In his moral writings Hume offers an argument for the priority of sentiment over reason in the formation of our moral character and in the judgment of our moral lives. Some have dubbed Hume's a view an 'anti-rationalist' view. One reason that others have favored a 'rationalist' view of morality is as a blockade against moral relativism. The moral rationalists worry that if morality is not rationally adjudicable then there is nothing to prevent full-scale ethical relativism.
Let's assume that moral relativism is something we want to avoid (even if you do not agree with this assumption you really ought to because nobody in this class is really a full-blown ethical relativist because everybody in this class thinks that torturing innocent children is immoral -- in any event even if you do not agree just assume it for the purposes of this assignment). Do you think that a sentimentalist (which is not the same thing as a 'sentimental') account of morality can avoid moral relativism? Or is Hume's idea that moral knowledge relies on the sentiments an invitation to relativism that he cannot get shut again? What would have to be true about the sentiments if we are to avoid moral relativism?
Here is a related question worth pondering but which you do not necessarily need to respond to. Is the problem of 'moral relativism' the sort of problem that can actually be seriously posed within the frame of Hume's ethics? In other words, is the way that Hume thinks about ethics even going to allow the sorts of worries and concerns that drive some philosophers to moral relativism? Or does moral relativism only pop up as a serious moral challenge in the context of moral theories that are quite different from Hume's theory?
Those in the (b)-group should click on 'comment' below and post this week -- all others are welcome to weigh in as well.
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Whoo whoo I first! I think Hume can be harboring a moral relativism if his passions model is looked at only theoretically. This is so because if Hume thinks that our passions are excited after we reflect on our sensations resulting from impressions, then this leaves room for people to claim that some actions they do and perceive that people find as repulsive are not actually repulsive to that person, meaning, they do not have the same passions as the norm. For example, one may find the image of a person's head getting shot by a rifle as an image of art, and find joy in the action, while the norm will most likely not take this view. Also, Hume mentions that people who lack certain senses, vision for example, will not even have the same experiences as people with sight. This could relate to cultures who have not even experienced the same events as, say Americans, so in theory they would lack that formation of a passion.
ReplyDeleteI do not think Hume is worried about this though. He has at least two ideas that can escape moral relativism. First, we need to participate in active philosophy. Second, we can get a 3rd person understanding of other people's passions (at least we can get a pretty good idea.) I think this escapes MV because when we observe peoples' interactions with the world, we can see that killing someone does not normally cause joyous passions in other people. We can begin to get an understanding of what actions the norm is against and choose to avoid those actions. People should, even if their passions are not the same as the norm, get the feeling that what they are doing harms other people and should not be done. Word.
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ReplyDeleteIn response to Colin's second question: I take Hume's account to be one where it does seem more difficult to raise these relativist objections. As I understand him, the "sentiments" are not are "totally subjective" or completely private and unshared in the way that perhaps some other moral theorists might construe them. It seems that part of the way that he wants to think about sentiments is not in the light of "unstability" as opposed to the solidity and universality of Reason. Rather, I take him to be understanding sentiments as different from reason, but it is not by way of "stability" that he wants to contrast them. For Hume, as I see it, the sentiments are shared (even if, perhaps, there are outliers--this may be dealt with in an appeal to "common life" as joe mentioned above), the contrast with reason is meant to highlight that morality ISN'T "derived" from given principles of Reason.
ReplyDeleteI personally feel that Hume cannot avoid moral relativism in his sentimentalist model of morality. Based off Hume's sentimentalist account of morality our passions based from other impressions are the main source of our moral thought. In other words we form moral thoughts based off the say certain passions motivate or deter our actions. The sentimentalist position is more of a reaction against the rationalist view, which holds that our moral thoughts are created through reason. However, I don't believe Hume can avoid moral relativism. If Hume believes that certain passions formed through our impressions are the motivating factors behind our moral thoughts, then it should follow that individuals with different impressions or thoughts can have different passions motivating their moral thoughts. For example, if an individual is raised to hate people who walk duck footed their moral thoughts stem from passions that formed through the impressions laid on them by their parents. For Hume to avoid moral relativism he would have to claim sentimentalism to be a universal standard in which all feel the same sentiments, that way relative positioning would have no influence on an individuals moral thoughts.
