An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals

Contents

1. Advertisement Advertisement 1 min 3

   Written in 1775 for the posthumous 1777 edition, this short notice explains that the volume recasts the unsuccessful Treatise of Human Nature, a “juvenile work” published too early. Hume complains that critics attack the Treatise rather than his mature pieces, and asks that these alone be taken as his philosophy.

2. Section I Of the General Principles of Morals 14 min 7

   Hume sets aside those who deny moral distinctions altogether and turns to the live question: does morality rest on reason or on sentiment? He gives the arguments on both sides. Reason settles facts and is needed for judgment, but only feeling can make morality move us to act. He suggests that the final verdict of praise or blame is a sentiment common to the species, prepared by reasoning. He proposes an “experimental” method: collect the qualities ordinary language praises or blames, find what they share, and begin with the social virtues of benevolence and justice.

3. Section II Of Benevolence 13 min 14

   Benevolence and the other “softer” affections are admired everywhere, as the dying Pericles’ boast shows. When we praise a kind person we describe the good he does to family, dependants and society. So utility must be at least part of the merit of the social virtues. Hume shows that when experience changes our view of consequences (alms to beggars, tyrannicide, princely liberality, luxury), our moral judgments change with it. How much of benevolence’s merit comes from utility, and why utility pleases, is left for later sections.

4. Section III Of Justice 43 min 21

   Hume argues that public utility is the sole origin of justice. Thought experiments with abundance, perfect benevolence, extreme necessity and a society of ruffians show that justice lapses wherever it is useless. It exists only under moderate scarcity and limited generosity. The golden age and the state of nature are fictions that make the same point. Part II argues that the particular rules of property (labour, inheritance, transfer, contract, prescription) are chosen for their usefulness, rejects perfect equality as impracticable and pernicious, and denies that property could rest on instinct.

5. Section IV Of Political Society 12 min 8

   Government and allegiance, like justice, rest wholly on their usefulness in keeping the peace. Hume extends the argument to the laws of nations, which are weaker because states depend less on one another; to chastity, incest and marriage rules, explained by their social function; and to fidelity in conversation and good manners. Even robbers, gamblers, travellers on the road and fighters in war develop rules, because any regular dealings between people require them.

6. Section V Why Utility Pleases 39 min 17

   Why does utility please? Hume rejects the sceptics’ view that morals are inventions of politicians, since moral words would mean nothing without natural sentiments. He also rejects the selfish theory: we praise virtue in distant ages and in enemies, where our own interest is not at stake. Usefulness pleases because the happiness of others is not indifferent to us. Through sympathy, illustrated from the theatre, poetry and history, we share others’ pleasures and pains, and conversation corrects these feelings into a general standard of praise and blame.

7. Section VI Of Qualities Useful to Ourselves 33 min 17

   Qualities useful to their possessor alone, such as discretion, industry, frugality, strength of mind, good sense and memory, are also approved, which no theory of self-love can explain. Their merit varies with customs and circumstances, as the ancient esteem for memory and bodily strength shows. Part II applies the theory to bodily beauty and to the goods of fortune. We respect the rich by sympathy with the pleasures their wealth commands, not from hope of gain, and different societies honour birth or present riches according to their form of government.

8. Section VII Of Qualities Immediately Agreeable to Ourselves 21 min 22

   Hume turns to qualities approved because they please their possessor directly, with no view to further benefit. Cheerfulness spreads to onlookers by sympathy; greatness of mind, courage and philosophical tranquillity strike us as sublime, as examples from Longinus, Tacitus and Demosthenes show. The softness of benevolence pleases in itself, which is why we can call someone “too good”. Poetic genius and delicacy of taste are merits too. Hume notes that ruder nations rank courage highest, and concludes that the same social sympathy underlies approval of both agreeable and useful qualities.

9. Section VIII Of Qualities Immediately Agreeable to Others 15 min 7

   The fourth class: qualities immediately agreeable to others. Good manners arise, like justice, from clashing interests, here the pride of people in company. Wit, conversational tact, modesty, decency suited to age, sex and station, and even cleanliness win approval because they please those around us. Hume contrasts French esteem for wit with English praise of the “good-natured, sensible fellow”, distinguishes proper self-esteem from vanity, and ends with the indefinable “manner” or grace that philosophy cannot explain but taste and sentiment recognise.

10. Section IX Conclusion 35 min 17

    Part I states the conclusion: personal merit consists wholly in mental qualities useful or agreeable to oneself or others, a principle common life always assumes. The “monkish virtues” of celibacy, fasting and humility are therefore vices. Morality rests on the sentiment of humanity, which alone is common to all and extends to all, allowing a shared point of view. Part II argues that virtue is also in everyone’s interest, and confronts the “sensible knave” who keeps the rules of justice except when cheating pays; Hume concedes there is no argument to answer him.

11. Appendix I Concerning Moral Sentiment 22 min 8

    Hume returns to the question left open in Section I: does morality rest on reason or sentiment? Reason traces the consequences of actions, but approval needs a feeling for human happiness. Five arguments follow against the view that reason alone discerns morals: no fact or relation in an act like ingratitude is the crime; moral judgment comes only after all facts are known; moral beauty resembles natural beauty; a tree killing its parent stands in the same relations as Nero; and ultimate ends cannot be given reasons. Reason discovers truth; taste gilds and stains the world.

12. Appendix II Of Self-Love 16 min 9

    Hume distinguishes the cynical view that all virtue is hypocrisy from the philosophical theory that every affection is a disguised form of self-love. The second makes little practical difference, but it is false. Common experience shows benevolence, gratitude and parental love; animals show kindness without calculation; and in psychology the simplest cause is likeliest. Above all, self-love presupposes primary passions aimed directly at objects, and benevolence can be one of them, just as revenge plainly can.

13. Appendix III Some Farther Considerations with Regard to Justice 13 min 11

    This appendix explains how justice differs from the other social virtues. Benevolence does good in each act; justice benefits society only as a general scheme, like a vault whose stones stand only together. Property rules must therefore be general and inflexible, even when they give a good man’s goods to a miser. Justice arises from convention, understood as a shared sense of common interest rather than a promise, like rowers pulling together, money or language. In hard cases jurisprudence relies on analogy, precedent and even imagination.

14. Appendix IV Of Some Verbal Disputes 21 min 18

    Hume declines to fix the boundary between virtues and talents, or vices and defects, as a merely verbal dispute. Voluntariness, social usefulness and the head–heart distinction all fail as criteria, and the feelings aroused by talents and by moral qualities are similar. The ancient moralists, Cicero, Aristotle, the Stoics and historians such as Livy and Polybius, counted abilities among the virtues. Modern philosophers stress the will because ethics became bound to theology and modelled on law with rewards and punishments.

15. Dialogue A Dialogue 43 min 27

    Palamedes describes Fourli, whose admired hero commits incest, murder of a benefactor and suicide, then reveals that he meant the ancient Athenians. The narrator retaliates with a portrait of the modern French as an Athenian would see them. Palamedes concludes that custom is the basis of morals. The narrator replies that, like the Rhine and the Rhone, different practices flow from the same principles of utility and agreeableness under different circumstances. Only “artificial lives” shaped by philosophy or religion, like those of Diogenes and Pascal, escape the rule.