Overview

Both Kant and Hume think that moral evaluations are primarily concerned with motives. Kant thinks that these three things are bound up with one another.

1. The motive of duty: Kant thinks actions motivated by a sense of duty are the central case for morality.
2. Reason: Kant thinks we use reason to discover what are duty is.
3. Freedom: Kant thinks morally good actions must be freely chosen.¹

Hume disagrees about each major point.

1. Hume thinks the natural virtues, such as benevolence, are the central case for morality. He finds the sense of duty unintelligible on its own and has to take special steps to explain it with his theory of conventions.
2. Hume thinks that we draw moral distinctions using our emotions rather than reason.
3. Hume does not believe in free will.

There are several advantages to Kant’s moral philosophy.

1. It is universal; there will not be any questions about immoral conventions or relativism.
2. Morality is accessible to everyone; on Hume’s theory, by contrast, someone could be deficient in moral virtue in the same way that someone could lack a natural ability like strength or good looks.
3. It is explicitly normative. Kant’s theory will tell us how we should think while Hume was mostly concerned with describing how we do think.

Of course, these are advantages only if he can pull it off. Can he? That is what we will have to see!