You would think that Hume would embrace some form of moral relativism. His theory maintains that significant parts of morality are the product of human conventions, after all. But when he confronts the question in “A Dialogue,” his discussion is focused almost entirely on the natural virtues. Weird!1
The dialogue has two characters: Palamedes and the narrator. Each one describes the practices of a foreign culture in ways that make the values of each society seem to be either unintelligible or morally despicable. The societies are actually familiar ones that are held in high esteem: Athens of the fifth century BC (with a few examples from Rome thrown in) and sixteenth-century France.
The narrator argues that the values of the different cultures are more similar than they appear to be. Specifically, they all conform to Hume’s theory that virtues are character traits that are typically either immediately agreeable or useful to the person who has them or to others.
They end with a discussion of two famous philosophers who seem not to fit the model: Diogenes and Pascal. The narrator suggests that Pascal led what the narrator calls an “artificial” life due to the influence of Christianity.
Part of the fun of the dialogue is trying to figure out what they are talking about. Here is a brief guide.
Palamedes begins by describing the strange practices of Fourli. The stories are so strange that the narrator claims not to believe them (par. 12). Palamedes then reveals that his stories all come from a real society: Ancient Athens (and Rome) (pars. 13-17).
Then the narrator describes the practices of people in sixteenth-century France is similarly unflattering ways (pars. 18-24).
Here is what the examples mean, starting with those from “Fourli,” that is, classical Greece and Rome.
The first practice that Palamedes claims to find shameful is Alcheic’s romantic pursuit of Gulki, presumably an adolescent boy (pars. 3-5).
Alcheic is married to his step-sister, which is regarded as incestuous in the culture that Palamedes and the narrator are from (pars. 6, 29).
Alcheic killed his child. He “put to death an innocent person, the most nearly connected with him, and whom he was bound to protect and defend by all the ties of nature and humanity” (par. 7).
Alcheic murdered his friend and benefactor, Usbek. This is a reference to the assassination of Julius Caesar by Brutus and Cassius (pars. 8, 15).
Alcheic was willing to work with Calish after the latter physically attacked him. This is a reference to the Athenian general Themistocles, who is said to have tolerated being beaten by a Spartan general in order to present his preferred plan of battle against the Persians (pars. 9, 16).
Finally, Alcheic committed suicide and was praised for having done so. To Palamedes and the narrator, this is the sin of “self-murder” (par. 11). This sounds to me like the death of Socrates.
After Palamedes reveals that he has been talking about ancient Athens, the narrator expresses some irritation. The narrator thinks that Palamedes is simply trying to make ancient societies look bad by comparing them with modern ones. The narrator objects that Palamedes’s style of argument is unfair.
There are no manners so innocent or reasonable, but may be rendered odious or ridiculous, if measured by a standard, unknown to the persons; especially if you employ a little art or eloquence, in aggravating some circumstances, and extenuating others, as best suits the purpose of your discourse. (par. 19)
To prove the point, he does the same thing Palamedes had done for sixteenth-century France.
Adultery, “both active and passive, so to speak” is held “in the highest vogue and esteem” (par. 19). I think Dangerous Liaisons is a decent guide to what he has in mind here.
They are as “proud of their slavery” as the Athenians are of their liberty (par. 20). I assume this is a reference to politics: the French have an absolute monarchy while the Athenians had a democracy.
But this does not mean they lack bravery. On the contrary, they are fiercely protective of their honor and will fight duels over minor insults. Compare Themistocles, who kept working with the general who literally gave him a beating (par. 21).
While the French are willing to fight to avenge insults, they are not willing to kill themselves to escape dishonorable circumstances, such as being enslaved and forced to row a galley (a warship). Compare Socrates, who drank the hemlock to avoid taking what he regarded as the dishonorable step of fleeing from Athens to avoid punishment (par. 22).
They put their children in jails. The jails are monasteries and convents. This is where children who cannot inherit an estate or who are not legally legitimate are put so they can avoid dishonorable lives, dependence on their male siblings, or poverty (par. 23).
Women have prominent public roles in their society. In Athens, upper class women might never leave their home (par. 24).
The narrator thinks he has refuted Palamedes’s attempt to argue that modern societies are superior to ancient ones. But Palamedes denies that this is what he was trying to do. Actually, he says, the narrator’s examples support his point. That point seems to be that moral judgments are relative to cultures.
