A Study On Moral Qualities Theory Of David Hume And Its Contemporary Enlightenment

Moral qualities theory of David Hume occupies a unique and extremely important position in the history of Western thought.It constitutes the transition and intermediary link of Western ethical thought from traditional virtue theory to modern normative theory,and its historical influence is far-reaching.As we all know,moral qualities theory of usefulness in morality constitutes the foundation of theory of utilitarianism,and its concept of justice is an important part of the Western justice tradition and directly inspires and influences Rawls' s theory of justice.This dissertation mainly focuses on two masterpieces of David Hume,"A Treatise of Human Nature" and " An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals ",based upon four major moral qualities Hume brought about in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals and its secondary classification,systematically illustrates its major ideological sources and theoretical basis,primary contents and its features,comments and respond from David Hume,theoretical significance and contemporary enlightenment,in order to coherently analysis and demonstrate moral thinking system.This dissertation first examines the basic theoretical origins of Moral qualities theory of David Hume.This dissertation reckons that Hume gets its moral theory inspirations directly from two Scotland emotionalism moral philosophers: third Earl of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson.Hume inherits the point from third Earl of Shaftesbury that human naturally own a sense of benevolence towards others.In hence,Hume treats benevolence as one of “of qualities useful to other people or society”.Hutcheson tries in his works to transform all kinds of moral qualities into a system which inspires Hume to complete this.This chapter elaborates that on theory basis,epistemology providing philosophical premiere for moral study and it indeed consists of consciousness of mind,cause and effect and mild skepticism.Emotional ethics limits the role of reason in moral philosophy and pays more attention to the influence of emotion in human nature.This influence on Hume is undoubtedly very important.This dissertation systematically illustrates the primary content and its main characteristics of moral qualities theory of David Hume.Moral qualities theory is composed of “of qualities useful to other people or society”,“of qualities useful to ourselves”,“of qualities immediately agreeable to ourselves” and “of qualities immediately agreeable to others”.This dissertation believes that moral qualities thought has three main characteristics: ubiquitous moral qualities,evolving and pleasure.Hume believes that the moral quality of justice,such as loyalty,can only be the product of artificial design,but also the product of the social community slowly evolved which is ubiquitous moral qualities.In addition,Hume believes that as long as moral qualities give people a feeling of pleasure and gains people's approval,it can be regarded as virtue of morality,thus pleasure is also a main feature of moral qualities theory of David Hume.From the point of the history of thought,any kind of groundbreaking thinking will lead to countless controversies and evaluations,as well as moral qualities thinking.Due to the difficulty of his own theory and the complexity of the method of argumentation,the academic world did not value much the book "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals" with even majority incomprehensible and critical voices.This dissertation mainly focuses on Kant and Brentano criticism of moral qualities theory and Hume responses.With Kant and Brentano criticism of moral qualities thought as representatives,this dissertation introduce the main criticism from academia after death of Hume.Kant criticized the emotional foundation and claim to re-establish the foundation of morality on the basis of reason,and used the innate comprehensive judgment to criticize principle of happiness and bitterness.Brentano criticize Hume's principle of happiness and bitterness and the idea of goodness is happiness.This dissertation believes that Kant and Brentano's criticism has certain rationality in some sense,but there is also some intentional and unintentional misunderstanding.Thus,clarifying these misunderstanding is of great significance for us to fully understand moral qualities thought.Finally,this dissertation proposes that although the era in which Hume lives lives is far from us,the region in which he lives is also far from ours,and its class attributes are far from the mainstream ideological values of today,however,the nature of social transformation in which Hume lives,its moral qualities thought play the transition and intermediary role from traditional virtue theory to modern normative theory and this intermediary role is also provide possible space to combine individual virtue and social system.These characteristics also mean that moral qualities theory still has important reference significance for China,in terms of transition from traditional society to modern society,of the modern transformation of Chinese ethical culture with profound Confucian virtue theory and of reconstruction China's socialist market economy.This dissertation based upon the composition and construction of individual moral qualities,the mutual constriction of moral qualities with social system,and the mutual constriction of the moral qualities with social spirit decorum.