Walls and Vaults: A Natural Science of Morals (Virtue Ethics According to David Hume)

420 Pages·2009·6.68 MB·English

by  Jordan Howard Sobel(auth.)

Walls and Vaults
Walls and Vaults
A Natural Science of Morals
(Virtue Ethics According to David Hume)
Jordan Howard Sobel
Division of Humanities
University of Toronto at Scarborough
WILEY
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publlcation Data:
Sobel, Jordan Howard.
Walls and vaults : a natural science of morals, virtue ethics according to David Hume / Jordan
Howard Sobel.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-12761-2 (pbk.)
1. Hume, David, 1711-1776. 2. Virtue. 3. Ethics. I. Title.
B1499.E8S63 2008
170.92—dc22
2007030209
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 76 5 4 3 21
For Willa Fowler Freeman Sobel and David Falk, and for David Hume
He was of the party of humankind
Contents
PREFACE xi
I. Introduction 1
1. The Business of Moral Philosophy and the Question,
"Why Be Moral?" / 1
2. Hume's Questions in Moral Philosophy and His
Answers—in Brief / 4
3. Coming Chapters / 8
PART ONE: ANALYSIS AND METAPHYSICS—SEMANTICS,
PRAGMATICS, AND LOGIC 11
II. Virtue and Vice 13
1. David Hume: Virtue Theorist / 13
2. What Kinds of Things Are Virtues and Vices According to
Hume / 16
3. Hume's First Question in Order of Explanation:
What Is It for Something to Be a Virtue? / 18
4. The Nature or Definition of Virtue and Vice:
Hume's Hypothesis in Brief / 19
5. Detailing Hume's Account / 29
6. The Nature of Virtue According to This Hypothesis / 45
vil
ViU CONTENTS
7. Illusory Qualities / 50
8. "A Controversy Started of Late" (David Hume) and
"The Moral Problem" (Michael Smith) of Late / 52
Appendix: Virtuous and Vicious Actions / 58
III. Moral Judgments
1. They Are Not, Although They Could Be, What They Seem
to Be / 62
2. The Good Sense of Sentences of Moral Judgments / 67
3. The Bad Sense of Moral Judgments: Their Bogus
Propositional Conjuncts / 78
4. Difficulties for Nonpropositional Theories of Moral
Judgments / 83
5. The Function of Moral Language / 95
IV. Species Bias
1. Humes Hypotheses Concerning Moral Distinctions
and Judgments / 102
2. Evidence for This Theory / 103
3. The Human Species Bias of Morality / 105
4. Hume's Theory Predicts and Explains This Bias and
Addresses Its Proper Measure / 107
5. The Moral Innocence of Plants and Animals / 108
6. Animal Moralities / 110,
7. Bias Toward Us of Another Kind / 111
PART TWO: NORMATIVE THEORIES
V. Virtues Agreeable and Useful
1. A Utilitarian Theory of the Virtues / 115
2. Methodology / 118
3. Of What Primarily Is Hume's Delineation of Personal
Merit a Theory? / 125
4. Extending the Theory to Culture-Specific, Local, and
Cult Virtues / 130
5. The Case for This Utilitarian Theory of the Virtues Is
Very Strong / 134
6. Relations of Hume's Theory of the Virtues and His
Theory of Virtue / 135
7. Intrinsic Logic of These Theories / 138
CONTENTS IX
8. Tables of Virtues / 142
9. Piety / 144
10. Gratitude / 145
11. Strength of Mind / 147
12. Justice and Benevolence / 148
Appendix A: Contents of Volume II of Essays and Treatises, ΠΠ,
the "Advertisement" and "A Dialogue" / 156
Appendix B: Essentials of Hume's Theory of Morals, But for Its
Semantics / 161
VI. Hume's Theory of Right and Wrong Actions 162
1. Attributing a Theory to Hume / 162
2. A Sometimes Actual-Rule, Sometimes Straight Act, Pure
Utilitarian Principle of "Right" and "Wrong" for Hume / 172
3. Ancillary Accounts of 'Rules of Justice' and Extraordinary
Cases / 177
4. Texts That Can Suggest Modifications / 186
5. Difficulties for the Theory Attributed to Hume / 189
6. Looking Ahead / 195
Appendix A: Contractarian Considerations / 196
Appendix B: Influencing Motives of Right and Wrong / 206
PART THREE: AN EVERYWHERE RELEVANT DISTINCTION 211
VII. That Species of Utility That Attends Justice 213
1. The Utilities of Benevolence and Justice Compared / 213
2. Texts for Distinction / 214
3. Apparent Paradox Redux and Texts Featuring Variously
Moderating Clauses / 216
4. Comparisons of Several Ideas of the Utilities of Acts of Justice
that Are Constitutive of Useful Systems or Schemes / 218
5. Justice Utility Defined / 226
6. Not a Vault, But a Pontoon Bridge, or Better, a Fail-Safe
Device / 227
7. The Two Problems of How This Species of Utility Is
Possible / 228
VIII. The Logical Possibility of Justice Utility 231
1. Argument for This Possibility / 231
2. Toward Explanations of This Possibility / 253
X CONTENTS
Appendix A: Hume's Corn Case / 270
Appendix B: Getting in More Corn / 274
IX. The Real Possibility of Justice Utility: How Systems with
It Come to Be and Are Maintained 277
1. We Are Not Out of the Woods Yet / 277
2. Problems of Cooperation and Coordination / 279
3. How Did Such Schemes, Especially Schemes of Cooperation,
Begin? / 289
4. As Society Grows These Schemes Are Maintained Largely by
Senses of Duty / 307
5. Summing Up / 317
Appendix A: Getting in the Corn Again and Again / 319
Appendix B: A Three-Person Prisoners' Dilemma in Which
Backward-Conditional Resolutions Would Not Redirect
Interests / 323
Appendix C: Circumstances of Justice / 330
PART FOUR: AND NOW AT LAST THE "FIRST" QUESTION 333
X. Our Interested Obligation to Virtue: Why Be Moral? 335
1. It Is a Question Best Left to Last / 335
2. The Problem of Part II of the Conclusion,
Finely Drawn / 337
3. Benevolence and Humanity / 347
4. The Problem Is "Why Be Just?" / 350
5. What Knaves Are Missing / 353
6. Elements for a Nonevasive Case For Justice / 357
7. The Case for Justice Assembled / 363
8. Glaucon's Problem / 368
9. Signing Off / 373
Appendix A: Richard Hare's Approach to the Question
