Toward a Humean True Religion by Andre C. Willis

Author:Andre C. Willis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Pennsylvania State University
Published: 2014-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

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PRACTICAL MORALITY

Nothing can be more real, or concern us more, than our own sentiments of pleasure and uneasiness; and if these be favourable to virtue, and unfavourable to vice, no more can be requisite to the regulation of our conduct and behavior.

—T, 3.1.1.25

Hume explained his moral project as an examination of the “general foundation of morals: whether they be derived from Reason, or from sentiment; whether we attain the knowledge of them by a chain of argument and induction, or by an immediate feeling and finer internal sense” (EPM, 1.3). Two of its goals regarding religion were to demonstrate that popular religion undermined moral judgment and to dismantle the belief that its deity possessed moral attributes.1 There are extensive implications to these two aims. For example, they weakened the belief that man was made in the image of God (for neither man nor God was a moral creature).2 They also established that the deity of popular religion could not unpredictably intervene in history (as the existence of moral evil confirmed) and proved that popular religion had no positive consequences for practical morality (as demonstrated by history).3 On these terms I take Hume’s moral project to have been a success: it severely undermined the moral claims of popular religion and undercut its excessive theism. His captivating opposition to conventional morality prefigured both Nietzsche’s moral critique of Christianity and Mill’s ethical quest for happiness.

When we hold Hume’s account of our social interactions and his Ciceronian influence in mind, his scathing moral condemnation of popular religion takes on a lighter hue. On the former, Hume partially agreed with Hobbes’s insight that human beings were motivated by self-interest. Against Hobbes, however, Hume noted that we were likewise compelled by a natural dependence on the compassion of others. Hume’s approach to morals reflected his belief that humans were driven by both self-interest and a natural benevolence toward others. In its general form this natural benevolence played a crucial role in our social interactions; thus a major Humean intervention in moral thought was the contention that social interaction consisted of organically occurring and repeated acts of strategic coordination between individuals in a quest to reinforce mutual interests. For example, Hume reasoned that individuals strategically coordinated the exchange of property due to their self-interested desire to protect their possessions and their natural benevolence to reassure others that their assets would be protected. This type of coordination aimed to “leave everyone in the peaceable enjoyment of what he may acquire by his fortune and industry” (T, 3.2.2.9). Humans uniquely recognized that their self-interests regarding property (and promises) were best served if they worked toward mutual advantage.

If the recognition of mutual interests drove the social component of moral judgment, it was the repetition of the successful coordination of these joint interests, say, in the exchange of property, that was a “remedy in the judgment and understanding, for what is irregular and incommodious in the affections” (T, 3.2.2.9). The repetition of successful coordination between human beings bolstered our sense of protection, reduced fears, and assisted in the sustenance of civic stability and social order.

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