Values and Virtues by Chappell Timothy;

Author:Chappell, Timothy;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Published: 2006-03-09T16:00:00+00:00

3 THE INTRINSIC VIEW AND THE ROLE OF MORAL REFLECTION

What is the significance of the intrinsic view of the relationship between virtue and moral sense for our understanding of Hume’s wider ethical scheme? It is, as I have already suggested, a general failing of Hume’s account of virtue and vice that he has so little to say about moral capacity and incapacity. More specifically, Hume’s suggestion that virtues and vices should be understood simply in terms of pleasurable and painful qualities of mind seems both implausible and incomplete. However, perhaps the intrinsic view of the relationship between virtue and moral sense can help us here. If moral sense is required for the full development and stability of a virtuous character, we may ask, what is required to develop and preserve moral sense?

It is commonplace to give a rather ‘thin’ reading of Hume’s account of the nature of moral sense, taking it to be constituted simply by pleasant or painful feelings of a peculiar kind (T 472). But this reading does not do proper justice to the complexity and subtlety of Hume’s account. In a number of contexts, and most notably in the first section of the second Enquiry, Hume argues that moral evaluation of conduct and character involves the activity of both reason and sentiment.

The final sentence, it is probable, which pronounces characters and actions amiable or odious, praiseworthy or blameable; that which stamps on them the mark of honour or infamy, approbation or censure; that which renders morality an active principle and constitutes virtue our happiness and vice our misery: it is probable, I say, that this final sentence depends on some internal sense or feeling, which nature has made universal in the whole species … But in order to pave the way for such a sentiment, and give a proper discernment of its object, it is often necessary, we find, that much reasoning should precede, that nice distinctions be made, just conclusions drawn, distinct comparisons formed, complicated relations examined, and general facts fixed and ascertained. (EM 172–3)

It is evident, then, that according to Hume, the exercise of moral sense involves a considerable degree of activity by our ‘intellectual faculties’ (EM 173). Hume further explains this feature of his ethical system by returning to the analogy of ‘moral beauty’.

There are, Hume claims, two different species of beauty that require different kinds of response from us. In the case of natural beauty our approbation is immediately aroused and reasoning has little influence over our response one way or the other. On the other hand, the kind of beauty that we associate with the ‘finer arts’ does require a considerable amount of reasoning ‘in order to feel the proper sentiment; and a false relish may frequently be corrected by argument and reflection’ (EM 173). Hume argues that ‘moral beauty partakes of this latter species, and demands the assistance of our intellectual faculties, in order to give it a suitable influence on the human mind’ (EM 173). The sort of ‘intellectual’ activities

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