"Why Be Moral?" / 374
Appendix B: An Amendment After Alasdair Maclntyre / 376
Appendix C: Humean and Platonic Moral Consciences / 377
REFERENCES 381
NAME INDEX 391
SUBJECT INDEX 395
Preface
The happiness and prosperity of mankind, arising from the social virtue of
benevolence and its subdivisions, may be compared to a wall, built by many
hands, which still rises by each stone that is heaped upon it, and receives increase
proportional to the diligence and care of each workman. The same happiness,
raised by the social virtue of justice and its subdivisions, may be compared to the
building of a vault, where each individual stone would, of itself, fall to the ground;
nor is the whole fabric supported but by the mutual assistance and combination
of its corresponding parts. {An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals,
Appendix III, Oxford, 1902, p. 305)
'Tis evident, that all the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature.
... And as the science of man is the only solid foundation for the other sciences,
so the only solid foundation we can give to this science itself must be laid on
experience and observation.... And tho' we must endeavour to render all our
principles as universal as possible ... , 'tis still certain we cannot go beyond
experience; and any hypothesis, that pretends to discover the ultimate original
qualities of human nature, ought at first to be rejected as presumptuous and
chimerical. (A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt To Introduce the
Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects, Introduction, Oxford,
1888, pp. xv-xvii)
Although in this book I do not honor to the letter Hume's request that
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, A Dissertation on the
Passions, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, and The Natural
History of Religion "alone be regarded as containing his philosophical senti-
ments and principles," I have tried to honor its spirit.1 For example, while
'Author's Advertisement in Volume II of Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects. By David
Hume, Esq. Enquiries, published posthumously in 1777. This Advertisement, and a facsimile of
the title page to that volume, which lists its contents, are included in Enquiries (Oxford, 1902,
pp. 1 and 2) and in an appendix to Chapter V below.
xi
XH PREFACE
I derive his doctrine of convention almost entirely from Book III of the
Treatise, I am convinced that the deeper and fuller discussion of this topic
found only there contains views he still held but chose not to detail in his
Second Enquiry. On the other hand, I follow Hume and make little use of
the terms natural and artificial in my explanations and discussions of his
views, despite their prominence in the Treatise. "The word natural," Hume
came to think, "is commonly taken in so many senses and is of so loose a
signification, that it seems vain to dispute whether justice be natural or not"
(Second Enquiry, Appendix III, Oxford, 1902, p. 307). Regarding sympathy,
while not ignoring speculation in the Treatise concerning its psychomechan-
ics, I take to heart Hume's judgment that "it is needless to push our
researches so far. ... It is sufficient, that this is experienced to be a principle
of human nature" (Second Enquiry, p. 219n). When it comes to matters of
the virtues of benevolence and justice, their similarities and differences, I
draw freely from both the Treatise and the Second Enquiry, discerning, I
believe, Hume's struggle to get right matters of great subtlety, difficulty, and
importance.
The title of this book—Walls and Vaults—recalls imagery of the deep dif-
ference that Hume discerned between these virtues. In his terms, it is a distinc-
tion between "the species of utility which attend" these omnibus virtues. This
distinction comes up early in the present book in Chapter II and is prominent
to varying degrees in Chapters V through X. The first subtitle—A Natural
Science of Morals—is for Hume's descriptive/explanatory objectives of his
work on "Moral Subjects" into which he sought "to introduce the experimental
method of reasoning ...; it is not my present business to recommend ... our
object being more the speculative than the practical part of morals" (Second
Enquiry, Section I, Part I, pp. 177-178). The second subtitle—Virtue Ethics
According to David Hume—advertises the primacy in the subject matter of
Hume's moral philosophy, not of actions and duty as it was to be for Immanuel
Kant, but of qualities of mind and virtues, as it was for the first moral philoso-
phers, Plato and Aristotle.
All subsequent quotations from, and references to, writings of Hume are,
unless otherwise indicated, from or to A Treatise of Human Nature (indicated
by T), and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (the Second
Enquiry, indicated by E). Page references are to Oxford University Press edi-
tions of A Treatise of Human Nature and Enquiries Concerning Human Under-
standing and Concerning the Principles of Morals edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge
and recently revised with notes by P. H. Nidditch. A similar rule covers refer-
ences to An Enquiry Concerning the Human Understanding (the First Enquiry).
References to essays, for example, "The Sceptic" and "Of the Standard of
Taste," are to Essays Moral and Political and Literary, edited by Eugene F.
Miller (Liberty Fund).
I remember an Author, who says, that one half of a man's life is too little to write
a Book; and the other half to correct it. So wrote David Hume to his publisher