Hume's Wide Construal of the Virtues Essay

As you can see, there are many reason why the table of Aristotelian virtues does not work for all the human “virtues.” Sometimes, vices can be virtues. When you are figuring out the means, you have to consider someone’s religion, culture, or

‘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.

David Hume is one of the world’s most well-known and relevant philosophers, in his time and still to this day. In one of his most famous writings, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, he dedicates a whole chapter to exploring the validity of miracles, based on his own premise (That they defy the laws of nature), a chapter so large, it is separated into two parts. Exploration of Miracles is a large topic for philosophical discussion as it has caught the attention and caused the works of many of the world’s most famous philosophers, such as David Hume, Richard Swinburne and Peter Atkins.

Books I, II, and IV focus on man's desirable qualities, and how they should be employed. In short, he ought to be good soldier - courageous, physically strong, loyal - sufficiently educated in all humanities domains such as literature, music or arts, groomed but not effeminate, witty, agreeable in social encounters, modest, honest, morally righteous, discreet, lacking in envy, jealousy or malicious intent, dutiful, respectful of authority and kind to people of lower social status (Northrop, 1998). Additionally, he is advised to shun trivial gossip or outright displays of curiosity and emotion, not to associate with people of dubious character, to refrain from following a superior's order if it is evil (Castiglione, 1528).

Profound quality for Hume was not an all inclusive idea, but rather a human develop established on reason and human assumption. The way that people debate whether an activity is correct or wrong and utilize a sane type of exchange to achieve a conclusion is solid evidence for profound quality being established on reason. Notwithstanding, people additionally have sentiments of endorsement or objection concerning these activities, which gives confirm that supposition is likewise part of the human condition. Hume considers a few contradicting suppositions, for example, pride and modesty, or love and abhor, and treats the way these emotions work on us as solid cases of our conduct, not as summed up deliberations. Assumptions propel us and regularly

The argument I shall address for this paper is found on page 385, from David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature. In Book 1, he takes a skeptic view on the philosophy of personal identity by making the claim that there is no such thing as a self. According to Hume, for there to be a self it must be constant and stable, yet all of our knowledge comes from ‘impressions’ (perceptions that come from sensory experience) that are only fleeting: “pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other, and never all exist at the same time,” (Hume 385). His first argument is structured as follows:

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

In David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature, he divides the virtues of human beings into two types: natural and artificial. He argues that laws are artificial and a human invention. Therefore, he makes the point that justice is an artificial virtue instead of a natural virtue. He believed that human beings are moral by nature – they were born with some sense of morality and that in order to understand our “moral conceptions,” studying human psychology is the key (Moehler). In this paper, I will argue for Hume’s distinction between the natural and artificial virtues.

East Asian thought has always made the meaning of virtue a prominent necessity in one’s life. The term virtue was a name for moral value and principle in their society. Virtue had always been associated with power throughout hundreds of centuries in East Asia. This referred to reproductive power or material power such as physical strength. However, during Confucius’ time virtue also came to include moral power. This moral power in East Asia was to achieve something for the “self” and others, along with the ability to persuade. In East Asia, morality and principles have been directly related with virtues. Although East Asia

In short, theory of virtue is a kind of view of human nature. Human 's nature is to good, and doing good things is easier than doing evil things. He believes that good of human nature is an indisputable fact just like water flows downward. As in the western, Adam Smith has similar recognition in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. He considered that human nature is good, naturally concerned about the fate of others, and includes the sympathy and empathy. This takes concerted action to the altruism and the ethical values in the paper.

Hume goes on to ask, why utility pleases; why is it that we admire those qualities that are beneficial to society? Before answering this question he notes that it does not concern inanimate objects. We obviously find many such objects to be useful, but that is no reason to suppose that we are call them virtuous, nor do we, except in immoral ways, attribute virtues to them(62-64). Those opinions

The moral sense perhaps affords the best and highest distinction between man and the lower animals; but I need say nothing on this head, as I have so lately endeavoured to shew that the social instincts- the prime principle of man’s moral constitution with the aid of active intellectual powers and the effects of habit, naturally lead to the golden rule, “As ye would that men should do to you, do ye to them likewise”; and this lies at the foundation of morality.

Morals are sometimes known to be a tricky thing. Most everyone around the world has morals, but they all have a different meaning. In a standard definition, morals are “standards of behavior; principles of right and wrong” (Moral). People judge how they should act or respond to things based upon their morals. In addition, people rely on other standards to apply as well as their own. People relate with others moral codes to increase or change their own ideas. They follow how others have responded to a situation that could be very unfamiliar to them in hopes that the situation will become clearer. I am going to show some influential philosophers and their morality, as well as try to explain how I incorporate many philosopher’s morals and ethical systems into my own code.

The aim of this essay is to examine the following question. Does it make a difference in moral psychology whether one adopts Aristotle's ordinary or Immanuel Kant's revisionist definition of virtue as a moral habit? Suppose it is objected, at the outset, that these definitions cannot be critically compared because their moral theories are, respectively, aposteriori and apriori, and so incommensurable. Two points of commensurability and grounds for comparative evaluation are two basic problems that any theory in moral psychology must address. They are moral ignorance (I don't know what I ought to do) and weakness (I don't do what I know I ought to do).(1)

David Hume is considered to be one of the big three British empiricists, along with Hobbes and Locke, and lived near the end of the Enlightenment. The Catholic Church was losing its control over science, politics and philosophy and the Aristotelian world view was being swallowed up by a more mechanistic viewpoint. Galileo found the theory provided by Copernicus to be correct, that our earth was not the center of everything, but the celestial bodies including the earth circled the sun. Mathematicians abounded. Pascal developed the first mechanical calculator and Newtonian physics was breaking new ground. Not even the arts were immune. Within the same era Mary Shelley authored Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus. The main theme for this