PHI102 EXAMEN PHILOSOPHICUM – RANI LILL ANJUM
Lecture 10: Hume Consequentialist Ethics
Against a Rationalist view on morals
Plato, Aristotle and Descartes all thought that what makes humans
essentially human is our rational abilities. All our knowledge,
scientific or moral, is linked to our capacity of reason, thought
and deliberation.
To Hume and other empiricists, the only role of reason is to
discover truth and falsehood in (a) relations of ideas
(mathematics, logic) or (b) matters of fact. The first type of
knowledge is purely analytic, and contains no new
information. The second type of knowledge is empirical and
come from sense impressions.
The naturalistic fallacy: from ‘Is’ to ‘Ought’
Hume made a clear distinction between facts and values. Facts are
about truth and falsity, while values are about what ought to
be the case.
What ought to be the case cannot, according to him, be discovered
in the world as facts. When we say how something ought to
be, we are not stating a matter of fact, but something about
our own judgement.
In his treatment of induction, we saw that Hume was concerned
with logically valid inferences. Inductive inferences were
invalid ones.
In a logically valid inference, the conclusion should follow from the
premises, and not go beyond these. We can say that the
consequence should be contained in the premises and not say
more than the premises. Example of a logically valid inference:
Premise: All men are mortal.
Premise: Socrates is a man.
Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.
When we derive what ought to be from what is, this is a logically
invalid inference. To infer values from facts is called ‘the
naturalistic fallacy’, because we then assume that morality can
be discovered in nature. Example of the naturalistic fallacy,
which is a logically invalid inference:
Premise: Animal testing inflicts pain (in the animals).
Conclusion: We ought to stop animal testing.
Here, the conclusion clearly says more than the premise. Instead,
there is an implicit premise, which is assumed but not stated
explicitly:
Premise 2: We should not inflict pain in animals.
We see that, in order to make the inference from ‘is’ to ‘ought’
valid, we need to add a second principle containing an ‘ought’.
But this does not solve the problem of deriving ‘ought’ from ‘is’.
Premise 2 is a value claim, and thus cannot be derived from a
fact. For any moral claim, therefore, we need a moral premise
to back it up. No facts are ever sufficient for drawing a moral,
normative conclusion.
Consequences matter: pleasure and pain
Hume’s philosophy of human nature is biologically motivated: as
humans, we share more than separates us. “The minds of all
men are similar in their feelings and operations…”
According to Hume, all our actions are motivated by one goal: to
gain pleasure and avoid pain. Humans share this motivation
with animals.
When we want to know whether an action is good or bad, we
cannot use our reason. Instead we must use our feelings. All
we have to base our moral judgement of an action on, is the
feeling it produces in us when we observe or think about it. If
it gives me a good feeling, I judge it as good or virtuous. If it
gives me a bad feeling, I judge it bad, or vicious. From this, we
get ideas of virtues and vices.
Some virtues have evolved as such because they are beneficial to
society: justice, punctuality, cleanliness, chastity, fidelity,
modesty. These virtues don’t come naturally to us. The natural
virtues are gentleness, friendship, compassion and kindness
towards children and animals. But the most important natural
virtue is empathy or sympathy.
Sympathy gives us our moral capability
Moral actions are different from other actions, since it is possible
for us to act in a way that goes against our selfish interests.
Sometimes we get pleasure from helping a stranger even if it
gives us pain. I might interfere in a fight, even though it can
harm me.
This is because of a moral capacity we have, which Hume calls
Sympathy. Sympathy, or empathy, is our ability to recognise
our own feelings in others: of pain, pleasure, love, hatred,
pride, humiliations, and so on. When I recognise these feelings
in others, I know how it would feel if it was me who were in
their position: pleasure or pain.
Our shared feelings thus gives us a moral compass for how to treat
others. This also includes animals, since humans and animals
are much alike.
Hume takes our most basic moral capacity to be a natural part of
our biology and psychology, contra Thomas Hobbes, who
thinks our morality is motivated by selfishness. The feeling of
sympathy is something we are born with, but it can be
destroyed. A psychopath lacks this ability, but this would be a
damage rather than a natural state of human psychology.
Consequentialism à la Hume
 Morality is a natural ability in humans
 Empathy or sympathy is a natural ability
 We recognise feelings in others
 Inflicting pain is morally bad, pleasure is good
 We share out moral ability with animals
Discussion questions
What is consequentialism?
What were the most important consequences to consider,
according to Hume?
How did Hume argue that we cannot derive values from facts?
What is the role of empathy or sympathy in Hume’s moral
philosophy?
Do you agree with Hume’s views on morality? Why, why not?
 PHI102 EXAMEN PHILOSOPHICUM – RANI LILL ANJUM

Facts versus values. Science is good with facts, but how much is
science actually concerned with values? Should it be?