Well, Hume is not officially speaking here. We have Palamedes and the narrator. So you have to do a little work to figure out when he is writing for himself. I think he is the narrator most of the time.
Palamedes says that the narrator’s examples support his argument. The narrator thought he was trying to make a tired point about the superiority of modern societies compared with ancient ones. Palamedes replies that this is not what he is trying to do. Rather, he is trying to show that all moral judgments are uncertain and suggest that they are all a matter of cultural practices.
I had no intention of exalting the moderns at the expense of the ancients. I only mean to represent the uncertainty of all these judgments concerning characters; and to convince you, that fashion, vogue, custom, and law, were the chief foundation of all moral determinations. (par. 25)
The Athenians were “civilized, intelligent people” whose behavior “in this age” would be “held in horror and execration.” Similarly, while the French are “without doubt, a very civilized, intelligent people,” the people whom they regard as virtuous would would be treated with “the highest contempt and ridicule, and even hatred” by the Athenians (par. 25).
Palamedes draws the conclusion that all moral judgments are “uncertain” and that “fashion, vogue, custom and law” are the “chief foundation of all moral determinations.” He closes by asking, perhaps rhetorically: “How shall we pretend to fix a standard for judgments of this nature?” (par. 25) I take that to mean “how can anyone make moral evaluations of other societies?” or “is there a moral standard that applies to all societies?”
So Palamedes sounds to me like a moral relativist: he denies that there is any way of comparing different societies.
The narrator, by contrast, thinks that there can be a cross-cultural standard. We just have to trace matters “a little higher” to find the “first principles, which each nation establishes, of blame or censure” (par. 26). But I am not sure exactly where to place him.
Specifically, the narrator makes two points.
Palamedes is cherry-picking examples to find differences. According to the narrator, you will find all cultures mostly value the same things. They all value good sense, knowledge, wit, eloquence, humanity, fidelity, truth, justice, courage, temperance, constancy, and dignity of mind. (par. 27)
The differences that do exist are superficial. All cultures agree on the fundamental proposition that virtues are qualities that are, generally speaking, immediately agreeable or useful to either the person who has them or to others.
Where two cultures treat opposing character traits as virtuous, you will find that the traits in question are either immediately agreeable or useful in their cultural context. The narrator goes through the examples to show how this is so.
For example, Greek homosexuality is the product of practices that, the narrator thinks, everyone finds valuable, namely those meant to foster friendship, sympathy, mutual attachment, and fidelity (par. 28).2
The narrator also says that the rules about incest in his society are too strict. Half-siblings can produce offspring without any bad health effects (par. 29). (He did not have the theory of genetics to explain why.)
Parents do apparently horrible things to their children, such as killing their infants or “imprisoning” adolescents, because they love them and do not want them to live degraded or impoverished lives (par. 30).
Assassination of a political leader is generally a bad thing, especially if you are personally close, but it can also be the right thing to do for the public good (par. 31).
The relations among the sexes are different in Athens and France, but that reflects different ways of balancing things that they both, presumably, find valuable: domestic pleasures and sociable ones. Specifically, achieving “ease, freedom, and an open commerce” is in tension with “a strict fidelity and constancy” (par. 32). Both the French and the Greeks value gallantry, meaning “polite and kind behavior toward women, especially when in public,” but they do so in very different ways.3
You can see what Hume is saying by looking at our society. Mike Pence will not eat a meal with a woman or drink alcohol unless his wife is present; I presume the point is to avoid even the remotest possibility of committing adultery. I think that Pence is right, to a point. If men and women are going to interact in their public lives as equals, there is going to be more adultery than if they are kept separate. That is a cost that I think is worth paying. But it is still a cost and others, like the members of the Pence family, might weigh it differently than I do.
Everyone can see how the public good can come into tension with personal loyalty or even the obligation to obey the law. Again, that is a reference to the assassination example (par. 33).
The narrator takes a stab at making sense of duelling (see point 4 for the French). (No pun intended there.) I appreciate the attempt, but it really is hard to make sense of duelling. Hume, er, the narrator does say that nothing is “more absurd and barbarous,” so he probably agrees (par 34).
Finally, the members of both societies agree that there are some things worth risking your life for (par. 35). They just disagree about which things those are: liberty and honor for the Athenians, honor (in the face of insults) for the French. I suppose they also differ in their views on how one can put one’s life at risk. The Athenians can kill themselves at their own hand, the French need a duelling partner to do it.