ReplyDeleteIn response to the second question, I don't believe that moral relativism is a problem for Hume. Moral relativism, if anything, I feel would help strengthen Hume's argument because it allows/accounts for differences in moral thoughts between individuals. But on the other hand moral relativism is something that Hume can avoid, because in his account he allows for sentiments to more or less be expressed between individuals. Meaning that one can learn from others, as oppose to an individuals sentiments being their own and nobody else's rather an individual can observe other's interactions with the world and form moral thoughts based off their observations.
I do not think that moral relativism can be avoided on a sentimentalist view or morality. In order to avoid this kind of morality, the sentiments would have to have some kind of limit or some sort of universality. Without such, the digression will just continue until one is justifying the torturing of innocent children in one way or another. If all that we are relying on for our moral theory is the sentiments, there would be absolutely no standard and given all the different cultures’ views and interpretations of their own moral sentiments, just about any kind of action would be able to be morally justified and thus the system of morality would become ethical relativism, a very dangerous type of ethical system to have.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that to avoid moral relativism there must be some things classified as 'universally bad'. Of course, to classify something as universal requires the employment of rationality. So, if Hume is suggesting that rationality has no place at all in ethics, not even as a factor limiting the circumstances to which sentimentality can legitimately apply, then his view is a gateway to moral relativism, because nothing can be classified as universally bad. On the other hand, if distinctions are drawn between what is universal and what sentimentality is applicable to (in other words, what is not universally good or bad), then we have a dual system that avoids moral relativism but is much more difficult to define.
ReplyDeleteHume's position can not be looked at as morally relativistic because he says that all people are generally the same in the things that they morally believe in. While specific morals do change from person to person, the general morals of humanity are the same and while parts of them are relative, the basic essence of them is the same across all cultures
ReplyDeleteI think that Hume believes that attributes of morality are not inherent in external objects and thus cannot be inferred by reasoning alone, the explanation of human actions does not require the same reasoning that is needed in order to explain how objects interact with each other. Reason alone cannot explain human actions and is only a tool for the 'passions' to use in order to create an explanation. Ultimately our 'passions' govern us and reason alone cannot distinguish between morals.
ReplyDeleteHume contends that morality should not be based on reason, but that the most important foundations of morality come from passions. Passions are produced from original impressions, such as raw sense impressions and raw feelings. Since these original impressions vary from person to person, so do their passions. Given that the passions differ from person to person it seems that morals would fluctuate depending on who you’re speaking with. Since it seems that Humes’ view on morals results in morals being formed based on individual conditions, I don’t think he can avoid moral relativism.
ReplyDeleteIn order to avoid this moral relativism, it seems that Hume would have to admit that at least some passions are universal.
I think that a sentimentalist account of morality can avoid moral relativism because there are certain passions common to mankind. For mankind to continue to survive and thrive, certain motives such as necessity and self-preservation must exist. These motives are universal for the simple reason that any person who does not possess them ceases to exist. These motives are manifested differently in different societies, however. For example, consider infanticide. In some societies, it may sometimes be necessary to put an infant to death for the sake of the survival of the rest of the family. In prosperous societies, however, killing an infant would be immoral because the infant would likely add to the survival of the others. Although certain passions are universal, they may be portrayed differently. If we are to avoid moral relativism, the sentiments must be such that some are universal to all of mankind.
ReplyDeleteHe writes a list of morals that we should abide by, so he definitely seems to think there is a general catalogue of moral things we could follow. They seem to be based on what most people and cultures have agreed upon and must agree upon in order to operate well and not continuously be in fear. Although passions are based on experience, so is the idea of survival and beneficial social behaviours. In any society regardless of experience there are certain things that don't fly, like torturing innocent children for example (unless there was some purpose, which might create moral relativist issues because you could get away with a lot if you think about the beneficial output of the cause), but he seems to believe that most societies can't function well without the majority of people abiding by his foundational morals, which helps avoid the issue of moral relativism.
