David Hume

The next entry in History of Political Philosophy is Robert S. Hill’s take on David Hume. Hill begins his essay by noting a central paradox in Hume’s thought. The paradox Hill has in mind here is the idea that Hume’s skepticism challenges the very idea of political philosophy, while at the same time he is the author of his own comprehensive political doctrine. At the base of Hume’s thought is the idea that there are a collection and succession things in our minds which he calls perceptions. According to Hume, there are two types of perceptions. These kinds are as follows: 1) impressions, which are what we hear, see, feel, love, hate, desire, or will and 2) ideas which occur when we reflect on a passion or object not present. It is important to note that for Hume, all ideas must fist come from impressions.

This introduces a good deal of uncertainty as our senses are fallible, thus we cannot have knowledge in the fullest sense nor can we have absolute certainty. For Hume, true knowledge is only that which cannot be thought of otherwise, as in the case of a triangle with anything other than three sides or a married bachelor. In doing this though, Hume turns the philosophical quest to use skepticism to establish an absolute foundation of knowledge against itself. This has several radical implications. Among one of the most important of these implications is the idea that cause and effect only appear to be absolute because we have seen it so many times. But in reality this cannot confirm any idea we may have as it may simply be the case that we have not experienced an exception to this rule.

Our knowledge is dependent upon how we conceive things, and as this can always be wrong, the ideas we gain from this perception may also be wrong. What this means is that the knowledge we have essentially comes from habits, though habits may be overcome by a stronger habit as would be the case with the proposition: “All Irishmen are drunks.” Such a proposition may arise from the habit of seeing many drunk Irishmen, but it could be overcome by the stronger habit of being able to conceive of exceptions when we experience an Irishman that is not drunk. One thing that this does mean is that we can arrange our perceptions in such a way that the appearance of some kind of order is created.

Hume also sees virtue and vice in this way as for Hume, virtue and vice are not relations because they are always connected to some external object. However, they are also not matters of fact because they cannot really be discovered and are for Hume based in passion rather than in reason. Hume’s divorce of morality from both nature and reason is highly important and causes him to create a strong distinction between the “is” and the “ought.” One of the implications Hume’s theory what morality is passion based has is that virtue and vice are now constituted by sentiment. Thus, it is not the case that virtue is approved of because it is virtue, but rather it is the case that virtue is virtue because it is approved. Morality is thus founded on its ability to produce good results.

Though Hume is working in the light of Hobbes and Locke, he dismisses the idea that rule and power are based solely on self-interests for four reasons. These reasons are as follows: 1) it exaggerates the power of reason, 2) not all desire under the desire for one’s own good, 3) self-interest presupposes the existence of other passions, and 4) self-interest is not necessarily the strongest or dominate passion. For Hume, passion exists in multitude, not in a singularity. For Hume, morals may be a matter of taste, but Hume avoids relativism by noting that there are such things as right and wrong taste. Thus, Hume attempts place morality along with causal and solid reasoning on a strong ground so that they can be distinct from things like mere prejudice and fantasy. Hume partially does this by making great use of common interests in an attempt to restrict individual interests.     

For Hume, this means the desire to have stability becomes highly important as stability makes it easier for use to know what common interest entails. Thus, justice is seen as ultimately coming from mutual helpfulness, so the question of justice is not what benefits individuals, but rather what benefits society. This means a strong conception of community is created, and with that comes the idea that government may both protect people as they pursue their interests and may also require them to pursue it. By doing this, the government may create what Hume calls “artificial virtue.” Artificial virtue is be understood by contrasting it to what Hume calls natural virtue as in natural virtue, virtues are rooted in people’s instincts while in the case of artificial virtue, they are not.

On matters of governance, Hume employs monarchial, aristocratic, and democratic elements in order to keep the other elements in check. By doing this, Hume wishes to avoid arbitrary government, which he sees as a threat to liberty. In many ways, Hume ends up combining a Whig/ radical political philosophy with a skeptical/ Tory temperament. It should be noted that Hume rejects the contract theory of government for several reasons. One of these reasons is that for Hume, the contract theory of government contradicted people’s natural sentiment to have order. Hume also fears that contract theory may open up the door for a new form of tyranny and was also guilty of overstating the power of reason. Finally, he also sees contract theory as weakening the foundations of society. Considering these things, it is not surprising that instead of reason, Hume wants custom to guide human life. This focus on custom as well as Hume’s desire to restrain reason has led many to read Hume as a pre-Burkean conservative.