Hume, and Motivation for Action

Hume on Reasons and Passions:

David Hume: Treatise Bk.II Part III 3; and Bk.III Part I 1 (1739)

J. L. Mackie: Hume's Moral Theory chs.3-5 (1980)

Philippa Foot: `Hume on Moral Judgement' in Virtues and Vices (1978)

Barry Stroud Hume, chs. VII & VIII (1977)

Anthony Flew: David Hume: Philosopher of Moral Science ch.9

Michael Smith: `The Humean Theory of Motivation' Mind 1987 pp.36-61;

(reprinted as) chapter 4 of his The Moral Problem (1994)

Internalism and Externalism about Motivation:

Jonathan Dancy: Moral Reasons ch.1 1-2 (1993)

David McNaughton: Moral Vision - An Introduction to Ethics ch.7 1-3 (1988)

Bernard Williams: `Internal and External Reasons' in Moral Luck (1981); and `Internal
Reasons and the Obscurity of Blame' in Making Sense of Humanity (1995)

John McDowell: `Might there be external reasons?' in World, Mind, And Ethics eds. J.
Altham and Ross Harrison (1995); and Williams' reply pp.186-94

Christine Korsgaard: `Skepticism about practical reason' in her Creating the Kingdom of
Ends (1996)

Derek Parfit: Reasons and Persons ch.6 `The best objection to the self-interest theory', and
ch.9 `Why we should reject S' (1984)
Sample Essay Questions:

1. Do we need independent moral desires if we are to act morally?

2. Do we only do what we want to do?

3. What role, if any, do desires play in moral action?

4. `Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions' (Hume). Is it, and ought it
only to be? What are the consequences for morality of your answer?

5. `Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching
of my finger.' Why does Hume assert this? Do you agree with him? (1995)

6. `No action can be virtuous or morally good unless there be in human nature some
motive to produce it, distinct from the sense of its morality'. Explain this claim of Hume's.
Does it subvert morality? (1994)

6. Are moral motivations reasons?

7. Do we have to want to be moral?

M.F.

Hume, and motivation for action

Moral or ethical theory must surely have something to say about the nature of moral motivation. But
what should be said about it is constrained by the nature of motivation for action quite generally. Hume
has a powerful argument to the effect that practical motivations must be `passions rather than `reasons -
they must be desire-like.

See Hume's Treatise Bk.II Pt III 3: first published 1739/40.

Hume says he aims to prove two things:

1) `first, that reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will; and...
 [Witness his famous comment `Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions,
and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them' (p.156).]

2) ...secondly, that it can never oppose passion in the direction of the will.' (pp.460-61 in Penguin ed.)

[`Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.']

Note Hume's conception of reason is fairly specific. Reason is operative: (i) in matters of
`demonstration', which concern `relations of ideas' (yielding, e.g. mathematical knowledge); and (ii) in
matters of `probability', which concern all empirical and causal knowledge.

Objection: this seems to leave action worryingly ungoverned by reason, and at the mercy of the whims of
passion. But Hume's answer to this comes in a distinction between the `calm passions' and the `violent
passions'. Our better judgement about how to act may often prevail, but when it does, this is not (as a
Kantian would have it) in virtue of reason overcoming passion, but a `calm passion' overcoming a
`violent passion'.

Passions have no representative content from the world - they are mere `original existences'
spontaneously generated within us. Consequently, for Hume, asking whether a `passion' (desire) is
consonant with or contrary to reason, is like asking whether, say, tables are happy or sad: passions just
aren't the sort of thing that permit of rational assessment.

