Treatise of Human Nature Yet Again

In book III of this book Hume is trying to convert his truths into a discussion of morality. I will discuss the section headings and how Hume tries to explain these. Book III part 1 section 1 discusses the origin of natural virtues and vices. The authors of these philosophy books seem to find this as a necessary topic for discussion. They feel a need to explain the actions that are considered vices and those that are considered virtues. According to Hume, a vice is something that causes hatred or humility. He also says that a virtue is any quality of the mind that causes love or pride. I think what he goes on to say is that the action itself is not a part of morality. Instead, it is the though behind the actions that causes the action to be virtuous or vicious. An action alone cannot be considered in morality because it is the quality of the mind that determines someone's character. Later on in this section, Hume goes back to his view of sympathy and the relation of morals and sympathy. The next section is Book III part 1 section 2 and discusses greatness of mind. I think he titled it this to explain the comments he made in the previous section. He describes how greatness of mind must be made up of two distinct principles. The principles are sympathy and comparison. Sympathy is an innate sense of the feelings of others while comparison uses the status of another to judge our own status. He notes that comparison and sympathy are directly contrary to one another and that there are times when they act as such. An example he gives is when a person on shore witnesses a ship in a storm at sea. If the ship is far away the person will be happy that they are not on the ship, but if the ship is near enough that the person can see the horror on the face of the crew, the person will be sad. Page 381 has a discussion of pride and modesty. I am not sure I understand Hume's stance on this as he says modesty benefits others but not ourself, and vice-versa for pride. I don't know how he feels on this subject. The previous two sections seem to be from the wrong part of the book. I will continue as I have put a lot of thought into those rather than erase them from the blog. Those seem to be from part 3 of the last book, not part 1. I didn't notice, however, until I went to flip to the next part only to realize the book was over.

The actual book III part 1 section 1 is titled moral distinctions not deriv'd from reason. This section is integral to the argument of Hume. He uses it to differentiate his argument from Aristotle's. Aristotle proposes that reason can control actions but Hume's argument says otherwise. Hume says that no matter what case you look at there is no matter of fact morals. They are always caused by passions, movitve, volitions, and thoughts. These cannot be dissected with reason as they are emotional. The next section is titled Moral Distinctions Deriv'd from a Moral Sense. This is why Hume needed to disprove reason as the tool for moral distinction in the previous section. He states that moral distinctions can only be made by feelings of pleasure and pain. Part 2 section 1 discusses whether justice is a natural or artificial virtue. Hume asserts that justice is not a natural virtue but one that has arisen out of necessity from society. The next section of part 2 discusses both justice and property. His discussion of property explains that the wants and needs of mankind do not fit with the niche that man was given by nature. This is how he leads into the artificial virtues. He explains that some things were not given to man by nature and these are the things that we must hold as virtues in order for man to prosper in the world. Sections 3 and 4 discuss property and the rules that Hume holds to be truth. He explains the meaning of property and its relevance to his argument and how it relates to society. Section 5 talks about promises. I think that this makes more sense to a book about ethics than does property. Hume states that promises are not natural virtues and this is because they were created by human convention and not nature. Section 6 brings us back to the virtuousity of justice and how it relates to injustice. I would ask Hume how he felt about society, is it necessary? Are artificial virtues worth the same as natural virtues?