Hume, Justice and Sympathy: A Reversal of the Natural Order?

• Authors: Botros Sophie
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Hume’s view that the object of moral feeling is a natural passion, motivating action, causes problems for justice. There is apparently no appropriate natural motive, whilst, if there were, its “partiality” would unfit it to ground the requisite impartial approval. We offer a critique of such solutions as that the missing non-moral motive is enlightened self-interest (Baier), or that it is feigned (Haakonssen), or that it consists in a just disposition (Gauthier). We reject Cohon’s postulation of a moral motive for just acts, and also Harris’s attempt to dispense with motive as the source of their merit, by invoking extensive sympathy, and citing their beneficial societal consequences. These solutions assume that, if Hume remains a virtue ethicist, the natural virtues supply the paradigm. Taylor claims that a revolution in motivational psychology follows the inauguration of the artificial convention of justice, remoulding the natural virtues. This solution founders, we argue, upon unresolved contradictions besetting even these virtues

Keywords

EN

justice; sympathy; virtue; sentimentalism; passion; motive; character; self-interest; impartiality; consequences

• Publisher: Instytut Filozofii - Uniwersytet Jagielloński
• Journal: Diametros
• Year: 2015
• Issue: Diametros 44
• Pages: 110-139

Dates

published

2015-06

Contributors

author

Botros Sophie

• Institute of Philosophy School of Advanced Study University of London

References

• A. Baier, Progress of Sentiments, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 1991.
• A. Baier, “Artificial Virtues and the Equally Sensible Non-Knaves: A Response to Gauthier,” Hume Studies 18 (2) 1992, p. 429–439.
• S. Botros, Hume, Reason and Morality: A Legacy of Contradiction, Routledge, Oxford 2006.
• R. Cohon, Hume’s Morality: Feeling and Fabrication, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2008.
• M. Collier, “Hume’s Theory of Moral Imagination,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 27 (3) 2010, p. 255–273.
• S. Darwall, The British Moralists and the Internal ‘Ought’ 1640–1740, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1995.
• D. Garrett, “The First Motive to Justice: Hume’s ’Circle Argument’ Squared,” Hume Studies 33 (2) 2007, p. 257–288.
• D. Gauthier, “Artificial Virtues and the Sensible Knave,” Hume Studies 18 (2) 1992, p. 401–427.
• K. Haakonssen, “Hume’s Obligations,” Hume Studies 4 (1) 1978, p. 7–17.
• J. Harris, “Hume on the Moral Obligation to Justice,” Hume Studies 36 (1) 2010, p. 25–50.
• D. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, D.F. Norton and M.J. Norton (eds.), Oxford University Press, Oxford 2000.
• J. Taylor, “Justice and the Foundation of Social Morality in Hume’s Treatise,” Hume Studies 24 (1) 1998, p. 5–30.
• D. Wiggins, Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality, Penguin, London 2006.

Notes

EN

Special Topic - Justice and Compassion – Hume’s Moral Philosophy and Contemporary Practical Ethics

Identifiers

DOI

dx.doi.org/10.13153/diam.44.2015.766