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Show Chapter XIV. Hume's Metaethics 574 such propositions could not move an agent to do or refrain from any act, hence could not be central to a true analysis of moral propositions.9 The central topic of moral philosophy was thus what we are obligated to do. Conflating what we are obligated to do with what we are compelled or obliged to do, both then conclude that an action cannot be called obligatory unless the agent feels impelled to perform it. So either reason had to be rejected as the source of morality, or else reason itself had to discover its own special motive to action.10 Hutcheson is clearest on this latter requirement, and most pessimistic about its fulfillment. He maintains that we can only be moved to action by "exciting reasons," and these are dependent on our desires. But (as Kydd points out) since our desires are empirical, a priori rational analysis cannot of itself incite us to action: As if indeed reason, or the knowledge of the relation of things, could excite to action when we proposed no end, or as if ends could be intended without desire or affection.11 Hutcheson's claims bear further consideration. His point in this passage is twofold. First, rational a priori analysis bears no relation to desires and emotions, and only these can motivate us to action. But second, the reason theoretical reason fails to move us to action is not only because it is neither a desire nor an emotion. It fails because it provides us with no end about which we might be able to feel a desire or aversion or emotion. So even if theoretical reason could fashion some object proved by analysis to be ultimately worthwhile (such as Kant's highest-order, transcendent ideas of God, freedom and immortality), this would be irrelevant to the moral enterprise if it were not the object of a desire. Hence desires and affections are not significant merely because they move us to act; impulses, whims, and uncontrollable urges do so as well. Desires are significant because they posit ends that we desire to achieve, and that therefore move us to try to achieve them. Two implications of Hutcheson's argument follow directly. First, a necessary condition of an object's having moral value is that it be able to motivate us to action, i.e. that it be an object of desire. Second, reason provides no such motivating ends. The conclusion is clear: Reason provides no moral motivation to action. But if reason provides no motivating ends, and if we can be motivated only by ends we desire to achieve, then reason does not determine the ends we desire to achieve; these can be determined only by Kydd, op. cit. 23. Kydd, op. cit. 38. 11 Francis Hutcheson, Illustrations on the Moral Sense, Ed. Bernard Peach (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1971), 122. 9 10 © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
