” or “it is my duty.” Rather, he thinks, there has to be what he calls a “natural” motive for doing the virtuous thing.
The argument begins with an initial premise, namely, that our moral feelings are feelings about motives and not actions (3.2.1 pars. 2-3). Hume assumes his readers agree with him and does not argue for this point.
If you accept that premise, Hume thinks, the idea that virtuous actions could be motivated by a sense of duty alone involves circular reasoning. To see what he has in mind, try literally drawing a circle.
Really, I’m not kidding. Draw a circle.
Start with this at 12 o’clock: “what makes an action virtuous?”
The answer, according to the premise is: “a virtuous motive.” Put that at 3 o’clock and draw an arrow from 12 to 3 and another one from 3 to 6 o’clock.
At 6 o’clock, enter “what makes a motive virtuous?”
What goes at 9 o’clock? That is an exercise for you. It has to be a statement that will complete the circle, such that you can draw an arrow from 6 to 9 and another from 9 to 12. Bonus points if you can find the phrase you need in Hume’s text (look in paragraph 4).
See? Easy! Seriously, when an author accuses someone of circular reasoning, draw the circle. There is no better way to figure out what the argument is supposed to be.
Hume’s conclusion is that “no action can be virtuous, or morally good, unless there be in human nature some motive to produce it distinct from the sense of its morality” (3.2.1 par. 7).
The rest of the section involves looking at things that commonly motivate people: self-interest (par. 10), concern for the public good or mankind as a whole (pars. 11-12), concern for specific people (aka “private benevolence”) (pars. 13-16). In every case, he says, the motivation could sometimes lead to just behavior, but it would not reliably do so.
The conclusion is that none of the considerations that normally motivate us could reliably lead us to do the just thing in the absence of an artificial convention. For Hume, that is enough to show that justice not a natural virtue.
I think it is worth examining Hume’s circularity argument. Is he right about what the sense of duty involves? And what about his discussion of the person in paragraph 8? That sure looks like someone who is motivated by a sense of duty!
Even if you do not think this argument is convincing, there is at least one thing you can take away from this. For Hume, the sense of duty requires explanation. On its face, it frequently does not make a lot of sense. Why should you do something that benefits “a vicious man” who “deserves the hatred of all mankind” just because it is your duty? What is so great about doing your duty that could make this a sensible thing to do?
Hume thinks that the explanation has to involve what he calls conventions. At the end of the day, the reason to do your duty is going to be indirect. Your duty is given by the rules of a convention and preserving the convention is a good thing, even if doing so requires acting in ways that, by themselves, do not make a lot of sense.
To put it another way, for Hume, the central cases of moral virtue involve what he calls the natural virtues: kindness, say. These are character traits that are either immediately agreeable or useful. It is easy to see why we react positively to those!
In Kant’s theory, by contrast, the sense of justice, which he calls the “motive of duty,” is the starting point. For Kant, that is the central case for morality.
I assume that Hume would want to qualify what he says about praise or blame in the light of his remarks about character in the section on free will. That is, a person is praised or blamed less for acting in ways that are out of character than for acting on characteristic motivations.↩︎