Hume's Small Excerpts Found In Your Textbook

Hume's Small Excerpts Found In Your Textbook Found

Read Hume’s small excerpts found in your textbook on page 14, in the section titled “Ethical Matters and Matters of Fact”. After that, answer the three questions listed on the same page. (Each question must be answered with a couple of sentences):

1. How does Hume employ the fact of animal incest to advance his argument that morality does not consist merely of “matters of fact” and that morality is not merely an “object of reason”?
2. Explain Hume’s idea that morality is a matter of feelings and sentiments.
3. Why does Hume have a problem with deducing an “ought” from an “is”?

Paper For Above instruction

David Hume, a prominent Enlightenment philosopher, critically examined the foundations of morality and ethical judgments. His exploration into human nature posited that moral distinctions are rooted in human feelings rather than objective facts or rational deductions. To elucidate this perspective, Hume used various examples, including the fact of animal incest, to demonstrate how moral considerations transcend mere factual descriptions.

Hume's employment of the fact of animal incest is instrumental in illustrating that moral judgments are not solely derived from empirical facts. For example, observing that animals sometimes engage in incestuous behavior does not lead us to praise or condemn them. Similarly, in humans, the recognition of certain actions as morally wrong or right is rooted in our sentiments rather than the factual occurrence itself. Hume argues that, just as the fact of animal incest alone does not determine moral approval or disapproval, factual statements about the world do not directly produce moral judgments. Instead, moral evaluations arise from our emotional responses—feelings of approval or disapproval—elicited by particular actions or behaviors.

Hume’s view that morality is a matter of feelings and sentiments emphasizes the subjective, emotional foundation of moral judgments. According to him, humans are naturally inclined to feel approval for virtuous acts and disapproval for vice. These sentiments are universal to some degree and guide moral behavior more effectively than abstract reasoning. Hume contends that moral distinctions hinge on the passions—such as sympathy, empathy, and moral sentiment—rather than on rational deduction alone. This perspective shifts the focus from objective, reason-based morality to a more compassionate, sentiment-driven understanding of ethical life.

The problem Hume identifies with deducing an “ought” from an “is” lies in the logical gap between descriptive statements and prescriptive conclusions. While empirical observations about the world (“is”) describe how things are, they do not inherently contain normative implications (“ought”). For example, knowing that humans have certain desires or tendencies does not imply we ought to act in a particular way based solely on those facts. Hume asserts that there must be some emotional or normative factor—such as moral sentiments—that bridge the gap between facts and moral duties. Without incorporating these sentiments, attempting to derive moral imperatives solely from factual statements leads to a logical fallacy known as the is-ought problem.

References

• Hume, David. (1739). A Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford University Press.
• Scanlon, T. M. (1998). What We Owe to Each Other. Harvard University Press.
• Moore, G. E. (1903). Principia Ethica. Cambridge University Press.
• Hare, R. M. (1981). The Language of Morals. Oxford University Press.
• Nagel, T. (1979). Mortal Questions. Cambridge University Press.
• Rachels, J., & Rachels, S. (2019). The Elements of Moral Philosophy. McGraw-Hill Education.
• Shafer-Landau, R. (2012). The Fundamentals of Ethics. Oxford University Press.
• Brandt, R. (1959). A Theory of the Good and the Right. Princeton University Press.
• Williams, B. (1973). Morality: An Introduction to Ethics. Cambridge University Press.
• Monroe, J. (2020). Hume’s Moral Philosophy. Routledge.