[SOLVED] Discussion Assignment Prompt
David Hume was a very influential philosopher who lived from 1711-1776. His perspective on ethics was quite different from those whom we have studied so far: he did not believe that ethics was something we could discover using reason. For Hume, reason tells us facts about the world, and ethics describes our feelings toward something that happens. For example, if I say “murder is wrong,” I have not discovered a fact about the world like “the earth orbits the sun.” What I am expressing is an emotion about murder: a bad feeling about it. Hume writes: “Take any action allowed to be vicious; wilful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. In whichever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions, and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. You can never find it, till you turn your reflection into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact; but it is the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object. So that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it.” (p. 158 in your textbook) If Hume is right, then the kind of analysis you’ve just been asked to do (using your reason to apply a theory to a particular moral situation) isn’t how morality works at all. While people like Kant and Bentham and Rawls thought that morality meant using our reason to analyze the situation, Hume didn’t think it played that role at all. Morality isn’t something we can find true answers about; it’s just an expression of how we feel. Think about the work you did for this module in the light of Hume’s critique of morality based on reason. Do you agree with Hume? Why or why not? Discussion Assignment Instructions: To complete this assignment, you must first read the Discussion Assignment Instructions thoroughly.