ReplyDeleteSentimentalism, unrestrained by any other assumption besides that moral values are derived from one's personal experience is an open door for moral-relitivism. Hume though, protects his theory from such a claim. Hume does make some universal claims, in the least that we all experience sentiments that motivate our moral decisions. If through a collection of experience data of moral sensation from a very large number of people are congruent, in Hume's theory we can claim that such a feeling has a high enough probability to make a claim towards it, and if people experience the same sensation in conjunction with an action or thought of an action, it would follow that from this shared experience a shared conception of a moral value would be ubiquitous in a species. This is why Colin can make the claim that "everybody in the class thinks that torturing innocent children is immoral". Colin hasn't asked each person in the class, but through past experience, the belief in custom and habit, and probability such a claim can be made.
ReplyDeleteDifferent cultures have different moral codes. For example, the Eskimos believe that eating the father’s body after his death is morally wrong. On the other hand, one of the tribes in Africa believes that it is morally wrong if the father’s body is not eaten after his death. Therefore, the sentimentalist account of morality cannot avoid moral relativism. To avoid moral relativism, sentiments have to have a universal sentimental model of morality. This means that everyone from every culture has to agree upon an action that is morally right/wrong no matter who is acting/judging it.
ReplyDeleteHume’s model cannot easily avoid moral relativism; rather, it subtly leaves a door open for relativism to creep in unless some contrast or set of sentiments seen as negative is created. One’s sentiments would then have to be relative to this generally accepted range of acceptable and unacceptable sentiments, as established in a given society, in order to avoid some extreme relativism. With nothing to compare any sentiments against, there is an unlimited ability to justify anything, be it torturing innocent children, and so on.
ReplyDeleteThe theory and reality of moral sentimentalism differs greatly, I think. Hume argues that (in theory)our passions, created from our experiences or reflections(impressions), help shape our moral values. The terms of morality are individual ones, directly enabled by our own perceptions, our own impressions, our own ideas. So it, in theory, is completely viable to make the jump from the belief that one's passions determine one's moral values to the belief that because these values originate per individual, morality is relative to each individual.
ReplyDeleteThat's all sound in theory, but realistically, humans generally form distinctively similar moral values. Does this mean that humans merely experience the same passions and coincidentally deduce certain values, or does it mean that humans inherently are programmed to decipher certain universal truths through passion. In theory, I believe moral relativism cannot be disproved, as it is a natural progression from sentimentalism, whereas the realistic nature of sentimentalism is that humans can derive morality from passion while still ascribing to certain universal moral principles which naturally progress from those passions.
While the entire premise that Hume's concept of the necessary is contingent upon one's 'sentimental' determinations, it provides a necessary condition under which these sorts of judgments can be made. This condition of the 'necessary' fusion of concepts one which seems from its name to imply some condition that would allow for certainty in judgments. The only certainty that it provides, however, is that there appears to be some sort of ability in our minds to create the appearance of causality in things outside of ourselves. This 'cementing' together of ideas must, if it is to be have any more real solidity than other so created principles, must rely upon some outer objective reality or determination of what is moral in order to be able to propose a non-relative morality. It could be that he assumes a certain common quality of sentimentality in humans, in which case all he would have to specify would be that this morality would be a human one in order to prevent it from falling under the trap of being 'sentimentally' relative.
ReplyDeleteHume's sentimentalist account of morality heavily relies on the idea of a universal, or nearly universal, concept of human nature. In basing moral decisions off the emotions one experiences in the consideration of a moral dilemma, there arises a potential for difference in opinion. This difference between individual reactions may easily open the door to moral relativism. It is only with a commonality between all peoples, and a resultant similarity in their opinions and emotions, that Hume's ideas of moral guidance may serve as a universal as opposed to an individual method of determining moral value.
ReplyDeleteI think it is entirely possible that a sentimentalist can avoid moral relativism. However it still becomes a matter of blame. An easy way of getting out of moral relativist for the sentimentalist is to blame reason. That is to say it is our own inability to rationally “pick out accurately the thing the feeling is about” that is at fault for the diversity of moral views. This means that sentimentalist would have to admit to an imperfect translation between feelings and reason. They would also have to prove that if every experience (without reflection) produces the same feelings for every individual.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Hume doesn't base his moral view on reason, he doesn't entirely deny that there is some aspect of rational thought involved and I certainly wouldn't call him an "anti-rationalist." Hume believes that human nature is uniform and the role of reason is to determine the best path to take to acquire the things one desires, but as he states "reason is a slave of the passions." While reason may lead one in the correct direction, it is the passions that motivate us to make those paths actual. Therefore, while his view is sentimentalist, I don't think that in his case this lack of a rationalist foundation would attribute Hume to be a moral relativist.