Is the narrator a relativist or not? On the one hand, the narrator is going to be reluctant to judge. That inclines him towards relativism in practice. On the other hand, he is reluctant to judge because he thinks we can explain apparently strange values in ways that make sense to us. When they praise what we think is bad, they are almost always praising character traits that are either immediately agreeable or useful. And we can see why they would think that is good. Despite appearances, we all fundamentally value the same things. That is less relativistic.
Here is his bottom line. Make of it what you will.
You see then, continued I, that the principles upon which men reason in morals are always the same; though the conclusions which they draw are often very different. That they all reason aright with regard to this subject, more than with regard to any other, it is not incumbent on any moralist to show. It is sufficient, that the original principles of censure or blame are uniform, and that erroneous conclusions can be corrected by sounder reasoning and larger experience. (par. 36)
The narrator then tries to support this point by considering yet more examples and showing how the surface differences obscure the fundamental similarities.
Some apparent disagreements about values are due to different beliefs about what is useful; they agree that what is useful is good (par. 38).
Sometimes circumstances explain different values. In a war, you value generals more than novelists; in peacetime, it is the other way around (pars. 39-41).
Customs can influence what people find agreeable or useful. For example, if you grow up in a culture where women are confined to the back of the house, that is going to have a significant influence on what you find agreeable (pars. 43-50). Similarly, different systems of government will lead to different understandings of personal values (par. 51). That said, the narrator believes that “different customs and situations vary not the original ideas of merit … in any essential point.” (par. 51.)
Finally, he says that there is more variation in what is considered virtuous for young people than for older ones. The “manner, the ornaments, the graces” which “succeed” for young men who “aspire to the agreeable qualities, and may attempt to please” are “more arbitrary and casual.” By contrast, “the merit of riper years is almost every where the same; and consists chiefly in integrity, humanity, ability, knowledge, and the other more solid and useful qualities of the human mind” (par. 51). So take that, whippersnappers!
After the narrator is done, Palamedes concedes that “when you adhere to the maxims of common life and ordinary conduct,” the standards of virtue are going to be the same across cultures. But, he asks, “what say you to artificial lives and manners?” (par. 52).
What he means is lives that are more heavily influenced by religious belief than the pressures of ordinary social life.
Now Palamedes is talking more like Hume. He returns to a theme we saw in our first reading, about the relationship between religion and philosophy in the ancient and modern worlds (par. 33). In the ancient world, religion is a social practice and no one invests much effort in trying to explain it. In the modern world, philosophical reasoning is deployed to trying to make sense of religious ideas about topics like free will and morality. Hume clearly prefers the ancient way, even though, or perhaps because, it meant philosophy did not have much influence on people’s lives. He thinks that philosophical speculation on its own is harmless but that religious speculation is dangerous.
To make his point, Palamedes contrasts an ancient figure with a modern one. Diogenes was a Greek philosopher who lived by flouting all social conventions. A passage from Bayle’s Dictionary (volume 2, p. 669) gives you a flavor of the kind of thing he is said to have done.
Blaise Pascal was a celebrated modern philosopher and mathematician. He lived his life in an attempt to be maximally pious. Again, Bayle gives us a sense of the man (volume 4, p. 488).
The point is that, on the surface, neither one behaves in ways that are either immediately agreeable or useful. Diogenes was disgusting and Pascal was a self-denying scold. However, Palamedes thinks he can understand Diogenes. He was trying to be as independent as possible and to limit his desires to things he could attain. Pascal, by contrast, is a mystery to Palamedes. While the “austerities of the Greek were in order to inure himself to hardships, and prevent his ever suffering” Pascal’s “were embraced merely for their own sake, and in order to suffer as much as possible” (par. 55). Diogenes loved his friends, in his own way, while Pascal “endeavoured to be absolutely indifferent towards his nearest relations, and to love and speak well of his enemies” (par. 55).
Hume, speaking through the narrator again, cites “religious superstition” and “enthusiasm” to explain both why Pascal acts as he does as well as the fact that Pascal is regarded as virtuous. Both are otherwise inexplicable in Hume’s scheme.
When men depart from the maxims of common reason, and affect these artificial lives, as you call them, no one can answer for what will please or displease them. They are in a different element from the rest of mankind; and the natural principles of their mind play not with the same regularity, as if left to themselves, free from the illusions of religious superstition or philosophical enthusiasm. (par. 57)