Hume’s Stoic and the Happiness of Virtue
Submitted for Consideration for Presentation
At the 32nd Annual International Hume Society Conference
June 19-23, 2005, Toronto, Canada
Michael L. Frazer
Department of Politics, Princeton University
216A Halsey Street
Princeton, NJ 08540
(609) 937-1613
Hume’s Stoic and the Happiness of Virtue
Abstract:This paper argues that the philosophical value of Hume’s essay “The Stoic” has so farpreviously gone unrecognized. Although overlooked in most accounts of Hume’s moral philosophy, Hume’s essay clarifies his notion of “the happiness of virtue” and thus helps illuminate the true sources of normativity in his ethics. Afraid that treating virtuous behavior as a mere means to happiness may fail to capture the morality’s unconditional and intrinsic authority, recent commentators have emphasized what Hume calls virtue’s “dignity” over its “happiness” as the foundation of its normative authority. Yet Hume’s Stoic presents a picture of the happiness of virtue which is not liable to this objection; virtue for this Stoic is not of instrumental value as a means to the further ends which constitute happiness, but is itself the end pursued over the course of a happy life.
Hume’s Stoic and the Happiness of Virtue
Writing to his kinsman Henry Home on June 13, 1742, David Hume expressed optimism that the growing popularity of his Essays might benefit the philosophical system laid out in the largely ignored Treatise of Human Nature. “The Essays are all sold in London,” Hume observes. “I hope they will have some success. They may prove like dung with marl, and bring forward the rest of my philosophy, which is of a more durable, though of a harder and more stubborn nature.”[1]
Given the later scholarly interest in the relationship between the Essays and the Treatise, Hume’s claim that the former may “bring forward” the philosophy of the latter is tantalizingly cryptic.Hume’s biographer Ernest Mossner suspects “that what Hume had in mind was not so much the possibility of the success of the Essays in stimulating the sale of the Treatise, as the possible adaptability of the essay form to philosophical subjects.”[2] Mossner’s analysis is consistent with Hume’s later claim that he considered the Treatise a failure only in style, not in substance.[3] It suggests that certain of the Essays may be fruitfully interpreted alongside the two Enquiries as more eloquent restatements of ideas already present in the Treatise.
Yet in addition to restating some of the ideas in the Treatise in a more popular, belletristic mode, Hume’s Essays might also “bring forward” the philosophy of Hume’s earlier work in a more substantive manner, further developing themes or arguments first laid out therein in the earlier work. The present paper is an examination of one as-yet unobserved example of a notion introduced in the Treatise but brought considerably forward philosophically in the Essays: namely, the development in Hume’s essay on “The Stoic” of his argument for “the happiness of virtue” as a source for the normative authority of our moral sentiments.
1. Hume’s Essays on the Ancient Schools
All four of Hume’s essays on the ancient philosophical schools—“The Epicurean,” “The Stoic,” “The Platonist,” and “The Skeptic”—are woefully neglected in the secondary literature, and none more so than the second of these essays on “The Stoic.” In one of the few discussions of these four essays’ place in Hume’s moral philosophy, Robert Fogelin denies any importance to the ideas expressed in the first three essays, and identifies Hume’s position directly with that of the Skeptic in the fourth.[4] John Immerwahr’s article on the subject represents some progress on this front; Immerwahr sees the four essays as a sort of Ciceronian, as opposed to Platonic, dialogue—that is, a philosophical dialogue in which no single speaker represents the views of the author as such, and all include elements of a complicated or elusive truth. The specific contributions of the Stoic to this dialogue, however, are downplayed by Immerwahr as mere corrections to some mistakes made by the Epicurean, and the series as a whole is still treated as culminating in the insights of Hume’s Skeptic.[5]
It is important to realize that Hume’s intention in these four essays, as the author himself explains in a footnote, “is not so much to explain accurately the sentiments of the ancient sects of philosophy, as to deliver the sentiments of sects that naturally form themselves in the world, and entertain different ideas of human life and happiness” (EMPL, p. 138). The Epicurean is thus not so much a representative of the ancient philosophical school of that name as “the man of elegance and pleasure” (p. 138), while the Platonist is “the man of contemplation, and philosophicaldevotion” (p. 155), and the Stoic is “the man of action and virtue” (p. 146). Hume thus finds some truth in the worldview of all of the ancient schools of philosophyhis narrators—albeit with the possible exception of the otherworldly Platonist, the speaker in the shortest and least-developed of Hume’s four essays.Of the three well-developed essays remaining, it is thus unsurprising that perhaps the most illuminating of these four essays on happiness is not that on either of the two ancient schools—Epicureanism and Skepticism—which have a natural affinity to Hume’s own philosophy. Many of the insights of Epucreanism and Skepticism, after all, have already been incorporated into the Treatise and would be restated yet again in the Enquiries, where they are put forward in Hume’s own name.
