A Treatise of Human Nature · David Hume
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO VOL. II.
With a better character, it is said, such as better education and improved circumstances might have produced, the actually greatest happiness of the individual--_i.e._, the series of pleasures which, because he has chosen them, we know to have been the greatest possible for him--might have been greater or ‘truer.’ But the man’s character is the result of his previous preferences; and if every one has always chosen the greatest pleasure of which he was at the time capable, and if no other motive is possible, how could any other than his actual character have been produced? How could that conception of a happiness truer than the actual, of something that should be most pleasant, and therefore preferred, though it is not--a conception which all education implies--have been a possible motive among mankind? To say that the individual is, to begin with, destitute of such a conception, but acquires it through education from others, does not remove the difficulty. How do the educators come by it? Common sense assumes them to have found out that more happiness might have been got by another than the merely natural course of living, and to wish to give others the benefit of their experience. But such experience implies that each has a conception of himself as other than the subject of a succession of pleasures, of which each has been the greatest possible at the time of its occurrence; and the wish to give another the benefit of the experience implies that this conception, which is no possible image of a feeling, can originate action. The assumption of common sense, then, contradicts the two cardinal principles of the Hedonistic philosophy; yet, however disguised in the terminology of development and evolution, it, or some equivalent supposition, is involved in every theory of the progress of mankind.
According to Locke present pleasures may be compared with future, and desire suspended till comparison has been made. 12. Such difficulties do not suggest themselves to Locke, because he is always ready to fall back on the language of common sense without asking whether it is reconcilable with his theory. Having asserted, without qualification, that the will in every case is determined by the strongest desire, that the strongest desire is desire for the greatest pleasure, and that ‘pleasure is just so great, and no greater, than it is felt,’ he finds a place for moral freedom and responsibility in the ‘power a man has to suspend his desires and stop them from determining his will to any action till he has examined whether it be really of a nature in itself and consequences to make him happy or no.’ [1] But how does it happen that there is any need for such suspense, if as to pleasure and pain ‘a man never chooses amiss,’ and pleasure is the same with happiness or the good?
To this Locke answers that it is only present pleasure which is just as it appears, and that in ‘comparing present pleasure or pain with future we often make wrong judgments of them;’ again, that not only present pleasure and pain, but ‘things that draw after them pleasure and pain, are considered as good and evil,’ and that of these consequences under the influence of present pleasure or pain we may judge amiss. [2] By these wrong judgments, it will be observed, Locke does not mean mistakes in discovering the proper means to a desired end (Aristotle’s ἀγνοία ἡ καθ’ ἕκαστα) [3], which it is agreed are not a ground for blame or punishment, but wrong desires--desires for certain pleasures as being the greater, which are not really the greater. Regarding such desires as involving comparisons of one good with another, he counts them judgments, and (the comparison being incorrectly made) _wrong_ judgments. A certain present pleasure, and a certain future one, are compared, and though the future would really be the greater, the present is preferred; or a present pleasure, ‘drawing after it’ a certain amount of pain, is compared with a less amount of present pain, drawing after it a greater pleasure, and the present pleasure preferred.
In such cases the man ‘may justly incur punishment’ for the wrong preference, because having ‘the power to suspend his desire’ for the present pleasure, he has not done so, but ‘by too hasty choice of his own making has imposed on himself wrong measures of good and evil.’ ‘When he has once chosen it,’ indeed, ‘and thereby it is become part of his happiness, it raises desire, and that proportionately gives him uneasiness, which determines his will.’ But the original wrong choice, having the ‘power of suspending his desires,’ he might have prevented. In not doing so he ‘vitiated his own palate,’ and must be ‘answerable to himself’ for the consequences. [4] [1] II. 21, Sec. 51 and 56. [2] Ibid., Sec. 61, 63, 67. [3] [Greek ἀγνοία ἡ καθ’ ἕκαστα (agnoia he kath’ hekasta) = unawareness of the particular circumstances. Tr.] [4] Ibid., Sec. 56. What is meant by ‘present’ and ‘future’ pleasure? By the supposed comparison Locke ought only to have meant the competition of pleasures equally present in imagination ...
13. Responsibility for evil, then (with its conditions, blame, punishment, and remorse) supposes that a man has gone wrong in the comparison of present with future pleasure or pain, having had the chance of going right. Upon this we must remark that as moving desire--and it is the determination of desire that is here in question--NO pleasure can be present in the sense of actual enjoyment, or (in Hume’s language) as ‘impression,’ but only in memory or imagination, as ‘idea.’ Otherwise desire would not be desire. It would not be that uneasiness which, according to Locke, implies the absence of good, and alone moves action. On the other hand, to imagination EVERY pleasure must be present that is to act as motive at all. In whatever sense, then, pleasure, as pleasure, _i.e._ as undetermined by conceptions, can properly be said to move desire, every pleasure is equally present and equally future. [1] For man, if he only felt and retained his feelings in memory, or recalled them in imagination, the only difference among the imagined pleasures which solicit his desires, other than difference of intensity, would lie in the imagined pains with which each may have become associated. One pleasure might be imagined in association with a greater amount of the pain of waiting than another.
