Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Hume on Morality

James Baillie

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9780415180481
• eBook ISBN: 9781134678891
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

David Hume is widely recognised as the greatest philosopher to have written in the English language. His Treatise on Human Nature is one of the most important works of moral philosophy ever written.
Hume on Morality introduces and assesses
* Hume's life and the background of the Treatise
* The ideas and text in the Treatise
* Hume's continuing importance to philosophy

Chapter 1

Introduction

Life and times

David Hume was born in Edinburgh in 1711 into a distinguished but not particularly wealthy family whose estate was in Ninewells, Berwickshire, near the border with England. Records reveal that the family name had been typically spelled ‘Home’, which was pronounced the same as ‘Hume’, although those less bureaucratic times allowed many variations including ‘Hoom’ and ‘Hum’. While the Homes had been in Berwickshire since at least the twelfth century, Hume’s direct ancestors occupied Ninewells since the fifteenth century. After the death of his father, Joseph Home, in 1713, Hume was raised, along with an elder brother and sister, by his mother Katherine. In his biography, Ernest Mossner records that

The family were Presbyterians, members of the established Church of Scotland. In politics they were Whigs, strongly approving the revolution of 1688, the Union of 1707, and the accession of the House of Hanover in 1714; and strongly disapproving all varieties of Jacobitism.

(Mossner 1980: 32; unless otherwise stated, all page references in this section refer to Mossner)

Hume enrolled at Edinburgh University in 1722, alongside his brother John. This did not indicate precocity, since eleven was a typical age to enter a university, these being more akin to a modern day high school than a university as we know it. The core curriculum consisted of Latin, Greek, Logic, Metaphysics, and Natural Philosophy (i.e., Physics), with electives available in Mathematics and History. Hume left around 1726 without graduating, as was common in those days, and there is little record of his time there. In My Own Life, he merely notes that ‘I passed through the ordinary Course of Education with Success’ (1980: 40).

On leaving university, he was under some familial pressure to enter the legal profession, and entered into a period of private study within which law initially played a major part. His legal knowledge

was thought sufficient…to gain him the commission of Judge-Advocate to a military expedition of 1746; and throughout his life it enabled him to draw up legal documents of many different types and to offer expert comment on matters pertaining to the law.

(1980: 55)

Although he described himself as being ‘religious when young’, he parted company with it around this time, deciding that, as he later told Francis Hutcheson, ‘I desire to take my Catalogue of Virtues from Cicero’s Offices, not from the Whole Duty of Man’ (1980: 64), the pietist tract of his boyhood. This seems to have been a period of extraordinary intellectual growth, since by 1729 he had reached the basic insights underlying his philosophical theory.

After much Study, & Reflection on this [new Medium, by which Truth might be establisht], at last, when I was about 18 Years of Age, there seem’d to be open’d up to me a new Scene of Thought, which transported me beyond Measure, & made me, with an Ardor natural to young men, throw up every other Pleasure or Business to apply entirely to it. The Law, which was the Business I design’d to follow, appear’d nauseous to me, & I cou’d think of no other way of pushing my Fortune in the World but that of a Scholar & Philosopher.

(1980: 65)

From 1729 till 1734, he pursued this new ‘Scene of Thought’ so single-mindedly as to affect his health, suffering depression, together with a variety of physical ailments including scurvy. His doctor eccentrically recommended a pint of claret each day, along with moderate exercise. Hume also came to the belief that ‘Business and Diversion’ would be the best cure for his state of mind, so he put his studies on hold and started work as a clerk for a sugar importer in Bristol. Around this time he changed the spelling of his name to Hume, since the English kept mispronouncing it. His business career was short-lived, being dismissed after incurring his employer’s wrath for constantly correcting his grammar and literary style.

The Treatise was largely written in France between 1734 and 1737. Having a yearly allowance of around £50, he could not afford to live in Paris, his ideal choice of residence, and settled in La Fleche, Anjou. Apart from cheap lodgings, La Fleche had the advantage of a well-established Jesuit college (where Descartes had been educated) which included a seems not to have grasped Hume’s intentions, failing to recognize many significant areas substantial library.

Hume returned to London to find a publisher, staying there till early 1739. John Noon published Books 1 and 2 of the Treatise in January 1739, Book 3 being published by Thomas Longman in November 1740. He followed a common practice in publishing anonymously, and only explicitly admitted its authorship in posthumously published works. He chose to remove the most controversial section, a chapter on miracles, with the intention of avoiding the inevitable furore by ‘enthusiasts’ which would dominate discussion at the expense of the main theoretical considerations from which his theological views were consequent.

