The Problem Of Motive In Hume's Virtue Theory

In Book 3 of A Treatise of Human Nature,Hume argues that all virtues derive their merit only from virtuous motives.However,motive does not function consistently in the three kinds of virtues classified by Hume.Hume divides virtues into two major categories:artificial virtues and natural virtues.The former,such as justice,arises artificially from human conventions and education;the latter is natural and inborn.Natural virtues can subsequently be divided into two kinds:one kind,such as benevolence and generosity,is related to human passions and enables us to perform our part in society;another kind,such as prudence and judgment,is natural ability,and makes us promote our own interest.Motive has different degrees of importance to these virtues.To artificial virtues,such as justice,the original motive is the selfishness and confined generosity of men,and the secondary motive is the sense of honor and duty.These motives are not the source that makes justice be a virtue.Justice is morally good merely because it is useful to others and society.Natural abilities,according to Hume,are entirely involuntary and almost invariable,thus obviously do not involve motive.Natural abilities are virtues,not because of motive,but because they are useful to oneself or others,or because they make oneself or others pleasant.To natural virtues,such as benevolence,universal sympathy constitutes the motive of corresponding actions.Motive shows its important and indispensable role here.However,since motive does not consistently work in these three kinds of virtues,we can see that Hume does not carry out his own point of view of taking motive as the ground for moral distinction.In general,Hume tends to advocate that the source of moral sense is a sympathy with the tendency to produce advantage or pleasure.An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals,as a re-illustration of Book 3 of Treatise,confirms this point.In the latter work,human passions and artificial virtues are classified into the framework of advantage and pleasure,and these objective sources of moral sense and the theory of virtue are integrated together.Advantage and pleasure unify the whole theory,and the role of motive is no longer mentioned in the moral distinction.As a representative of contemporary sentimentalist ethics,Michael Slote,inspired by Hume's theory of sympathy,develops a new theory which advocates that moral distinction is based on the second-order empathy.First of all,Slot points out that in the modern context,Hume's sympathy mainly refers to empathy.Then,he divides the empathy into first-order empathy and second-order empathy:the first-order empathy is the empathy for others on the part of the agent,and the second-order empathy is the bystander's empathy for the first-order empathy.Finally,Slote argues that the moral quality of an action depends on whether it reflects agent's empathic concern for others.In other words,in this theory,the motive of the agent(with or without empathy)is the basis of moral distinctions.In short,the attitude of the agent is the most important basis for moral distinctions.Slote offers a more consistent motivational version for sentimentalist ethics.