In that sense, and only in that, could one be distinguished from the other as a future pleasure from a present one. According as the greater imagined intensity of the future pleasure did or did not outweigh the imagined pain of waiting for it, the scale of desire would turn one way or the other. Or with one pleasure, imagined as more intense than another, might be associated an expectation of a greater amount of pain to be ‘drawn after it.’ Here, again, the question would be whether the greater imagined intensity of pleasure would have the more effect in exciting desire, or the greater amount of imagined sequent pain in quenching it--a question only to be settled by the action which results. In whatever sense it is true of the ‘present pleasure or pain,’ that it is really just as it appears, it is equally true of the future. Whenever the determination of desire is in question, the statement that present pleasure is just as it appears must mean that the pleasure _present in imagination_ is so, and in this sense all motive pleasures are equally so present.
Undoubtedly the pleasure associated with the pain of prolonged expectancy might turn out greater, and that associated with sequent pain less, than was imagined; but so might a pleasure not thus associated. Of every pleasure alike it is as true, that while it is imagined it is just as it is imagined, as that while felt it is just as it is felt; and if man only felt and imagined, there would be no more reason why he should hold himself accountable for his imaginations than for his feelings. Whatever pleasure was most attractive in imagination would determine desire, and, through it, action, which would be the only measure of the amount of the attraction. It would not indeed follow because an action was determined by the pleasure most attractive in imagination, that the ensuing pleasure in actual enjoyment would be greater than might have been attained by a different action--though it would be very hard to show the contrary--but it would follow that the man attained the greatest pleasure of which his nature was capable. There would be no reason why he should blame himself, or be blamed by others, for the result. [1] It is noticeable that when Locke takes to distinguishing the pleasures that move desire into present and future, he speaks as if the future pleasure alone were an absent good, in contradiction to his previous view that every object of desire is an absent good. (Cf. sec. 65 with sec. 57 of cap. 21.)
It may be that he identifies his personal good with the pleasure most attractive in imagination; but a pleasure so identified is quite a different motive from a pleasure simply as imagined. It is no longer mere pleasure that the man seeks, but self-satisfaction through the pleasure. The same consciousness of self, which sets him on the act, continues through the act and its consequences, carrying with it the knowledge (commonly called the ‘voice of conscience’) that it is to himself, as the ultimate motive, that the act and its consequences, whether in the shape of natural pains or civil penalties, are due--a knowledge which breeds remorse, and, through it, the possibility of a better mind. Thus, when Locke finds the ground of responsibility in a man’s power of suspending his desire till he has considered whether the act, to which it inclines him, is of a kind to make him happy or no, the value of the explanation lies in the distinction which it may be taken to imply, but which Locke could not consistently admit, between the imagination of pleasure and the conception of self as a permanent subject of happiness, by reference to which an imagined pleasure becomes a strongest motive.
It is not really as involving a comparison between imagined pleasures, but as involving the consideration whether the greatest imagined pleasure will be the best for one in the long run, that the suspense of desire establishes the responsibility of man. Even if we admitted with Locke that nothing entered into the consideration but an estimate of ‘future pleasures’--and Locke, it will be observed, by supposing the estimate to include ‘pleasures of a sort we are unacquainted with,’ [1] which is as much of a contradiction as to suppose a man influenced by unfelt feelings, renders this restriction unmeaning--still to be determined by the consideration whether something is good for me on the whole is to be determined, not by the imagination of pleasure, but by the conception of self, though it be of self only as a subject to be pleased. [1] Cap. 21, sec. 65. He has specially in view the pleasures of ‘another life’, which ‘being intended for a state of happiness, must certainly be agreeable to every one’s wish and desire: could we suppose their relishes as different there as they are here, yet the manna in heaven will suit every one’s palate.’ Locke finds moral freedom in necessity of pursuing happiness.
15. The mischief is that, though his language implies this distinction, he does not himself understand it. ‘The care of ourselves,’ he tells us, ‘that we mistake not imaginary for real happiness, is the necessary foundation of our liberty. The stronger ties we have to an unalterable pursuit of happiness in general, which is our greatest good, and which, as such, our desires always follow, the more are we free from any necessary determination of our will to any particular action, till we have examined whether it has a tendency to, or is inconsistent with, our real happiness.’ [1] But he does not see that the _rationale_ of the freedom, thus paradoxically, though truly, placed in the strength of a tie, lies in that determination by the conception of self to which the ‘unalterable pursuit of happiness’ is really equivalent. To him it is not as one mode among others in which that self-determination appears, but simply in itself, that the consideration of what is for our real happiness is the ‘foundation of our liberty,’ and the consideration itself is no more than a comparison between imagined pleasures and pains.
