Philosophy, Hume Essay, Research Paper

Philosophy, HumeAn Enquiry Concerning the Principles of MoralsWhat is a moral? This is a question that has plagued philosophers for many years. Is it possibleto have a set of universal morals? There are many questions that surround the mystery of morals. Theyseem to drive our every action. We base our decisions on what is right and what is wrong. But what is itthat actually determines what is right and what is wrong? Is it our sense of reason? Is it our sense ofsentiment? This is a question that David Hume spent much of his life pondering. What exactly is it thatdrives our actions? Yes, morals drive them, but what determines what our morals are? What is it thatultimately drives our actions; our feelings or our minds? Hume would say that it is our sentiment that ultimately drives our actions. According to Hume,reason is incapable of motivating an action. According to Hume, reason cannot fuel an action andtherefore cannot motivate it. Hume feel that all actions are motivated by our sentiment. For example, onpage 84 Appendix I, he gives the example of a criminal. “It resides in the mind of the person, who isungrateful. He must, therefore, feel it, and be conscious of it.” Here, it is evident that Hume is saying thatunless the person, or criminal in this case, sincerely believes in what he wants to do, he will not be able tomotivate the action. In other words, unless the sentiment is there, the action cannot be willed into being. Hence, the sentiment is the driving force behind the action. Hume does not however say that reason is incapable of determining wether an action is virtuousor vicious (moral or immoral), but instead he tries to say that the reason for the morality of an action doesnot dictate the execution or perversion of an act so far as determination of wether the action is executedor not. In simpler terms, reason has it’s place in determining morality, but it is not in the motivation of anaction. Motivation must come from the heart, or better yet, from within the person; from their beliefs. Reason merely allows the person to make moral distinctions. Without reason, there would be no morality.

Without reason, one moral clause would not be differentiable from another. That is to say that below allmorals, there must be some underlying truth because “Truth is disputable; not taste” (p.14). If truth werenot disputable, there would be no way to prove that a truth was just that… a truth. To make an analogy tomathematics, truth is a function of reason, whereas taste is a function of sentiment. Sentiment is afunction of the individual whereas reason is a function of the universe. The universe as a whole must follow reason, but the catch is that each individual’s universe isslightly different in that each individual perceives his or her universe differently. “What each man feelswithin himself is the standard of sentiment.” (p.14) That is to say each person’s individual universe hastruths. These truths are based on reason. These truths/reasons are what help to determine the person’ssentiment. However, it should be noted that because the reasons are NOT necessarily the person’ssentiments, they do not motivate actions. One other reason why reason does not impel action is becausereason is based on truths. Truths are never changing whereas sentiments are dynamic and are in aconstant change of flux. At one moment, the criminal could feel sympathy for his victims and decide tospare a life, and the very next, the same criminal could become enraged at the pimple on a hostage’sforehead and shoot him. Of course these are extreme cases, but the point is clear. Reason would dictate that only the firstaction would be moral. If reason drove actions, then moral behavior would prevail and there would be noimmoral actions and hence there would be no crimes. This shows how sentiments can change as theindividual’s perception of the universe changes. Obviously, the driving force behind the criminal shootingthe victim because of a skin blemish is not one based on reason, but instead it is based on feeling, emotion,sentiment. Although it is an abstract idea and a seemingly tiny technicality, it is easy to see that indeedreason is not the ultimate motivator but instead sentiment is.