Hume judged this concession to have had no effect. While he adapted Pope to lament that ‘It fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction, as even to excite a murmur among the zealots’, there is much evidence to the contrary. Although initial sales were slow, the hostile reaction among excitable persons soon gathered such a momentum as to wreck his chances of an academic career, and he endured their attacks on his character, and misrepresentations of his work, throughout his life. Apart from a small circle of cognoscenti, which included members of the ‘moderate’ wing of the Church, he was ‘Hume the Infidel’ rather than ‘le bon David’. Initial reviews were uniform in that (a) they focused almost entirely on Book 1; (b) they seriously misunderstood it; and (c) their tone was hostile and often insulting. There was no public response from those capable of understanding it, such as Berkeley or Hutcheson. His decision to publish an Abstract summarizing the argument of Book 1 had no effect. Disillusioned with his book’s reception, he attempted to get his ideas across in the form of essays aimed at a general public. Essays Moral and Political was published in 1741, and was well received. Still, as late as 1766, Hume could sadly report that

I cou’d cover the Floor of a large Room with Books and Pamphlets wrote against me, to none of which I ever made the least Reply, not from Disdain (for the Authors of some of them, I respect), but from my Desire of Ease and tranquillity.

(1980: 286)

The first considered study of Hume’s system was by Thomas Reid, who succeeded where Hume had not in becoming Chair of Logic at Glasgow. His Inquiry into the Human Mind, on the Principles of Common Sense came out in 1764, a quarter-century after the Treatise. However, even he of agreement with his own work.

Within Hume’s lifetime, his most famous critic was James Beattie, Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic at Marischal College, Aberdeen. His book, An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth; in opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism, appeared in 1770. Although an immediate popular success which was to go through five editions prior to Hume’s death in 1776, it is now regarded as a work of little philosophical merit, with Beattie himself only remembered by Hume’s epithet, ‘That bigotted silly Fellow, Beattie’. While Hume never publicly countered Beattie, he was sufficiently stung to take the unprecedented step of adding a prefatorial ‘Advertisement’ to future editions of his works, denouncing the Treatise as a negligent and juvenile work, a judgement with which few would now concur.

Hume applied for the Chair of Ethics and Pneumatical Philosophy at Edinburgh University in 1745. Pneumatics referred not to the mechanics of gases, but consisted of Natural Theology and proofs of God’s immortality, along with the study of immaterial beings and supposed ‘subtle material substances’ imperceptible to the senses. Hume complained that: ‘The accusation of Heresy, Deism, Scepticism, Atheism &c &c &c was started against me; but never took, being bore down by the contrary Authority of all the good Company in Town’ (1980: 156).

This is disingenuous to say the least, since opposition to his appointment included even Francis Hutcheson, a man who had probably done more than anyone else of his time to modernize and liberalize curricula at Scottish universities. Since 1690, all teachers at Scottish universities were required to subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith, something that Hume could surely not in all conscience do. As Alasdair MacIntyre has discussed at length, the Chair of Moral Philosophy at a Scottish university was unprecedented in its influence on general culture.

For the task of a professor of moral philosophy in eighteenth-century Scotland came to be that of providing a defense of just those fundamental moral principles, conceived of as antecedent to both all positive law and all particular forms of social organization, which defined peculiarly Scottish institutions and attitudes. And in providing this kind of defense philosophy and especially moral philosophy assumed a kind of authority in Scottish culture which it has rarely enjoyed in other times and places.

(MacIntyre 1988: 239)

The seriousness with which this role of defending and promoting Presbyterian theology was taken is shown by the fact that someone as devout as Hutcheson could be tried for heresy. Indeed, it was less than fifty years since a divinity student had been executed on such a charge. How Hume thought himself suited for such a job, or that he had any chance of getting it, is beyond me. It is hard not to agree with MacIntyre that

Of Hume’s unfitness to hold a chair which, for example, required its holder to give instruction in the truths of rational religion in a way that would be at least congruent with and supportive of the Christian revelation there can in retrospect be little doubt.

(MacIntyre 1988: 286)

Around this time, Hume became tutor to the Marquess of Annandale, who professed himself an admirer of the Essays. The experience was not a happy one, since the Marquess was insane. Shortly after this fiasco, Hume was hired as military secretary for a projected expedition to Canada, which never took place. He was later seconded to embassies in Vienna and Turin.

There then followed an intensive period of writing, beginning with the publication in 1748 of the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, plus Philosophical Essays, which included ‘On Miracles’. After returning to Ninewells in 1749, the next few years produced the Enquiry into the Principles of Morals, Political Discourses, and the posthumously published Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. He also began research for his largest undertaking, the History of England. This was published in six volumes between 1754 and 1762, and was by far Hume’s most successful book both financially and in terms of public acclaim, remaining the standard work in the field even into this century.

