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a particular kind of umbrella. When we attempt to describe reasons for action in general, we abstract from all of this concreteness, saying things like, “actions, unlike pieces of behavior, are intentional,” “actions are performed for reasons,” “actions are directed towards ends perceived by the agent as good.”

      The monkish virtues were for Hume the epitome of character traits that are “good for nothing”:

      celibacy, fasting, penance, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence, solitude, and the whole train of monkish virtues; for what reason are they everywhere rejected by men of sense, but because they serve to no manner of purpose; neither advance a man’s fortune in the world, nor render him a more valuable member of society; neither qualify him for the entertainment of company, nor increase his power of self-enjoyment? We observe, on the contrary, that they cross all these desirable ends; stupify the understanding and harden the heart, obscure the fancy and sour the temper. (EPM 9.3/270)

      We can see that the monkish virtues, at least as described by Hume, seem neither useful nor agreeable to anyone. However, is it really the case that Hume is unable to grasp virtuous monks as acting for reasons? Is he unable to discern the goods for which they act? Is he unable to see their actions as expressions of intentional agency, unable to see them as acting at all, rather than simply exhibiting pieces of behavior?

      What lends Hume’s statements regarding the impossibility of sympathetic understanding of artificial lives some initial plausibility is the analysis he offers of theistic beliefs—and the artificial lives based on these beliefs—as utterly self-contradictory and as requiring sustained self-deception. This analysis, which is most fully developed in the Natural History of Religion, essentially presents theists as insane—as perpetually driving themselves insane through their fears and insecurity, their simultaneous tendencies to exalt the deity and to regard the deity as a harsh and arbitrary tyrant, their efforts to laud the deity even as they secretly hate him. According to Hume’s “natural history,” polytheism, though arising out of fearful ignorance, is not irrational or self-contradictory; polytheists simply imagine the unknown causes of the unpredictable events that determine their fates as personal agents subject to potential human influence. Theism emerges out of polytheism as the attempt to influence one deity, seen as particularly relevant, gives rise to ever more exaggerated praise, until this deity is honored as sole, omnipotent, infinite divine power. Contradictions begin to enter in as the deity is praised as transcendent and infinite and yet believers continue to anthropomorphize the deity in order to have some hope of influencing that god; “it is well, if, in striving to get farther, and to represent a magnificent simplicity, they run not into inexplicable mystery, and destroy the intelligent nature of their deity, on which alone any rational worship or adoration can be founded” (NHR 53–54). Since it is fear and anxiety that drives the formation of religious belief, believers naturally tend, argues Hume, to conceive of the deity as a malicious entity who must be placated. On the other hand, in order to have some hope of flattering the deity into compliance with their wishes, believers tend to praise their god not only as omnipotent and omniscient, but also as perfectly good. And while praise of the gods might initially be purely affected, once the deity is regarded as omniscient, it is no longer sufficient to display devotion. Believers thus struggle to suppress their hatred and fear of the deity: “while their gloomy apprehensions make them ascribe to him measures of conduct, which, in human creatures, would be highly blamed, they must still affect to praise and admire that conduct in the object of their devotional addresses” (NHR 78). Theistic belief is thus on Hume’s analysis pervaded by self-contradiction and self-deception. In fact, it hardly amounts to real belief at all, argues Hume: “the conviction of the religionists, in all ages, is more affected than real, and scarcely ever approaches, in any degree, to that solid belief and persuasion, which governs us in the common affairs of life” (NHR 71). If the lives of theists were indeed dictated by such a contradictory set of pseudo-beliefs, Hume’s claim that sympathetic understanding here confronts an absolute limit would seem plausible.¹⁴ After all, anything follows from a contradiction.

      Even if Hume’s account of theistic belief as riven with contradictions renders specious the notion that modes of life dictated by these beliefs would offer barriers to sympathetic understanding, Hume must still show that “artificial lives” are not intelligible in terms of the ordinary goods of human flourishing. He attempts to do so in “A Dialogue,” in which Pascal is represented as leading the kind of artificial life that results from allowing speculative opinions—particularly of such a contradictory nature—to interfere with the “natural principles” of the mind:

      The aim of Pascal was to keep a perpetual sense of his dependence before his eyes, and never to forget his numberless wants and infirmities. . . . [He] made constant profession of humility and abasement, of the contempt and hatred of himself; and endeavoured to attain these supposed virtues, as far as they are attainable. The austerities . . . of the Frenchman were embraced merely for their own sake, and in order to suffer as much as possible. . . . The most ridiculous superstitions directed Pascal’s faith and practice; and an extreme contempt of this life, in comparison of the future, was the chief foundation of his conduct. (EPM 122–23/342–43)

      Pascal is represented as cultivating self-hatred, as pursuing suffering for its own sake, as condemning this life, as allowing “ridiculous” superstitions to determine his way of life. He is depicted as engaging in self-destructive behavior that is detrimental to human flourishing and potentially even counter to the basic need for survival. But note that Pascal’s actions are not, after all, wholly unintelligible to Hume. Hume is able to identify the goods Pascal pursues, even if he regards those goods—of the life to come—as illusory. And in fact, the goods of eternal life can be made intelligible in terms of, or at least by analogy with, the goods Hume does recognize, those of ordinary human flourishing. Pascal seeks only true and secure goods, and concludes that these cannot be this worldly, given the finitude and unreliability of earthly goods. Given his belief that this world is a finite creation of an infinite and loving God, it makes sense for Pascal to seek communion with the source of that creation, the source of all the limited goods we encounter in this life. This is, of course, hardly a full specification of Pascal’s beliefs and their relation to his way of life, but it is enough to call into question Hume’s accusation that Pascal’s way of life, as self-defeating and self-destructive, undermines the very conditions for the pursuit of any goods at all. Pascal does not seek suffering for its own sake; he seeks to recognize his true identity as a fallen creation of God. He does not cultivate contempt of this life but cultivates the awareness that all finite goods issue from God as goodness itself. While Hume argues that sympathetic understanding has arrived here at an absolute limit, there is no reason that thick description cannot accomplish here what it accomplished in the case of Greek infanticide and infidelity—render comprehensible, as ways of pursuing intelligible goods, practices that might still be judged by the observer to be worthy of blame. Hume has not succeeded in drawing a sharp boundary between natural and artificial lives, maxims, and practices. The task of sympathetic understanding remains in place even here.

      Does this mean that the monkish virtues are, in fact, useful and/or agreeable? It would certainly be possible to redescribe them in this way—they are “useful” for transforming oneself into the person who will be acceptable in God’s kingdom, say, or for earning God’s favor, or for preparing oneself for the reception of grace. Likewise, they are “agreeable” for those who experience them as anticipations of the glorified life, free of bodily limitations, and as receptivity to divine indwelling. This is not to say, though, that monks cultivate these virtues for the sake of their usefulness or agreeableness. Rather, they cultivate them out of their desire for God. Hume’s explanatory account is flexible enough to accommodate a very broad range of reasons for action—as is economists’ category of “utility.” Does it add to our understanding, though, to reduce the monks’ reasons for action to this other, purportedly more basic, level of explanation? We might expect it to do so, insofar as it gives a unified account of apparently disparate phenomena. On the other hand, if this account lumps together reasons that are meaningfully experienced as distinct, it is not so clearly useful. Ernest Nagel’s comments about the limited usefulness of reductive explanation is applicable here:

      [In problematic cases] the distinctive traits that are the

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