Chapter 8: On Reason

and the Emotions

David Hume
Ethics Phil 118
Professor Douglas Olena
Influencing Motives of the Will
65 “Nothing is more usual in philosophy, and
even in common life, than to talk of the
combat of passion and reason, to give the
preference to reason, and to assert that men
are only so far virtuous as they conform
themselves to its dictates.”
Is there a “pre-eminence of reason above
passion?”
Influencing Motives of the Will

65 Hume will “endeavor to prove first, that

reason alone can never be a motive to any
action of the will; and secondly, that it can
never oppose passion in the direction of the
will.”
Influencing Motives of the Will
65 Mathematics is descriptive of many things.
Hume uses mathematics as a paradigm of
reason.
But mathematics of itself does not motivate
any action or program.
Reason directs our judgment but doesn’t
influence our actions.
Influencing Motives of the Will
65 “’Tis from the prospect of pain or pleasure
that the aversion or propensity arises
towards any object;”
66 Since reason can’t give rise to any volition,
neither can it prevent it.
“Nothing can oppose or retard the impulse of
passion, but a contrary impulse.”
Influencing Motives of the Will

66 But if the reason to oppose the impulse is

not caused by some passion it can not have
any effect in opposition to that impulse.
Reason can not be anything else but a slave
of passion.
Influencing Motives of the Will

Is there any conflict between reason and

passion?
66 Passion, justified by a poor opinion or
judgment, can not be said to be in opposition
to reason. It is the reasons for pursuing the
passion that are faulty not the passion.
Influencing Motives of the Will

67 Reasoning produces no emotion except in

some philosophical exercises or in an elegant
mathematical proof. It rarely shows pleasure
or uneasiness.
There are some desires that produce little
emotion, and masquerade as reason.
Influencing Motives of the Will

67 When benevolence, resentment, love of

life, kindness to children; or the general
appetite to good and aversion to evil are calm
they appear to be born of reason. But they
are passions.
Influencing Motives of the Will

67 “What we call strength of mind, implies the

prevalence of the calm passions above the
violent; tho’ we may easily observe, there is
no man so constantly possess’d of this
virtue, as never on any occasion to yield to
the sollicitations of passion and desire.”
Influencing Motives of the Will

67 The influencing motives of the will are

passions, will and not reason or that faculty
that is capable of judging truth and
falsehood.
Moral Distinctions:

67 Moral Distinctions are Not Derived from

Reason.
“’Tis impossible that the distinction between
good and evil can be made by reason, since
that distinction has an influence upon our
actions, of which reason alone is incapable.”
Moral Distinctions:
67 Reason can direct or guide a passion.
68 But any act can not be more than
approved or disapproved by reason.
There is no relationship between a behavior
and the label we give it, say, “drunkenness is
a vice,” except our approval or disapproval of
the act which is an emotional reaction of our
passional nature.
Moral Distinctions:

68 “Vice and virtue may be compar’d to

sounds, colours, heat and cold, which,
according to modern philosophy, are not
qualities in objects, but perceptions in the
mind.”
Moral judgments are nothing more than
sentiments.
Moral Distinctions:

68 Hume rejects the proposition that just

because some state of affairs exists that that
state of affairs implies that somebody ought
to do something about it.
Hume rejects that any state of affairs entails
some obligation on our part.
Moral Distinctions:
68 “Moral Distinctions are Deriv’d from a
Moral Sense.”
“Morality, therefore, is more properly felt
than judg’d of;”
That moral sense arises from perception and
the reaction of our gentle passions which are
often confused with reason.