Hence to a reader who refuses to read into Locke an interpretation which he does not himself supply, the range of moral liberty must seem as narrow as its nature is ambiguous. As to its range, the greater part of our actions, and among them those which we are apt to think our best, are not and could not be preceded by any consideration whether they are for our real happiness or no. In truth, they result from a character which the conception of self has rendered possible, or express an interest in objects of which this conception is the condition, and for that reason they represent a will self-determined and free; but they do not rest on the foundation which Locke calls ‘the necessary foundation of our liberty.’ As to the nature of this liberty, the reader, who takes Locke at his word, would find himself left to choose between the view of it as the condition of a mind ‘suspended’ between rival presentations of the pleasant, and the equally untenable view of it as that ‘liberty of indifference,’ which Locke himself is quite ready to deride--as consisting in a choice prior to desire, which determines what the desire shall be. [2] [1] Cap. 21, sec. 51. [2] Cf. the passage in sec. 56: ‘When he has once chosen it, and thereby it is become part of his happiness, it raises desire,’ &c. (Cf. also sec. 43 sub fin.)
If an action is moved by desire for an object, Locke asks no questions about origin of the object: But what is to be said of actions, which we only do because we ought? 16. This ambiguous deliverance about moral freedom, it must be observed, is the necessary result on a mind, having too strong a practical hold on life to tamper with human responsibility, of a doctrine which denies the originativeness of thought, and in consequence cannot consistently allow any motive to desire, but the image of a past pleasure or pain. The full logical effect of the doctrine, however, does not appear in Locke, because, with his way of taking any desire of which the satisfaction produces pleasure to have pleasure for its object, he never comes in sight of the question how the manifold objects of actual human interest are possible for a being who only feels and retains, or combines, his feelings. An action moved by love of country, love of fame, love of a friend, love of the beautiful, would cause him no more difficulty than one moved by desire for the renewal of some sensual enjoyment, or for that maintenance of health which is the condition of such enjoyment in the future.
If pressed about them, we may suppose that--availing himself of the language probably current in the philosophic society in which he lived, though it first became generally current in England through the writings of his quasi-pupil, Shaftesbury--he would have said that he found in his breast affections for public good, as well as for self-good, the satisfaction of which gave pleasure, and to which his doctrine, that pleasure is the ‘object of desire in general,’ was accordingly applicable. The question--of what feelings or combinations of feelings are the objects which excite these several desires copies?--it does not occur to him to ask. It is only when a class of actions presents itself for which a motive in the way of desire or aversion is not readily assignable that any difficulty arises, and then it is a difficulty which the assignment of such a motive, without any question asked as to its possibility for a merely feeling and imagining subject, is thought sufficiently to dispose of. Such a class of actions is that of which we say that we ‘ought’ to do them, even when we are not compelled and had rather not. We ought, it is generally admitted, to keep our promises, even when it is inconvenient to us to do so and no punishment could overtake us if we did not. We ought to be just even in ways that the law does not prescribe, and when we are beyond its ken; and that, too, in dealing with men towards whom we have no inclination to be generous. We ought even--so at least Locke ‘on the authority of Revelation’ would have said--to forgive injuries which we cannot forget, and if not ‘to love our enemies’ in the literal sense, which may be an impossibility, yet to act as if we did. To what motive are such actions to be assigned?
Their object is pleasure, but pleasure given not by nature but by law. 17. ‘To desire for pleasure or aversion from pain,’ Locke would answer, ‘but a pleasure and pain other than the natural consequences of acts and attached to them by some law.’ This is the result of his enquiry into ‘Moral Relations’ (Book II., chap. 28). Good and evil, he tells us, being ‘nothing but pleasure and pain, moral good or evil is only the conformity or disagreement of our actions to some law, whereby good or evil, _i.e._, pleasure or pain, is drawn on us by the will and power of the law-maker.’ All law according to its ‘true nature’ is a rule set to the actions of others by an intelligent being, having ‘power to reward the compliance with, and punish deviation from, his rule by some good and evil that is not the natural product and consequence of the action itself; for that, being a natural convenience or inconvenience, would operate of itself without a law.’ Of such law there are three sorts. 1. Divine Law, ‘promulgated to men by the light of nature or voice of revelation, by comparing their actions to which they judge whether, as duties or sins, they are like to procure them happiness or misery from the hands of the Almighty.’
