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Show Chapter XIV. Hume's Metaethics 584 identify a particular passion independently of its intentional object. Surely we need the death of the close friend, the threat of violence, or the sight of the disgorged calf hanging in the butcher's window in order to distinguish respectively grief, fear, or aversion. The knotting of the stomach, increased heart rate, and tightness in the temples alone do not suffice to distinguish between them - nor, indeed, from particularly intense pleasurable experiences of certain sorts. The intentional object of the passion is part of what identifies it as a particular passion. Furthermore, it is difficult to imagine a case in which the intentional object of the passion is not a necessary part of the cause of the passion, as Hume rightly suggests. Even neural stimulation would not disconfirm this hypothesis. But these two considerations taken together suggest that a passion always includes, or at least is accompanied by, some "representative quality," i.e. that object which is intentionally represented. So either passions are intrinsically representational, or else they are always "accompany'd with some judgment or opinion" concerning "the existence of objects" (T 416). This conclusion is borne out by the examples Hume cites in passage (A), all of which make reference to intentional objects. Surely it is at least the ideas of the destruction of the whole world and of the scratching of my finger that causes me to prefer the one to the other; surely it is at least the idea of the unknown Indian that causes me to desire to prevent his uneasiness more than my total ruin. Indeed, it is hard to imagine giving a complete description of any particular passion without referring to its intentionally represented object. But this means that passions can, then, be unreasonable, or contrary to reason after all, for they always involve at least a "supposition of the existence of the object" (T 416), about which one may be mistaken. Of course a subject need not suppose the object of a passion to have material, empirical existence. Hume would scarcely maintain that any such object must be supposed already to exist in this strong sense. For this would imply that we could only aspire to bring into material existence that which already had it; hence that the desire to achieve or realize our ends played no part in motivating us to action. There is no reason to think Hume held this view. Nor is this supposition required by Hume's notion of intentional existence: To reflect on anything simply, and to reflect on it as existent, are nothing different from each other. That idea, when conjoined with the idea of my object, makes no addition to it. Whatever we conceive, we conceive to be existent (T 66-67). When we conceive of some object or state of affairs we deplore, or wish to attain through action, we suppose it to exist as intentional object of our grief © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