Nowhere in the Treatise, Enquiries or other Essays, however,does Hume speak kindly of Stoicism. To the contrary, he is consistently adamant in his rejection of the unfeeling ethics of the ancient Stoics, who urge us to rid ourselves entirely of sympathy and the moral sentiments derived from it.[6] “Epictetus,” Hume remarks in the second Enquiry, “has scarcely ever mentioned the sentiment of humanity and compassion, but in order to put his disciples on their guard against it.”[7] Hume repeatedly attacks what he describes as the Stoics’ “refined system of selfishness,” whose perverse goal is to have us “reason ourselves out of all virtue, as well as social enjoyment.” (EHU 5.1.1). [8](EHU 5.1.1). Nowhere is this selfishness more obvious that in Epictetus’ dictum that “when your friend is in affliction… you may counterfeit a sympathy with him, if it give him relief, but take care not to allow any compassion to sink into your heart, or disturb that tranquility which is the perfection of wisdom” (“Of Moral Prejudices,” in EMPL, p. 540).[9] In his “grave philosophic endeavor after perfection,” the Stoic thus “strikes at all the most endearing sentiments of the heart, and all the most useful biases and instincts which can govern a human creature.” Over the course of Western history, Hume argues, the effects of Stoicism have been observably deleterious morally; “the virtuous and tender sentiments, or prejudices, if you will,” he writes, “have suffered mightily by these reflections” (EMPL, p. 539).[10]
Interestingly, however, the Stoic who speaks in Hume’s essay is as opposed to these selfish and unfeeling elements of the ancient philosophical school as is Hume. The ideal individual whom he describes “knows that in this sullen aApathy, neither true wisdom nor true happiness can be found” and “feels too strongly the charm of the social affections ever to counteract so sweet, so natural, so virtuous a propensity.” Indeed, this “Stoic” stands against Epictetus on precisely that point on which Hume also opposes the ancient sage most adamantly: Epictetus’s disparagement of sympathy and compassion. Rather than feigning compassion when it can ease the suffering of others without letting it touch his heart, this Stoic’s ideal individual feels such sentiments deeply; “even when, bathed in tears, he laments the miseries of the human race, of his country, of his friends, and unable to give succor, can only relieve them by compassion, he yet rejoices in the generous disposition and feels a satisfaction superior to that of the most indulged sense” (EPML, p. 151). This sharp divergence from the views of ancient Stoicism as Hume described them elsewhere further drives home the point that Hume made in his footnote. This essay is not meant as a description of any ancient philosophical school, but instead as part of Hume’s own investigation into the relationship between the moral sentiments and human happiness. Specifically, it is meant to better understand the happiness of a life of virtue, and hence the normative authority of the moral sentiments that approve of virtue.
2. The Normativity of Hume’s Ethics
Many recent commentators have understood Hume’s account of the moral sentiments and the virtues of which they approve as a basically descriptive project in empirical psychology.[11] Indeed, Hume’s own description of his aim is that of finding “those universal principles, from which all censure or approbation is ultimately derived. As this is a question of fact,” he reasons, “we can only expect success by following the experimental method” (EPM 1.10).
To describe the experimental methodology of his moral philosophy Hume contrasts “the painter” of morals with “the anatomist.” “As virtue, of all objects, is allowed to be the most valuable,” the former sort of moral philosophers “paint her in the most amiable colors, borrowing all helps from poetry and eloquence.” Such eloquent authors “make us feel the difference between vice and virtue; they excite and regulate our sentiments… so they can but bend our hearts to the love of probity and true honor” (EHU 1.1) Anatomists of morals, on the other hand, “regard human nature as a subject of speculation, and with a narrow scrutiny examine it in order to find those principles which regulate our understanding, excite our sentiments, and make us approve or blame any particular object, action or behavior” (EHU 1.2). Hume’s classifies his own work as anatomical, not painterly. Indeed, he first wrote of this contrast in a 1739 letter to Francis Hutcheson, who criticized an early draft of the Treatise for lacking “Warmth in the Cause of Virtue.” Hume responds that one must examine morality with the attitude of either an anatomist or a painter; he cannot “conceive these two characters united in the same work.”[12]
Neither the anatomist nor the painter, however, attempts to achieve the goal which normative moral philosophy has set for itself in our own day: the justification of our moral commitments. “The odd thing about this way of dividing up the philosophical enterprise,” Christine Korsgaard observes, “is that the normative question seems to fall between the cracks.” Justification involves neither tracing the origin of our moral distinctions nor exhorting our fellows to obey them, but vindicating the authority of these distinctions. As Korsgaard goes on to note, however, “even though he is not supposed to be a practical philosopher, Hume cannot resist pointing out that his account of the origin of moral ideas does make virtue attractive.”[13] The normative justification of our corrected moral sentiment is, for Hume, a collaboration between the two types of moral philosophers that he describes. As Hume observes in his letter to Hutcheson, just as an anatomist “can give very good advice to a painter or statuary,” so too is he persuaded “that a metaphysician may be very helpful to a moralist.” Hume thus assures Hutcheson that he will revise the Treatise and see “if it be possible to make the moralist and metaphysician agree a little better.”[14]
In declaring his intention to make the painter and anatomist agree in his own work, Hume shows his hope that his own account of the origins of morality will render the dictates of our moral faculties all the more “satisfactory to the human mind” and make it capable of standing “the test of the most critical examination” (T 1.4.7.14).
