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Show Chapter XIV. Hume's Metaethics 592 This argument is derived, in essence, from a similar one Hume makes in the Treatise. There he is concerned to refute the objection that since our moral sentiments vary while our moral appraisals do not, these appraisals are not based on our moral feelings but rather on reason. Hume's response is that our moral judgments themselves are based on "a moral taste, and from certain sentiments of pleasure or disgust, which arise upon the contemplation and view of particular qualities or characters" (T 581). Hume's point here is an important one: It is that judgments, thought to issue from reason conceived as distinct from the passions, are not in fact independent of those passions or sentiments, but rather are generated by them. Thus the same feelings - pleasure or aversion - arise in response to perceiving moral qualities as they do in response to other sorts of possible objects of desire. Hume concedes, as before, that these sentiments must vary according to the distance or contiguity of the objects ... our situation, with regard both to persons and things, is in continual fluctuation. ... Besides, every particular man has a peculiar position with regard to others; and 'tis impossible we cou'd ever converse together on any reasonable terms, were each of us to consider characters and persons, only as they appear from his particular point of view (T 581). So moral judgments about persons as well as nonmoral ones about objects of desire and perception are susceptible to distortion, insofar as they are colored by our own variable circumstances. Each of these types of objects contribute to the subject matter of Hume's principles of variability, for each is a type of object with respect to which our judgment must be distorted by the very subjectivity of our situation itself. I shall call the perception conditioned by this situation the subjective perspective. I suggested that the calm passions are claimed by Hume to provide a partial corrective to the subjective perspective, and that their workings constitute the subject matter of what I termed principles of stability. In the following section, I elaborate this suggestion in detail. 5. The Principles of Stability and the Objective Perspective Hume immediately continues the above discussion by arguing that we correct these variations in our sentiments and perceptions by fixing on what he describes as "some steady and general points of view; and always, in our thoughts, place ourselves in them, whatever may be our present situation" (T 581-2). He contrasts this steady and general point of view with the actual variations in viewpoint that occur because of the changes in our particular circumstances, arguing that our use of language disregards such fluctuations, and expresses "our liking or dislike, in the same manner, as if we remained in one point of view" (T 582). However, he contends, we do not thereby fully © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
