Humes Ethics

In Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion we are introduced to three characters that serve the purpose to debate God and his nature, more specifically, what can mankind infer about God and his nature. The three characters; Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes all engage in a debate concerning this question and they all serve the purpose of supporting their views on the subject. It is the “argument from design” put forth by Cleanthes that is the focal point of the discussion, and it is Demea and Philo who attempt to discredit it.

‘The relationship between Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and David Hume (1711-1776) is a source of wide spread fascination’ (Standard Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Kant and Hume on Morality). Purpose of this essay is to provide Immanuel Kant’s claims on sympathy and David Hume’s assessment on it, backed up by their reasoning’s. By doing so, strong argument will separately be provided from both sides and the task then is to present my personal opinion on whose argument seems more compelling. David Hume’s assessment and arguments appear more compelling than Immanuel Kant.

As humans, where does our knowledge come from? In Meditations on First Philosophy, René Descartes outlines his proof for the existence of God. However, David Hume offers a rebuttal in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding that questions not only Descartes’ proof but also his notion of how humans acquire knowledge. In what follows, I will examine Descartes’ proof of God’s existence, then argue that Hume would disagree with it by maintaining that humans can conceive of God through mental processes. Furthermore, I will show how in responding to Descartes' claim that God is the source of our knowledge, Hume asserts that we are instead limited to knowledge from experience.

     Now Hume proposed that all inferences come from custom, not reasoning. Through custom or habits, we have become accustomed to expect an effect to follow a cause. This is not a rational argument. This argument centers on the theory of constant conjunction, which does not fall under either fork of reason. “All inferences from experience, therefore, are effects of custom, not reasoning.”(57)

Both Susan Wolf’s article “Moral Saints” and John Stuart Mill’s book “Utilitarianism” will be discussed here. These works offer expositions of and opinions on the philosophical issue of the moral worth of adhering to a certain set of values, and how a person’s motivations for doing so can change their worth and the desirability of their way of life. Wolf offers the position that leading an extremely morally good life is undesirable, while Mill’s opposing position is that if morality leads to happiness, then that behavior is preferable. To determine which of these stances on the value of morality has the most pertinence, these two arguments will be outlined and consequently analyzed. Their differences and similarities will be enumerated and described, and consequently their merit will be discussed. Finally, Wolf’s moral theory will be proven to be inferior to Mills’s, due to its prejudice, lack of supportive evidence, and its inability to be universally applicable.

Mankind must by this time have acquired positive beliefs as to the effects of some actions on their happiness; and the beliefs which have thus come down are the rules of morality for the multitude, and for the philosopher until he has succeeded in finding better. That philosophers might easily do this, even now, on many subjects; that the received code of ethics is by no means of divine right;

David Hume was a British empiricist, meaning he believed all knowledge comes through the senses. He argued against the existence of innate ideas, stating that humans have knowledge only of things which they directly experience. These claims have a major impact on his argument against the existence of miracles, and in this essay I will explain and critically evaluate this argument.

Hume's view poses the question, which is better social peace or economic prosperity? Hume states that human beings are an animal whose life consists of worldly pleasures, and this is what leads them to a happy life. Again we see a clear contradiction to what "traditional" philosophers believe to be a happy life. As you can see Hume leaves out the spiritual, reasoning, and thinking part of human nature. Leaving all these factors out he comes up with his contributions to the well being of society. He believes that chastity, confidentiality, avoiding gossip, avoiding spying, being well mannered, and loyal are what can lead you to becoming prosperous. Hume looks at this from being prosperous only from a business-orientated point of view. People do like to become prosperous and have economic growth, but is that all that matters to us as humans? For Hume these feelings are justified because he says that we naturally care about other people and if we do not suffer from something we have a natural inclination to help others out. Hume finally comes a conclusion to his ethical theory in which he states that there are only four reasons in which to do morally good: useful to society, useful to oneself, agreeable to oneself, agreeable to others. Actions

The aim of this paper is to clearly depict how John Stuart Mill’s belief to do good for all is more appropriate for our society than Immanuel Kant’s principle that it is better to do what's morally just. I will explain why Mill’s theory served as a better guide to moral behavior and differentiate between the rights and responsibilities of human beings to themselves and society.

I will be explaining John Stuart Mill’s view on ethics. This includes explaining the “Greatest Happiness Principle”, happiness, unhappiness, quality of pleasure, lying, and the relevance of time with his view. I will then explain how I agree with the principle of Rule Utilitarianism. I will also consider the objection of conflicting rules in Rule Utilitarianism as well as that of negative responsibility, giving my response to each.

David Hume was a Scottish empiricist who became renowned as a philosopher for his metaphysical skepticism and his account of the mind. Born in the 18th century, Hume follows Locke, a fellow empiricist and Descartes, an idealist, in the philosophic cannon. As a result he responds to each. From Locke Hume builds upon his concept of perceptions. Hume’s defining skepticism pertains to idealistic claims of substance, god, and the self.

Firstly, Hume effectively tackles the commonly held assertion that humans are purely rational creatures that successfully implement reason in every situation. Hume concedes

David Hume's most famous quote is “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” To understand the implications of this quote as a basis for an ethical theory you need to understand that every other ethical theory attempts to derive how things ought to be from how things are. The jumps from matters of fact and relations of ideas perceived by reason, to value judgments perceived by emotions, are made in Hume’s opinion with no logical reason. There is nothing contradictory in the statement the sun will not rise in the morning, it is not unreasonable. We only feel that it “ought to” continue rising in the morning. The scientific method uses inductive reasoning to construct a hypothesis and Hume does not contend that it should not be used. It has been useful thus far in making predictions and it is the only tool that we have for understanding the world around us.

Shifting from Descartes’ rationalist approach to things lies Hume and his empiricist approach to understanding our world. As expected of an empirical ideology, Hume believes that all ideas are generated from impressions. According to Hume’s philosophy, impressions are defined as lively and forceful sensations. Hume relied heavily on the idea of cause and effect throughout his work. According to Hume, cause and effect can be easily understood as one thing not being possible without the other. With that in mind, when it comes to ideas about God, Hume suggests that it is the

     In being a naturalist, Hume relates humans as being one in the same with animals, at least when it comes to causal reasoning. We are no more reasonable than animals because the faculty of the human mind that allows us to see into the truth has arisen in us naturally. The sharp difference between humans and animals is the ability to draw on the inference of necessary connections in nature and being able to think about them. Hume does not doubt that there may exist some God with a form of discerning between right and wrong, but he denies that our ability to do so came from such a God. We know a God has to exist only as a cause of the effects we ascribe to him. Hume describes God as an “empty hypothesis” because he is used only to explain certain phenomena that we may not otherwise be able to explain. We have no direct knowledge or first hand experience of God and so we cannot give Him any qualities besides those that we