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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 581 But suppose reason were Hume's remedy for the partiality of our affections? Would this show that it had motivational influence? I think not, for Hume makes it quite clear, in this paragraph and in the subsequent discussion, that we devise and implement the rules of justice for purely instrumental reasons, i.e. so that we may each enjoy our possessions in peace and security: By this means, every one knows what he may safely possess; and the passions are restrain'd in their partial and contradictory motions. Nor is such a restraint contrary to these passions; for if so, it cou'd never be enter'd into, nor maintain'd; but it is only contrary to their heedless and impetuous movement (T 489; emphasis added). Clearly Hume means to deny any suspected departure from his earlier doctrine regarding the slavish and purely instrumental role of reason relative to the passions. Reason, under the guidance of self-interest (T 492), generates the rules of justice as means for restraining the passions, which in turn is the means to the safe enjoyment of property. Reason does not causally oppose the passions, but rather directs them in the sense noted above (T 493). Hence the role of reason in engendering the rules of justice is not only fully consistent with Hume's doctrine of Book II regarding reason's motivational inefficacy; it is an instance of that doctrine. We have yet to find the clear evidence of a conflicting doctrine upon which some of Hume's commentators have insisted. 3. The Passions from the Viewpoint of Reason Recall that Hume's doctrine of the motivational inefficacy of reason was the first of two lines of thought, the first taking the viewpoint of the passions, the second taking the viewpoint of reason. Now let us consider this second line of attack more closely. Reason, as Hume has already established, consists in the conformity to truth, either of abstract relations between ideas or of experienced matters of facts, of our previous ideas and impressions. The passions, on the other hand, are neither. They are "original modifications of existence" that do not represent anything, and therefore do not represent it either truly or falsely: 'Tis impossible, therefore, that this passion can be oppos'd by, or be contradictory to truth and reason; since this contradiction consists in the disagreement of ideas, considered as copies, with those objects which they represent (T 415). Only when a passion is accompanied by a false judgment, either about the existence of an object of the passion, or about the best means for attaining that object, can it be said to be contrary to reason; "and even then 'tis not the passion, properly speaking, which is unreasonable, but the judgment" (T 416). Thus just as reason can no more oppose the passions than a logical argument © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
