David Hume (1711-1776)
A Treatise of Human Nature – Book III, Of Morals
■ The Artifice of Justice
■ Of Justice and Injustice, Natural or Artificial?
■ Virtuous acts are perceived as meritorious only because they are considered as signs or indications of good motives
■ The Acts themselves cannot be meritorious (or not). Only the motive can be described as meritorious (or not) since the motive is assumed to be an indication of a state of mind.
■ Though a person may act without the motive, this idea presupposes a virtuous motive distinct from the act, but which is capable of producing the act.
■ Of Justice and Injustice, Natural or Artificial? (Cont.)
■ In other words, honesty, justice, etc., are not the acts taken, but the pre-existing motive supposed to exist in human nature as the underlying reason for the action.
■ Cannot say both that:
▸ The just motive renders an action just, and
▸ That a just act is indicative of a just motive, since
▸ Such reasoning is circular
■ Acts, then, can only be just if just in themselves, but acts are just only when produced by just motives.
■ A just motive must, therefore, preceed our observation that the act produced is just.
■ We cannot equate the motive, and our observation of its character.
■ How, then, do we discern just motives or decide what motives are Just? Answer: Artificial Conventions adopted by people.
■ Of Justice and Injustice, Natural or Artificial? (Cont.)
■ There must, then, be some motive to acts of justice and honesty which is distinct from our regard for justice and honesty.
■ This is the great difficulty of moral thought.
■ Private interest does Not Suffice to produce Justice or honesty.
▸ Private interests would never compel one to repay a secret loan
▸ Private interests would not require honesty to the deteriment of ones goods or standing (why not lie if you can get away with it and obtain a benefit?)
■ Public interest does Not Suffice to produce Justice or honesty.
▸ Public interests attach only after the creation of the artificial rules of justice
▸ If a loan was made in secret, then no public interests attaches, although a moralist would claim that an obligation or duty to repay still exists
■ Ordinary people in ordinary affairs don’t consider the public interest
■ Of Justice and Injustice, Natural or Artificial? (Cont.)
■ No real motives for doing right exists but the very idea of doing the right thing
▸ “Doing right” cannot be determined without first knowing what is “right.”
▸ But “right” is determined by the motive of the action.
▸ Therefore, “right” must be determined artificially, not through nature, but by human convention.
■ This understanding explains the “I ought” from “what is” – the distinction between “is” and “ought.”
■ Human Passions will influence our convention on right, as a sense of duty will arise from the course of our passions.
■ Thus the rules may be artificial, but are not arbitrary.
■ The Origin of Justice and Property
■ ‘Tis by society alone that man overcomes:
▸ Lack of power to survive well
▸ In having to do everything, one is expert at nothin
▸ Individuals are insecure, and must be ruined if he fails anything by misfortune or accident
■ To Hume, society forms from the family – i.e. the attraction between the sexes (Aristotle)
■ To Hume, People are basically good – Selfishness is balanced by Affection and Generosity
■ Hume describes three kinds of Goods (of life)
▸ Our minds (internal goods)
▸ Our health (of body, but thought of as internal)
▸ Our goods (external) – and here are the problems which cause society’s creation:
– Instability of possession without society
– Relative scarcity
■ The Origin of Justice and Property (cont.)
■ Aritifice of Society, then, is to stabalize possession of goods and leave us in peaceable possession of them.
■ This artificial convention is not in the nature of a promise, but rather a general assumption that all will comply with the artifice.
■ From that artificial convention arises all ideas of property, right, and obligation.
■ The “state of nature” is nothing but a mere fiction.
■ Increase the benevolence of people, or increase nature’s bounty to satisfy all peoples needs, and you render the concept of “justice” useless.
■ Peoples’ selfishness and lack of resources are the origin of Justice.
■ The impressions which give rise to the concept of justice are not “natural” to the mind of man, but artificial conventions created by man