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Unit 20: David Hume-Of Essay Writing ...

English letters, Hobbesian egoism and ethical rationalism. Hutcheson holds that virtue and beauty Notes
are not qualities of the people and things to which they are attributed. We may speak as if objects
and people have moral and aesthetic properties, but the relevant property is merely an “idea
raised in us.” Hume alters Hutcheson’s theory by imposing his own philosophical vocabulary,
making beauty an impression rather than an idea. But they agree that to describe a person as
virtuous or an object as beautiful is to make a claim about their tendency to cause a certain
response. Is it imprudent and “too strong,” Hume asks Hutcheson, to summarize the thesis in the
following terms? “[W]hen you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing,
but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the
contemplation of it. Vice and virtue, therefore, may be compared to sounds, colours, heat and
cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the
mind” (T, 469). But virtue and beauty are not strictly analogous to secondary qualities, such as
heat and cold, because a critic’s claim that a work is beautiful involves an element of endorsement
that does not arise in the observation that ice is cold.
Hume defends the centrality of sentiment with the following reasoning. Recognitions of virtue
and beauty require particular sentiments in human observers. If the discriminations of taste took
place without these sentiments, we would lack any motivation to do what we regard as moral.
Moral and aesthetic judgments have practical consequences that mere reason lacks. So taste differs
from the assent that characterizes understanding or reason. Although taste responds to real qualities
of objects, we cannot replace the exercise of taste with the assent of reason.
But taste is a fallible indicator of beauty and deformity. The underlying sentiments never “refer”
to anything in their cause (SOT, 268). Feelings do not represent any aspect of their occasioning
objects, and they are easily attached to objects other than their cause (T, 280). (As with any causal
relationship, such as the causal link between smoke and fire, an isolated effect does not refer back
to its cause, nor does it provide us with information about the nature of the object or event that
causes it. If we experience smoke but have never experienced fire, the smoke will tell us nothing
about the nature of fire.) As effects of our interaction with the world, sentiments cannot reliably
inform us about the nature of their causes. It will not always be clear, prior to careful attention and
reflection, which features of a work of art are responsible for our sentiments of approbation and
disapprobation. On Hume’s analysis, the chain running from cause to effect turns out to be extremely
complex, for the relationship is indirect and “the human body is a mighty complicated machine”
with many “secret powers”. Knowing this, good critics pronounce their verdicts only after they
clarify how their own sentiments relate to the object that is being evaluated (SOT, 270–71).
The Dispositional Analysis

Our sentiments obey general principles governing our species. Yet we must be able to make
judgments of taste immediately, without having to be aware of the laws governing them.
Hume’s acknowledgment of regular, predictable causes of the moral and aesthetic sentiment is
sometimes taken as an indication that Hume is not a genuine subjectivist. On this reading, he
equates beauty and virtue with dispositional properties of external objects. Attributions of moral
and aesthetic properties to objects indicate a speaker’s acknowledgment of the object’s tendency to
produce the sentiment. There are passages that suggest such a reading: “beauty is such an order
and constitution of parts, as … is fitted to give a pleasure and satisfaction to the soul”.
Despite such passages, it is questionable whether Hume really offers a dispositional analysis. A
dispositional analysis tells us which properties would exist if certain conditions were satisfied. A
simplified dispositional analysis treats “Cork is buoyant” as equivalent in meaning to “If a piece
of cork is placed in water, it floats.” A simplified dispositional analysis of beauty treats “This
object is beautiful” as equivalent in meaning to “If anyone perceives this object under ideal
conditions, a sentiment of approbation accompanies the perception.” On this account, beauty is

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