Hume was to make one more serious attempt at an academic career, applying for the Chair of Logic at Glasgow in 1751, after Adam Smith had vacated it to move over to the Chair of Moral Philosophy. As before in Edinburgh, his appointment was blocked by hostile clergy. By this point, it was not only the Presbyterians who were taking offence at his views. In 1761 he was flattered by having all his works placed on the Vatican’s list of prohibited books.

On returning to Edinburgh in 1751, he became a central figure in elevating that city to a cultural centre second only to Paris. He was appointed Librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, a post he held for five years. While the salary was small, it placed him in charge of what was undoubtedly the best library in the country, which proved invaluable to his historical researches. He participated in many learned societies, and, as secretary to the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, published Benjamin Franklin’s paper on the lightning rod. These societies included many members of the ‘Moderate’ clergy, who were throughout his life to be among his strongest defenders against the wrath of their righteous brethren. For example, they were among his most prominent supporters in his struggle to obtain an academic position. Again, when the Evangelicals proposed excommunicating Hume from the Church, these friends patiently pointed out the absurdity of the suggestion, since ‘it begins by alleging that the defender denies and disbelieves Christianity, and then it seeks to proceed against him and to punish him as a Christian’ (1980: 347). While Hume’s writings are full of disparaging remarks about the clergy, depicting them as hypocritical, conceited men whose zeal was fuelled by hatred and vengeance, it is obvious that he is talking primarily about the Evangelicals and other enthusiasts. Still, he should have been more careful, since his friends and allies included clergy who embodied more of his ‘natural’ virtues than the ‘monkish’ ones he so despised.

Hume spoke throughout his life with a strong accent, and his conversation was full of terms unique to Scots. This seems to have been a source of some embarrassment to him, as well as an inconvenience, since the English often had difficulty in understanding what he was saying. However, he paid serious attention to removing these ‘Scotticisms’ from his writings. In addition, he and his circle expended great energy in encouraging clear English pronunciation and prose in their fellows, going to the extent of establishing a Chair at Edinburgh University for that very purpose. This was judged necessary given the increasing numbers of Scots in positions of importance in London, following the Union of 1707.

In sharp contrast to his status in Britain, Hume was a celebrity in France. On arrival in Paris in 1763, as Private Secretary to the British Ambassador, he was immediately feted by the highest society, provoking the envy of Horace Walpole, who remarked that Hume ‘is fashion itself, although his French is almost as unintelligible as his English’ (1980: 445). He was at home in the leading salons, particularly that of the Comtesse de Boufflers, who was also, unfortunately for our hero, the mistress of the Prince de Conti. He remained in contact with her for the rest of his life.

Apart from high society, Hume was also in regular contact with leading French intellectuals including Baron d’Holbach, Diderot and D’Alembert. Voltaire, who called him ‘my St David’, was, to Hume’s regret, then living on the Swiss border. Ironically, Hume’s sceptical agnostic stance was as much at odds with the (what seemed to him) dogmatic atheism of ‘les Philosophes’ as it had been with the British theists.

It was at this point that Hume made the acquaintance of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau’s writings had made France a dangerous place for him, and his supporters enlisted Hume’s help in relocating him to Britain. The result was by turns hilarious and grotesque, since the clinically paranoid Rousseau came to believe that Hume was at the centre of an international plot to ruin him. Although greatly angered at the time, Hume mellowed to sadly conclude that Rousseau was ‘absolutely lunatic’, and ‘plainly delirious and an Object of the Greatest Compassion’ (1980: 536). Conspiracy theories apart, it seems that Hume’s habit of stating during conversation was too much for Rousseau’s fragile psyche.

Towards the end of his life, Hume purchased a house in the New Town district of Edinburgh, where he lived with his sister Katherine until his death. His friend Nancy Ord (whom he seriously considered marrying around that time) nicknamed the street ‘St David’s Street’, both in tribute to his good nature, and in ironic reference to his anti-clerical views. The name later became officially adopted.

By 1772 he fell gradually into the illness from which he never recovered. The ‘disorder in my bowels’, as he described in My Own Life, was probably either cancer or ulcerative colitis. He was able to work right until the end, and revised his published works and prepared his unpublished writings – notably the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion – for posthumous release. On news of his impending demise, various persons visited in the hope of seeing Hume recant his sceptical views. They were disappointed, as he faced death with the same clarity and honesty with which he faced life. We are indebted to James Boswell for a record of Hume’s last days, where we see his opinions unchanged:

He said he had never entertained any belief in Religion since he began to read Locke and Clarke…He then said flatly that the Morality of every Religion was bad, and, I really thought, was not jocular when he said ‘that when he heard that a man was religious, he concluded he was a rascal, though he had known s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Background on the understanding
• 3 The passions
• 4 Motivation and will
• 5 Against moral rationalism
• 6 The virtues
• 7 The moral stance
• Bibliography
• Index