Philo Notes

Ideal spectator approach
Lecture 2
“The hypothesis which we embrace is plain. It maintains that morality is determined by sentiment. It defines virtue to be whatever mental action or quality gives to a spectator the pleasing sentiment of approbation; and vice the contrary.” --Hume, Appendix I

Topics today:
Hume’s view of moral judgment
His critique of the rationalist position

Sec. 5: Why utility pleases
- Why do we morally admire those qualities that are socially useful?
- Can’t just be a result of education. There must be a basis in human nature.
- 2 possibilities: self-regard or humanitarian concern

Self-regard or concern for others?
- Moral sentiment can oppose our self-interest
- Can concern matters that don’t affect our self-interest
- far away in space or time
- fictional
- Concern for self and moral concern feel different
- Moral sentiment cannot be a form of self-regard
- Must be a concern for others

Universal benevolence
- Rooted in an innate human capacity for sympathy
- Sympathy can take the form of a sentiment of benevolence toward all, a humanitarian concern.
- This concern is what drives our moral judgments

Objection
- Sympathy leads to more concern for those close to us
- Our moral judgments do not vary in this way

Reply
- Unequal concern arises from a biased point of view
- An impartial consideration of the situation channels benevolence equally toward all
- Correct moral judgments express the attitudes of an impartial, sympathetic observer

Role of reason in morality
-Reason ascertains facts about what promotes or diminishes pleasure and happiness
-So reason plays a role
-But reason does not make the moral judgment
-Moral judgment expresses a sentiment evoked by consideration of the facts revealed by reason.

1st argument against rationalism
-Reason: inductive or demonstrative
-Inductive: infers facts from observation
-Demonstrative: works with abstract mathematical and logical relations.
-Moral judgments don’t pick out such facts or relations
-Hence they are not made by reason

Example: the “crime” of ingratitude
-Observable fact: ill will or indifference in the mind of the ungrateful person
-This is not a moral fact because it is not always wrong
-Abstract relation: contrariety of attitude
-Again, this is not always wrong

2nd argument
-Reason operates to infer NEW facts and relations
-A moral judgment must be based on all the facts of a situation
-Hence moral judgments are not made by reason

3rd argument
-Moral judgments are like judgments of beauty
-Beauty is not a quality or feature we discover in the object
-Rather, a judgment of beauty is an expression of a favorable sentiment toward the object
-Moral judgments express a similar kind of sentiment

4th argument
-Non-human objects can manifest all the relations that obtain in a moral situation.
-But we don’t apply morality to the non-human world
-Hence morality is not a matter of relations.

5th argument
-Reason alone is never a motive to action
-Moral judgments can move us to action
-Hence reason by itself cannot give us morality