2. Civil Law, ‘the rule set by the Commonwealth to the actions of those who belong to it,’ reference to which decides ‘whether they be criminal or no.’ 3. ‘The law of opinion or reputation,’ according to agreement or disagreement with which actions are reckoned ‘virtues or vices.’ This law may or may not coincide with the divine law. So far as it does, virtues and vices are really, what they are always supposed to be, actions ‘in their own nature ‘severally right or wrong. It is not as really right or wrong, however, but only as esteemed so, that an act is virtuous or vicious, and thus ‘the common measure of virtue and vice is the approbation or dislike, praise or blame, which by a tacit consent establishes itself in the several societies, tribes, and clubs of men in the world, whereby several actions come to find credit or disgrace among them, according to the judgment, maxims, or fashions of the place.’ Each sort of law has its own ‘enforcement in the way of good and evil.’ That of the civil law is obvious. That of the Divine Law lies in the pleasures and pains of ‘another world,’ which (we have to suppose) render actions ‘in their own nature good and evil.’ That of the third sort of law lies in those consequences of social reputation and dislike which are stronger motives to most men than are the rewards and punishments either of God or the magistrate (chap. 28, §§ 5-12).
Conformity to law not the moral good, but a means to it. 18. ‘Moral goodness or evil,’ Locke concludes, ‘is the conformity or non-conformity of any action’ to one or other of the above rules (§ 14). But such conformity or non-conformity is not a feeling, pleasant or painful, at all. If, then, the account of the good as consisting in pleasure, of which the morally good is a particular form, is to be adhered to, we must suppose that, when moral goodness is said to be conformity to law, it is so called merely with reference to the specific means of attaining that pleasure in which moral good consists. Not the conception of conformity to law, but the imagination of a certain pleasure, will determine the desire that moves the moral act, as every other desire. The distinction between the moral act and an act judiciously done for the sake, let us say, of some pleasure of the palate, will lie only in the channel through which comes the pleasure that each is calculated to obtain. If the motive of an act done for the sake of the pleasure of eating differs from the motive of an act done for the sake of sexual pleasure on account of the difference of the channels through which the pleasures are severally obtained, in that sense only can the motive of either of these acts, upon Locke’s principles, be taken to differ from the motive of an act morally done. The explanation, then, of the acts not readily assignable to desire or aversion, of which we say that we only do them because we ‘ought,’ has been found. They are so far of a kind with all actions done to obtain or avoid what Locke calls ‘future’ pleasures or pains that the difficulty of assigning a motive for them only arises from the fact that their immediate result is not an end but a means. They differ from these, however, inasmuch as the pleasure they draw after them is not their ‘natural consequence,’ any more than the pain attaching to a contrary act would be, but is only possible through the action of God, the magistrate, or society in some of its forms.
Hume has to derive from ‘impressions’ the objects which Locke took for granted. 19. After the above examination we can easily anticipate the points on which a candid and clear-headed man, who accepted the principles of Locke’s doctrine, would see that it needed explanation and development. If all action is determined by impulse to remove the most pressing uneasiness, as consisting in desire for the greatest pleasure of which the agent is at the time capable; if this, again, means desire for the renewal of some ‘impression’ previously experienced, and all impressions are either those of sense or derived from them, how are we to account for those actual objects of human interest and pursuit which seem far removed from any combination of animal pleasures or of the means thereto, and specially for that class of actions determined, as Locke says, by expectation of pain or pleasure other than the ‘natural consequence’ of the act, to which the term ‘moral’ is properly applied? Hume, as we have seen, [1] in accepting Locke’s principles, clothes them in a more precise terminology, marking the distinction between the feeling as originally felt and the same as returning in memory or imagination as that between ‘impression and idea,’ and excluding _original_ ideas of reflection.
‘An impression first strikes upon the senses, and makes us perceive heat or cold, thirst or hunger, pleasure or pain, of some kind or other. Of this impression there is a copy taken by the mind, which remains after the impression ceases; and this we call an idea. This idea of pleasure or pain, when it returns upon the soul, produces the new impressions of desire and aversion, hope and fear, which may properly be called impressions of reflection, because derived from it’ _(a)_. ‘These, again, are copied by the memory and imagination, and become ideas; which perhaps in their turn give rise to other impressions’ _(b)_. Thus the impressions of reflection, marked _(a)_, will be determined by ideas copied from impressions of sense. If desires, they will be desires for the renewal either of a pleasure incidental to the satisfaction of appetite, or of a pleasant sight or sound, a sweet taste or smell. These desires and their satisfactions will again be copied in ideas, but how can the impressions _(b)_ to which these ideas give rise be other than desires for the renewal of the original animal pleasures? How do they come to be desires as unlike these as are the motives which actuate not merely the saint or the philanthropist, but the ordinary good neighbour or honest citizen or head of a family?
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.