Hume’s Position Considered for the Second Time

In chapter one I accepted Hume’s argument that broad or narrow reason, by itself, cannot move people to act nor prevent action. Some sort of propensity or want is required. This is the major premiss on which Hume, in Book III i 1, builds his main negative conclusion that morality is not based on reason.⁵ That is to say, the making and holding of moral distinctions is not only a function of demonstrative logic and empirical, causal beliefs.

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark’d, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surpriz’d to find, that instead of the usual copulations, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible, but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, ‘tis necessary that it shou’d be observ’d and explain’d; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.⁸

In one sense the arguments of Hume in Book III i 1 are convincing in so far as they are aimed at supporting the heading of this Section 1, ‘Moral Distinctions not deriv’d from Reason.’ The arguments Hume advances are convincing, that is, if reason is limited to Humean reason — of the narrow or broad variety.

Yet Hume’s arguments for an areasonable morality are premissed on an impotent reason of a specifically delineated character, as I have set out already in the first chapter. Perhaps this Humean description of reason, as either broad or narrow but nothing else, is deficient or too restrictive. Is there some important aspect of human intelligence which is worthy of the name ‘reason’, yet is omitted in the Humean scheme?

If the human mind were capable of perceiving what action or conduct is fitting, or moral, in any given situation then this moral sense or intuition might be described as reason. The fitnesses, on this model, would exist out in the world but would be of a very special sort not normally thought of as part of the natural world. And this non- Humean, posited form of ‘reason’ would be able to discern these real relations out there. Such an ‘enriched’ view of reason would clearly sustain a version of moral realism, the claim that mind-independent, authoritative prescriptions exist.

Whatever the merits of such an intuitionist position, Hume’s arguments in III i 1 do not deal with it. Not surprisingly, several of the critics like Price and Reid who immediately succeeded Hume adopted some form of this intuitionist thesis. Its appeal to the non- Humean comes from its characterization of reason as including a capacity to make judgements about appropriate conduct. Such judgements blend together and combine a representational or propositional claim A about the natural, empirical world (‘These are the relevant circumstances X’) and a second claim B (‘These circumstances X reveal action Y to be the fitting and proper action and they require fulfillment of Y’).

a) a sub-claim, lying outside the realm normally thought of as the natural, empirical world, that particular, factual circumstances are able to reveal appropriate responsive conduct. As a general assertion, regarding whether any factual circumstances are alone ever capable of revealing appropriate conduct, this sub-claim is representational;

b) a more specific representational sub-claim that this particular action Y is the appropriate one; and

c) an implicit, but not openly isolated or stated, sub-claim which alleges that appropriate evaluations and appropriate conduct can be determined without consulting desires, feelings or inclinations. In other words, there is no need for a non-representational desire or motive to do Y.

The intuitionist suggestion, then, of an enriched reason as including some sort of moral sense or intuition, perceiving what is fitting conduct, would certainly lead to a very non-Humean, objectivist ethics with a prominent role for this expanded notion of reason. Indeed, if the desire to do Y were an inseparable function of the external fitness, as opposed to a quality in the perceiver, then even Hume’s negative conclusion would be wrong. Reason could in that case move one to act and thus morality could be derived solely from reason (albeit of a non-Humean character).

But the attempt to circumvent Hume’s arguments by resorting to a wider conception of reason, ‘reason-as-encompassing-a-moral- sense’ or intuitionism, does not succeed to my mind, notwithstanding Hume’s omitting directly to confront it. For one thing, the positing of this sort of enriched reason, of a sincerely held and non-divisible belief that ‘This action Y is objectively fitting and requires my performance of if seems unconvincing. On this point I disagree with Mackie,⁹ who suggests that the Humean view — taken as being that not even a belief, alone, can spur action — is overstated. Some false beliefs, Mackie implies, can motivate action.

... it is not necessary that anything like [the intuitionist] view should be true; it is enough that someone should believe it to be true. For if [an intuitionist], say, [1] believes that there is a necessary fitness which requires him, in circumstances of kind X, to do Y, and also [2] believes that the present circumstances are of kind X, will not these two beliefs together give [the intuitionist] a motive for doing Y?¹⁰

And the answer to Mackie’s rhetorical question must be yes, but with an explanation. Mackie’s first posited belief, that there is a necessary fitness requiring action, is equivalent to my claim B. It is a compound belief that cannot be acquired by Humean reason alone. Some desire,” propensity, preference or motive is subsumed in Mackie’s first mentioned belief (as in sub-claim c) above). It is this motive that activates the belief. The motive need not be a straightforward conscious desire of the form ‘I want Y.’ But unless Mackie’s ‘requiredness’, which is simply a sense of obligation in his posited mistaken intuitionist, is an objective prescriptiveness somehow directly perceived (say by some non-Humean reason), then I fail to see how the intuitionist belief — mistaken or no — can alone provide a motive or spur to action. Mackie seems to be suggesting that a perceived fittingness or requiredness, albeit a false one, can alone motivate action, in the absence of any desire or preference to do what is fit. But if so the motive would be external to the agent; it would be objective. It is just such a claim for objective prescriptivity that Mackie himself attacks, convincingly to my mind, in chapter one of his Ethics)³

It is the subsumed desire or motive in my sub-claim c) that spurs even the mistaken intuitionist to action, not any belief (be it my claim A, sub-claim a), or even sub-claim b)). The evaluative conclusion of ‘fitness’ (or alternatively put, the belief of requiredness) only ‘gives a motive for doing Y’ because a motive already existed for doing what is moral and fitting.

In essence, the issue in considering the intuitionist response to Hume’s negative conclusion is whether it is possible to distill the desire component out of the compound belief so that the former is otiose. The intuitionist’s case cannot allow that it is subjectively felt sentiment and desire that moves action while the Humean, recall, need only postulate an essential motivational role for areasonable sentiment — whether or not it is better in practice to go further and posit two separate and distinct components. ⁴ Even if a hard and fast belief-desire dichotomy overstates reality, the desire or appetitive aspect remains a sine qua non to action. And Hume’s insistence on distinguishing belief from desire helps to illustrate the limits of what he regards as reason, properly speaking.

But is the moral realm different, somehow unique? The intuitionist’s assertion that there are moral qualities of a non-natural kind out in the fabric of the world with some sort of prescriptive force stands in stark contrast to Hume’s naturalist, or straight empirical, view of the world. For the intuitionist, having perceived such a quality out there, using my enriched reason’s moral sense,¹⁵ I must follow its commands. Of course I may not in fact discover the moral quality, my moral sense may be deficient, but if I do discover it then there is no question of whether I will act or not. The real relation of fitness out in the world, once discovered, commands obedience and thus such a belief can, all by itself, produce or prevent action. The spur to action is an integral part of the belief, on this interpretation, because it is part and parcel of the outer world.

The intuitionist’s attempt to escape from Hume’s negative conclusion — that moral distinctions are not derived from reason — therefore relies on a view of reason which includes the power to discern categorical imperatives of a sort which are objective or mind­independent and really do exist somehow out in the fabric of the world.