Some Frustrations with Hume

As the semester closes, I find myself making a summary of several Philosophers. And it has been with Kant and Hume, (even though I largely agree with Hume's empiricism)-- that I find my objections standing out most. Specifically in reference to the beginning chapters of Hume's "An Enquiry Concerning the Principals of Morals:"

Hume begins, on page 73, with a forceful ad hominem directed at those who do not share in his idea that there are such things as moral distinctions. Plainly, why must it be a “blind adherence” to some supposed (straw-man) myopic dedication that is the only option out of Hume’s depiction of morals as being discernable through reason and made effectual by sentiment? Hume will say on page 74: “Truth is discernable; not taste.” He seems to allow the first part of this causal to stand for the logical faculties present in reason for the discovery of truths (presumably the ‘truth’ that there are indeed such things as morals). Here it is as though Hume has said that because there is reason there are morals. In rushing so far ahead of himself with his supposed powers of reason (reason is also somehow attributed, without reason, with the “standard of our judgment”), Hume has only managed to stipulate the inherited ideas of moral (from ancient philosophers, etc) by performing no rational deconstruction of the nature of the term “moral.”

Hume moves on in his unexamined assumptions to assert that the reason for “moral [speculation] is to teach us our duty.” The function of this speculation serves to mold the “habits” of humans to want an association with virtue and an avoidance of vice. Here, Hume says that reason is not sufficient to mold human behavior if sentiment does not make one feel compelled to move into certain, assumed and favorable speculations of morals. This is where Hume finds his marriage between reason and sentiment. Reason to discover (or, produce as he gives no definitions prohibiting this equation of terms) morality and sentiment to make it compelling when reason produces “indifferent” truths.

This may be a fine mechanistic/empirical depiction of how morality is produced in a state where duty-to-conform holds a value even higher than the constructs of morality which were made for it, but where is the truth Hume promised concerning reaching “the foundation of ethics.” It is not foundational to say that we will strive hard to get to the bottom of what morals are by assuming some version of their popular/inherited constructs and mechanisms. Foundational to the discussion of this topic would look something like Nietzsche’s etymology, where he posits that the very term “moral” has been added to and elevated, over time, through effort and sacrifice to produce an unnecessarily complexed term, which is purely synthetic and no longer represents anything authentic about human nature. Even if Nietzsche’s critique is found to be flawed and not conducive to the edification of a community as it is wanted to exist, Hume promised to “consider every aspect of the [human] mind” for these fundamental answers, and instead he only floats on a surface analysis of popular moral application and function.