Hume Moral Judgments and Self-Love Theory Essay

The concept of morality is one that has plagued the mind of philosophers and mankind for decades, and a lot of questions surround the mystery of morality and moral judgments. This is because we choose our actions based on its rightness and wrongness which is determined by our personal experiences and upbringing. How we have been cultured, our indoctrinations play a major role on what we decide or choose to be right or wrong. But how do we determine what is right or wrong? Our reason? Sentiments? Where does moral approval come from? David Hume spent a long time pondering on these questions. Hume in his work "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals" provides us with hundreds of pages in which he looks into and informs his readers of the nature of moral judgments, sentimentalism, and rationalism among others. For example, he said "For if we can be so happy, in the course of this inquiry, as to discover the true origins of morals, it will then easily appear how far either sentiment or reason enters into all determinations of this nature" (EpmI.110).

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In this paper I seek to find answers to the questions, "Do our sentiments form the basis of our morality, do we act morally solely for our selfish interest? I would begin by explaining in my understanding the concept of moral judgment, how moral judgment works. Then I would examine and explain Hume's meta-ethical view or moral judgments, and this would lead to a transition to the Self-love theory and how it poses a challenge to Hume's accounts of moral approval. Hume's view point on the matter will provide a great insight on the concepts found in the area of the study and help in the formulation of a comprehensive paper needed for the successful response to the provided question

Moral judgments can refer to a virtue, activity or content. It is a judgment that evaluates if our actions, intention, motives, or a character trait is good or bad, and this is measured against some upstanding standards of what is good as well as what is perceived as bad. The less closely associated the thing is to good then it falls on the bad side of morale while on the other hand, the closer to bad then this is seen as morally negative . Moral judgments can only be applied if the agent has free will. In analyzing the activities in moral judgments, we must have a subject (a rational selfness) which would judge, an object (may be an attribute) whose actions will be judged, a standard or set of rules by which the action of the subject would be judged, and the power (knowledge) to judge an action. Moral judgment involves conducting an evaluation of value, which deals with the ethics normatively: "what ought to be" and not descriptive facts "what is". When we judge an action right we feel some form of approval towards it, and when we judge an action wrong, we feel disapproval towards the actions. The feelings of rightness, wrongness, approval, or disapproval among others are referred to as moral sentiments. These are experienced by everyone and greatly influence the actions taken up by someone. The moral sentiments lays some simple ground rules on morally upright conduct and on how people for instance interact with each other. The term sentiments would lead us to Hume's meta-ethical account of moral judgments.

Hume's theory or moral judgment arose from his belief that reason cannot be the sole motive of the will, but rather reason is a slave of passion. He believed that reason alone cannot cause actions; it can be used to learn the causes of pleasure or pain. But reason alone cannot motivate an action thus he said "reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of passions." In Hume's view, moral actions are derived from sentiments or a feeling within humans: feelings of praise, esteem approval, disapproval. As seen in Hume's opinion when he said "but though reason, when fully assisted and improved, be sufficient to instruct us in the pernicious or useful tendency of qualities and actions: it is not alone sufficient to produce any moral blame or approbation.

It is requisite a sentiment should here display itself, in order to give a preference to the useful above pernicious tendencies. Here therefore, reason instructs us in the several tendencies of actions, and humanity makes a distinction in favor to those which are useful and beneficial". Hume's believes that our reason apprehends the facts in a situation while our sentiment is the motive for our actions, that reason is something that assists sentiments in matters concerning morality. He believes that sentiments are the foundation in which morality, and reason as means to sentiments. However, without reasons, sentiments can still exist, reason cannot be the sole motivation because they can only make statements but cannot explain human sentiments or emotions. These happen to be the most complicated matters in a human to explain. Sentiments and emotions varied nature from a person to the next makes them hard to comprehend.

Considering Hume's account of how sentiments are the sole motivation of moral judgments, it is no wonder that philosophers would try to examine if our moral judgments are formed on the basis of the utilities we derive from our self-interest or other regarding motive. It is during this inquiry that the 'self-love' theory emerged which states that "whatever affection one may feel, or imagine he feels for others, no passion is, or can be disinterested: that the most generous friendship, however sincere, is a modification of self-love; and that, even unknown to ourselves, we seek only our own gratification, while we appear the most deeply engaged in schemes for the liberty and happiness of mankind" (Epm 11.2.1). Self-love theory poses a threat to Hume's account of moral judgment, because if moral judgments are motivated by feelings, which then prove that, we do not act or make moral judgments for our self-interest feelings. In response to this, Hume acknowledged that self-love is a principle in the nature of humans, but it does not qualify to be a moral principle because the self-interest feelings are not our only motivating feelings. Hume gave some examples to back up his critique against self-love.

One of his strong arguments, is the objection that "we frequently bestow praise on virtuous actions, performed in very distant ages and remote countries; where the utmost subtlety of imagination would not discover any appearance of self-interest, or find any connection between our personal happiness and security with events so widely separated from us" (Epm 1.V 6). He is arguing that self-love cannot make the idea of others be agreeable to us, because there is no utility derived from the approval in this instance. Hume claims that we praise actions rather because of sympathy and humanity, and the existence of sympathy is what qualifies a good moral evaluation. Self-love brings with it all the above, the connection to a particular action or situation develops to our moral judgment towards that particular situation. Different situation receives different reactions depending with the involvement of self-love. A good example would be partners in a relationship or a husband and wife, different situations that one would term morally wrong receive compromise in such situations due to the existence of self-love where the wife or the husband receives preferential judgment. Another Strong objection he presented was "What interest can a fond mother have in her view, who loses her health by the assiduous attendance on her sick child, and afterwards languishes and dies of grief when freed, by its death, from the slavery of that attendance?" Hume argued that in this situation it is not in the mother's personal interest to take care of the child, but still her sentiments direct her to her child's interest.

We can also borrow from Immanuel Kant views which were largely against that of Hume. For example, Kant was against Hume's position that sentiments are the sole motivation of moral judgments, seeing this as an attack on rational thinking. To Kant, rational thinking demands that ethics should be based on a person's duty to the society that a person's actions should only be done from a sense of duty and moral obligation hence the appropriateness of a mother's choice to priorities on her infant's life. Kant wrote "So act such that the maxim of your action can be universalized as the moral law" (Benatar 23) he further stated that "So act such that you treat all persons as ends in themselves, never means to ends" (Benatar 23).

Based on this, we can say that Hume did not succeed in his critique against self-love because one could argue that the mother putting her child's interest first still has a connection to self-love, because in this case, the mother's interest is not in the welfare of her child. Not to say that she does not have a genuine concern for her child, but the question Hume poses is "is this reducible to self-love?' Based on the approval described in the first example, it can be argued that; we approve of this action because some way or another it influences us and our moral rules. In distant ages and countries, virtues would commend our approval because if those virtues were instilled in our society it would ensure security and the security would ultimately influence our happiness. The societal norms that happen dictate morality of the society.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I think Hume has a strong argument that our passion and sentiments determine our moral judgment; his examples are detailed and should convince anyone with an open mind that, sentiments are the sole motivation of moral actions. However, his critique of self-love theories has good points but does not have substantial examples or evidence that we do not act, and make moral judgments separate from our self-interest.

Works Cited

Benatar, David ,Life, Death and Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big Questions:, Maryland, Rawman Littlefield 1993, 22 -23.

Hume, David, "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals." 1983 Hackett Publishing Co.