Except for two important caveats:

1) if the passion is based on a false belief as to an object's existence: e.g. the desire to find the pot of gold
at the end of the rainbow is contrary to reason, since there's no such pot;

2) if the passion is based on a false belief that doing the action is a sufficient means to a further end: e.g.
the desire to win the Lottery's rollover jackpot is contrary to reason in as far as it is based on the false
belief that having millions of pounds would guarantee happiness

But, N.B., even in these cases a passion's amenability to rational assessment is wholly derived from that
of judgements (pertaining to reason) which accompany them.
It is perhaps a virtue of Hume's view that it makes sense of the apparently everyday occurrence that two
equally rational people might act differently in the same circumstances, or (which demonstrates the same
point) that we ordinarily think that a person can act immorally despite a perfect appreciation of the
reasons attaching to the situation, because s/he just wants to act that way.

Humeanism; Williams `internal reasons; Internalism/Externalism about motivation

Possible general objection to the Humean account of motivation: it depends on an excessively

dichotomous conception of reason and desire. Surely, one might ask, reason conditions passion in a more
thoroughgoing manner than Hume seems to allow? For a Humean view that may escape that charge, we
turn to Bernard Williams' `Internal and External Reasons' (Moral Luck).

Two interpretations of what it is for a person to have a reason to :

1) the internal interpretation: she has a motive in her `subjective motivational set (S)' which will be
served by her -ing

e.g. she wants a cool drink, so she has a reason to get one from the fridge.

2) the external interpretation: he has no such motive, but has a reason for -ing nonetheless

(Williams thinks there are no bona fide cases of this but a possible candidate might be:) a young man has
no subjective motivation to join the army, but his family claim he does have reason to join up on grounds
of family honour and patriotism.

Williams points to action explanation and observes that explaining action always requires the attribution
of some subjective motivational state that corresponds to the reason for action

(i.e. action explanation requires reference to an internal reason, as in (1)).

By contrast, a consideration presented as an external reason (in our example, `family honour and
patriotism') cannot figure in the explanation of an action - unless of course it is internalized by the agent
and acted on as an internal reason. Williams suggests that so-called external reasons - `when definitely
isolated as such' - are really just a ruse of rhetoric used by those who are trying to get someone to do
something they don't have a reason to do, by implying their refusal would be irrational.

A broadly Kantian response (see Thomas Nagel, John McDowell):

All this shows is that the nature of action explanation entails that we attribute some subjective
motivational state. But this may be conceded quite happily, since it can be construed as a merely trivial
consequence of the fact that the agent did the action. There is no warrant for inferring that external
reasons can never figure in action explanation, i.e. can never constitute a motivation for action.

The guaranteed ever-presence of an appropriate subjective motivational state, therefore, is not proof that
that state was required to motivate the action.

If so, it can be maintained that reasons and not desires can sometimes motivate action. (This is a result
hospitable to Kantianism quite generally in that Kant's view of morally worthy action requires that we act
on reason alone, specifically in independence from any motivational force provided by desires, or other
inclinations).

Question: when all is said and done, what does the disagreement between the internal and external
reasons theorists amount to? How far is it terminological, and how far a substantial philosophical
difference?

Suggestion: a key difference lies in their different conceptions of the role of the individual agent in
determining the reasons which have authority over her/him; that is to say, the internal/external reasons
debate is on the same turf as debates about the univeralism or otherwise of moral reasons.

Thus it is important to distinguish two (closely related) debates which are conducted in perilously similar
terms. The debate overinternal and external reasons is distinct from the debate between internalists and
externalists about moral motivation. The terms `internalism and `externalism about motivation usually
pick out a distinction between two views about the source of motivation, where the thing to which
motivation is seen as either internal or external is not the agents `subjective motivational set (Williams),
but rather the content of the moral proposition itself. Here, for instance (it is not the only one), is Nagels
definition of the internalism/externalism distinction:

`Internalism is the view that the presence of a motivation for acting morally is guaranteed
by the truth [or the agents acceptance? - M.F.] of ethical propositions themselves. ...
Externalism holds, on the other hand, that the necessary motivation is not supplied by
ethical principles and judgements themselves, and that an additional psychological
sanction is required to motivate our compliance... (T. Nagel, The Possibility of Altruism,
1970, p.7).