David Hume - Mark G. Spencer

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is not only a valuable part of knowledge, but opens the door to many other parts, and affords materials to most of the sciences” (E 566). Hume’s science of man did not amount to a reductive naturalism. Doubtless Hume held a naturalist ontology, regarding social and psychological phenomena as taking place at a secondary level of organization that is materially dependent on a more basic or primary level of material reality. And it is true that within the Treatise Hume employed association as a far-reaching explanatory principle, which might lead to the conclusion that he adhered to a kind of descriptivism, wishing to explain all phenomena at one privileged level of explanation.11 But while he certainly does offer covering-law explanations to account both for regularities in human behavior and particular historical events, he finds it most satisfying to offer explanations that refer to the reasons an agent had for acting.12 It is a mistake to oppose this kind of hermeneutical understanding to the enterprise of explanation, for understanding agents’ reasons for action can allow us to more fully explain an event. The business of explanation is highly context dependent, and it is crucial to know what particular why-question is being asked. The simple question, “why did she die?” may be satisfactorily answered in a variety of ways that refer to different levels of explanation: “because of the poison in her system,” “because she committed suicide,” “because she was depressed,” “because of an imbalance in brain chemicals,” and “because of her estrangement from her son’” may all be appropriate answers in particular contexts, some of which have their home in the social exchange of reasons, others in the search for covering laws, whether at biological, psychological, or sociological levels of organization.

      Hume was optimistic about the possibility of achieving sympathetic understanding of foreign points of view, and insistent that this understanding did not imply moral relativism.13 We see this particularly clearly in “A Dialogue,” appended to the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals. There the well-traveled Palamedes describes for Hume the strange inhabitants of the country of Fourli, where incest and homosexual liaisons are smiled on, marital fidelity disparaged, infanticide accepted, and honor disregarded. Hume’s response is disbelief: “such barbarous and savage manners are not only incompatible with a civilized, intelligent people, such as you said these were; but are scarcely compatible with human nature” (EPM 112–13/328). To call manners “barbarous” and “savage” is to declare them beyond the reach of sympathetic understanding. But in this case the label turns out to be, in Hume’s own judgment, falsely applied. Fourli turns out to be Athens, and only a thicker description is required in order to see these foreign practices in the light of community life as a whole, and thus as performed in the pursuit of intelligible goods. Whereas Palamedes, confronted with the cultural variation between ancient Greece and contemporary Paris, finds it impossible “to fix a standard for judgments of this nature,” Hume advises him that the problem can be resolved “by tracing matters . . . a little higher, and examining the first principles, which each nation establishes, of blame or censure” (EPM 116/333). So, for instance, “Greek loves” arose from the frequency of gymnastic exercises and were regarded as a source of friendship and fidelity. Moreover, the Greeks recognized incest as contrary to reason and public utility but simply defined its limits differently than canon lawyers. And infanticide was practiced only in the face of extreme poverty and was regarded as saving the child from an evil greater than death. Even where Greek practices remain blameworthy, they are understandable, directed toward ends that we, too, can recognize as good.

      The Problem of Artificial Lives

      As optimistic as Hume was about the possibility of extending sympathetic understanding across cultural and historical boundaries, he believed that he had at the same time identified inherent limits to its scope. He sought to differentiate between natural variations in moral sentiment and practices, on the one hand, and artificial lives and manners, on the other. When it comes to the latter, the “maxims of common life and ordinary conduct” no longer apply; instead, speculative principles determine morality. Palamedes offers Hume two examples, one culled from ancient philosophy, the other from modern Christianity: the Cynic Diogenes and the Jansenist Blaise Pascal. To Palamedes’s request that he reconcile these examples with his account of morality, Hume replies:

      An experiment . . . which succeeds in the air, will not always succeed in a vacuum. When men depart from the maxims of common reason, and affect these artificial lives, as you call them, no one can answer for what will please or displease them. They are in a different element from the rest of mankind; and the natural principles of their mind play not with the same regularity, as if left to themselves, free from the illusions of religious superstition or philosophical enthusiasm. (EPM 123/343)

      Superstition and enthusiasm, then, are seen as interfering with the natural principles of the mind. More specifically, according to Hume, it is abstract speculations that interfere, when they intrude into the realm of morality. In the ancient world, religion had “very little influence on common life,” but the philosophical schools sought “to regulate men’s ordinary behaviour and deportment” and “produced great singularities of maxims and conduct.” At present, argues Hume, it is religion, rather than philosophy, that has appropriated to itself this dubious honor; it “inspects our whole conduct, and prescribes an universal rule to our actions, to our words, to our very thoughts and inclinations” (EPM 122/342). Where natural lives are concerned, in contrast, however great the variations, it is always possible, argues Hume, to discern the operation of the same underlying principle, which lies at the heart of his account of morality: moral approval is given to those qualities that are either useful or agreeable, to the agent or to those affected by the agent (EPM 118/336).

      Whereas the term “artificial” is rarely derogatory in Hume’s thought—after all, the artificial virtues include justice and promise keeping—in this context, it clearly designates something very problematic. Both the maxims of common reason and artificial lives admit of a wide range of internal variation, but Hume argues that there is an absolute division between the two: sympathetic understanding is possible only of the former. This is because sympathetic understanding requires grasping the goods for which agents act, their reasons for acting. But the actions of those who live artificial lives are unintelligible; they do not act for the sake of things that (Hume’s rhetorically constructed) “we” can grasp as goods (“no man can answer for what will please or displease them”). They are, then, apparently like the insane, who may speak as though they have reasons for acting or pursuing particular goods, but whose actions do not follow from these purported reasons in any intelligible way. Their “actions” are thus merely pieces of behavior, to be explained, perhaps, but not understood.

      Hume’s twofold move is to identify artificial lives with actions performed for no good at all, that is, irrational actions, while identifying as natural those lives in which moral judgments admit of the particular account he gives in terms of usefulness and agreeableness: “It appears, that there never was any quality recommended by any one, as a virtue or moral excellence, but on account of its being useful, or agreeable to a man himself, or to others. For what other reason can ever be assigned for praise or approbation? Or where would be the sense of extolling a good character or action, which, at the same time, is allowed to be good for nothing?” (EPM 118/336). Hume’s principle of sympathetic understanding requires that we be able to discern the reasons for which agents act, the goods they are pursuing. An action that is not directed toward anything under the denomination good is pointless, unintelligible. But it is not the case that an agent—or observer—must think of an action as useful or agreeable in order for it to have a point. In practice, the discernment of reasons for action is highly concrete and specific. If you pick up your umbrella as you head out the door on a rainy day, your action is immediately intelligible to me as having a point—to stay dry. If you pick up your umbrella and head out the door on a sunny day, having just heard a forecast of glorious weather, I will need some help in understanding the reason for your action—perhaps you wish to return the umbrella to your car, where you usually keep it; or perhaps there is a hidden camera in your umbrella, and you plan to use it to spy on your colleagues. The more foreign and distant your way of life, the more thick description I will need of surrounding beliefs and practices in order to make sense of a particular action. Perhaps you live in a culture that regards umbrellas

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