ReplyDeleteI don't really feel that Hume's moral philosophy can avoid relativism. He puts too much emphasis on the idea that it is our sentiments which are at the core of these feelings and in doing so leaves a few minor holes. Hume believes that there are universal morals but I don't see this is being true. This can be evidenced by sociopaths who don't feel the same aversion to horrible things like "normal" people do.
ReplyDeleteHume himself also gives a situation in his text that seems to support the idea of conforming to the society one finds themself in's established moral set, this being advantageous.
Hume places a moral and virtuous man in a den of thieves and asks, "what conduct must he embrace in that melancholy situation?" Hume answers "he must consult the dictates of self preservation alone, without concern for those who no longer merit his care and attention." (23) Hume seems to be arguing that it is best for this man to adopt the attitude of the people he has found himself surrounded by. Which is moral relativism.
Hume provides a solid defense against moral relativism with his claim that all human sentiments are universal. He says that our passions or sentiments can become corrupted by our experiences within our environment (such as overexposure to things like violence) but that all human beings have the same natural sentiments towards moral situations when properly educated about the situation.
ReplyDeleteMoral relativism would only occur if people naturally held different sentiments towards the same situations. Since he believes we all have the same sentiments, his solution to dissolve disagreement amongst human beings is by increasing the practice of cultivating our sympathies towards each other. With more sympathy towards each others contexts and understandings, we could all come to agree on a human, instead of cultural, level.
Brandi Gratis
I agree that Hume's argument does encounter moral relativism, but I do not see this as detrimental in his account. I agree that based on the community you live in or the culture you take part in, one considers certain moral senses that others do not because they take part in the moral sense particular to their community. For example, a community of religious folks will belief that it is immoral to perform abortions, but a community of feminists argue that it is morally ok. The differences in morality over the same issue come about from the different ideologies and experiences of each community, making their morals relative to their situation. However, moral relativism also accounts for universal sentiments. The way in which we survive as humans is basically the same universally, needing food, water and shelter, with minor distinctions made geographically and culturally. Moral codes surrounding these survival issues, such as providing the means to food and water, are universally known, with minor alterations made in moral code depending on region and culture. For example, in capitalist countries we follow property law, which reasserts one's right to own their means of survival, while in communist countries everyone in the community makes sure everyone's basic needs are met. In these two different communities the moral code is the same (ensuring means of survival) yet different depending on the culture. As much as relativism accounts for differences in morals according to community, it also accounts for the general, shared sentiment of morals as Hume describes.
ReplyDeleteI don't that a sentimentalist can avoid moral relativism because it's not based on any sound principle. Even for the most horrific cases, a sentimentalist will eventually find someone who can make the case morally relevant. The sentimentalist's viewpoint is too subjective to avoid moral relativism so i don't think it'd be possible to avoid it.
ReplyDeleteIf sentiments vary from person to person, they're obviously subjective. And if morality falls below sentimentalism, then is it, too, subjective? Furthermore, if morality is 'educatable' or able to be improved, isn't that suggesting that our subjective sentiments and morals aren't developed enough? But if there's always room for improvement, how do we know when we're advancing, if there is no universal sentiment or moral to compare with? Hume has spun us a web that is hard to untangle and we ultimately find ourselves stuck in moral relativism.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the sentimenatalist account can avoid falling into the trap of moral relativism by acknowledging the significance of the consistency of morals that people share. Like Colin said, the overwhelming majority of the population view torturing innocent children as an abhorrent act. Despite the fact that sentiments do vary from person to person, this variation is slight. In the end, people of all creeds and cultures do agree upon the same exact morals. Our immediate physical environments play a huge role upon our sentiments, however, thus we observe people committing acts that some would feel repulsive to given moral standards. In reality, these acts seek the same end in morality that most people share. The sentiments in achieving those ends vary due to the environment and situation at hand, thus people from different cultures regions of the globe view the certain rituals and actions of other culture as bizarre and immoral. In truth we all seek the same morality; the immediacy and vast variety of our surroundings play and instrumental role on our sentiments, however, which is misinterpreted as moral relativism.
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