This distinction between mental operations which can withstand such critical reflection and those which cannot appears throughout Hume’s philosophy; his goal is to help us distinguish between the two. In Book I of the Treatise, for example, Hume compares the psychological principles which line the ideas of a cause and effect in our mind to those responsible for the common habit of anthropomorphizing animals and inanimate objects. While principles such as the transition from causes to effects “are the foundation of all our thoughts and actions, so that upon their removal human nature must immediately perish and go to ruin,” the principles which lead us to anthropomorphize the non-human:
…are neither unavoidable to mankind, nor necessary, or so much as useful in the conduct of life; but on the contrary are observed only to take place in weak minds, and being opposite to the other principles of custom and reasoning may easily be subverted by a due contrast and opposition. For this reason the former are received by philosophy and the latter rejected (T 1.4.4.1).[15]
Like the transition from causes to effects, but unlike anthropomorphism, our corrected moral sentiments are, for Hume, clearly worthy of our reflective approval. A psyche governed by these sentiments is in what later philosophers would call reflective equilibrium, capable of approving itself and hence at peace with itself.[16] Regulating our behavior and our evaluations of others through the judgments of corrected moral sentiments is necessary for achieving this reflective equilibrium.
Among Hume’s many arguments for the reflective stability of the morally developed psyche, Korsgaard has identified two basic “points of view from which morality is assessed… first, the point of view of self-interest, and second, the point of view of the moral sense itself.”[17] From the first of these points of view, an affirmative answer to the question of “whether every man, who has any regard to his own happiness and welfare, will not best find his account in the practice of every moral duty” establishes what Hume calls our “interested obligation” to virtue (EPM 9.2.14). From the second of these points of view, the corrected moral sentiments’ reflexive self-endorsement establishes what Hume calls the “dignity” of virtue and the internal stability of our moral faculties.
3. The Dignity of Virtue
Hume devotes far more space to our interested obligation to morality and the happiness of virtue than he does to what he calls its “dignity.” His under-developed account of the dignity of virtue, however, has become the focus of recent commentators such as Korsgaard and Annette Baier. As the dignity of an individual depends largely on her sense of self worth, so too does the dignity of virtue, under their interpretation, depend on what might be called (to use an unfortunately degraded phrase of our own time) the mature moral sentiments’ “self-esteem.” This idea can be elucidated by focusing closely on the conclusion of the Treatise, where, as Baier observes, Hume “sketches but does not develop this turn of the moral sentiment on itself.”[18]
Hume writes that our sense of virtue “must certainly acquire new force, when reflecting on itself, it approves of those principles from whence it is derived, and finds nothing but what is great and good in its rise and origin” (T 3.3.6.3). Having a compassionate character, filled with extensive sympathy for others, is approved by corrected moral sentiments as a virtue (see, e.g., T 3.3.3.3). If the moral sentiments develop from sympathy, as Hume claims they do, they will thus approve of themselves as the products of our virtuous, rather than our vicious, dispositions. In this way, “not only virtue must be approved of, but also the sense of virtue: And not only that sense, but also the principles from whence it is derived. So that nothing is presented on any side, but what is laudable and good” (T 3.3.6.3). When the moral sentiments regard their own origins with a feeling of approbation, Hume concludes, “all lovers of virtue… must certainly be pleased to see moral distinctions derived from so noble a source” (T 3.3.6.3).
In other words, while debunkers of morality such as Bernard Mandeville argue that our moral faculties would disapprove of the vicious elements of our nature responsible for their own development—and Mandeville’s moral anatomy thus leads the moral sentiments to undermine themselves—Hume’s anatomy inspires a feeling of self-approbation on the part of these same sentiments. While Hume’s arguments for our interested obligation to virtue appeal to the ideal of an equilibrium which avoids tension between the various elements of our psyche—most notably between the moral sentiments and the desire for happiness—the dignity of virtue is a matter of a narrower equilibrium internal to the moral faculty. In Korsgaard’s terminology, while the former is a matter of broad, reflective endorsement of the moral sentiments, the latter is a matter of their successfully bearing the test of their own “direct reflexivity.”
Korsgaard goes on to argue that this latter mode of normative justification is particularly important to Hume—indeed, she and Baier maintain that Hume puts forward a general theory of normativity based on the idea of direct reflexivity. According to this theory, “a faculty’s verdicts are normative if the faculty meets the following test: when the faculty takes itself and its own operations for its object, it gives a positive verdict.”[19] Korsgaard and Baier contrast the note of despair at the end of Book I of the Treatise to the triumphal note at the end of Book III, and claim that, according to Hume, our mature moral faculties pass the test of “normativity as reflexivity,” while our intellectual faculties largely do not.[20] It is unclear, however, if direct reflexivity alone can suffice for a general theory of normativity. To be sure, our intellectual faculties can turn on themselves and judge whether the beliefs to which they lead us are true or warranted—as our moral faculties can reflect on themselves and judge whether their origins or evaluations are good or praiseworthy. Yet what would it mean, for example, for our aesthetic faculties to reflect back on themselves and judge whether their tastes are sublime or beautiful?