Hume Shiftsthe Burden of Proof

After all, it was over 250 years ago that Hume observed that "the rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason." Yet Hume's claim has not sufficed to deter most modern rationalists from continuing to believe -- curiously enough often quoting Hume in their support -- that something not derived from reason must be either nonsense or a matter for arbitrary preference, and, accordingly, to continue to demand rational justifications.F.A. Hayek,The Fatal Conceit, The Errors of Socialism[University of Chicago Press, 1988, 1991, p.66]Every one knows that judicious matter and charms of style have rendered Hume's history [of England] the manual of every student. I remember well the enthusiasm with which I devoured it when young, and the length of time, the research and reflection which were necessary to eradicate thepoisonit had instilled into my mind. It was unfortunate that he first took up the history of theStuarts, became theirapologist, and advocated all their enormities... Although all this is known, he still continues to be put into the hands of all our young people, and to infect them with the poison of his own principles of government. It is this book which has undermined the free principles of the English government, has persuaded readers of all classes that these were usurpations on the legitimate and salutary rights of the crown, and has spread universaltoryismover the land.Thomas Jefferson, "To Colonel William Duane," August 12, 1810,The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, edited and with an Introduction by Adrienne Koch and William Pedan [The Modern Library, Random House, 1944, 1972, 1993, p.555, boldface added]

At the beginning of hisEnquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume, having argued that all ideas come from antecedent impressions, describes a test of his theory:Those who would assert that this position is not universally true nor without exception, have only one, and that an easy method of refuting it; by producing that idea, which, in their opinion, is not derived from this source. It will then be incumbent on us, if we would maintain our doctrine, to produce the impression, or lively perception, which corresponds to it. [Shelby-Bigge edition, Oxford, 1902, 1972, pp. 19-20]Here the challenge and the burden of proof is clear enough: If we produce an idea that we contend is not derived from an original impression, or lively perception, then it is Hume's business to produce that impression or admit that his theory, his empiricism, is not correct.The difficulty with this test for Hume is that he himself discovers many ideas which evidently have not been derived from an original impression. Thus, later in the sameEnquiry, we find Hume saying:There are no ideas, which occur in metaphysics, more obscure and uncertain, than those ofpower, force, energyornecessary connection.... [pp.61-62]When we look about us towards external objects, and consider the operation of causes, we are never able, in a single instance, to discover any power or necessary connection; any quality, which binds the effect to the cause, and renders the one an infallible consequence of the other.... Consequently, there is not, in any single, particular instance of cause and effect, any thing which can suggest the idea of power or necessary connection. [p. 63]...but the power or force, which actuates the whole machine [the universe], is entirely concealed from us, and never discovers itself in any of the sensible qualities of body.... It is impossible, therefore, that the idea of power can be derived from the contemplation of bodies, in single instances of their operation; because no bodies ever discover any power, which can be the original of this idea. [pp. 63-64]Now, in terms of Hume's own challenge, one might say that he has discovered several ideas that refute his empiricism. However, he has already protected himself against such refutation: Having proposed his test, Hume almost immediately took it back and shifted the burden of proof:When we entertain, therefore, any suspicion that a philosophical term is employed without any meaning or idea (as is but too frequent), we need to enquire,from what impression is that supposed idea derived?And if it be impossible to assign any, this will serve to confirm our suspicion. [p. 22]Now if we produce an idea, likepowerornecessary connection, that we maintain is not derived from an antecedent impression, it is not incumbent upon Hume to produce the impression or abandon his empiricism. Instead, Hume can say this means that our idea is "without any meaning or idea." This is indeed what Hume says:And as we can have no idea of any thing which never appeared to our outward sense or inward sentiment, the necessary conclusionseemsto be that we have no idea of connection or power at all, and that these words are absolutelywithout any meaning, when employed either in philosophical reasonings or common life. [p. 74, boldface added]This is the beginning of an evil tradition in the history of philosophy to dismiss many perfectly sensible terms in philosophy and ordinary language as "meaningless" according to some new philosophical theory of meaning.Intentionally or not, Hume's shifting of the burden of proof serves to protect his theory from refutation, according to the obvious avenue of refutation that he had just recognized himself. Such a theory simply begs the question, and it is hard to imagine that an acute thinker like Hume would fail to recognize that. In any case, having incautiously offered the terms of his test, he quickly enough prepared the way for his rejection of inconvenient concepts.Even so, Hume doesn't quite dismiss the ideas of "power, force, energyornecessary connection" as "without any meaning or idea." He better not; for power, force, and energy especially are not "obscure and uncertain" concepts from metaphysics: They all have clear and useful definitions inphysics. "Force" had already been defined by Isaac Newton himself in the famous equation, F=ma -- force equals mass times acceleration. But Hume can never recover from his presuppositions thatbecause there is no impression, we cannot know that there is anything there in nature. So, the best that Hume can do is to attribute our belief in power, force, energy, and necessary connection to the psychological conditioning brought about by the "custom" or "habit" of experiencing the constant conjunction of causes with effects:This connexion, therefore, which wefeelin the mind, this customary transition of the imagination from one object to its ususal attendant, is the sentiment or impression from which we form the idea of power or necessary connection. Nothing farther is in the case. [p. 75]Although Hume may think that he has formally met his challenge to account for the ideas of power and necessary connection, his answer has the drawback of no longer being about the world, but just about the operations of the mind. If we reject this answer as being irrelevant toknowledge, committing a material fallacy of relevance, and we hold him to a ground of knowledge inobjects, then he can only say that "we have no idea of connexion or power at all, and that these words are absolutely without any meaning..."The subjective approach through psychological "habit" has several important consequences:1. Only concepts that relate to the objects of experience, albeit without corresponding to "impressions" themselves, can be saved. Thus, although causality, force, and the like can be saved for physics, moral concepts like free will, or religious concepts like God or the soul, cannot be saved. They will truly be for Hume "without any meaning or idea." However, since Hume himself views the convictions of custom and habit as perhaps wise provisions of Nature against the imperfections and uncertainties of our reason, there is in principle no reason why Nature should not also have provided us with convictions that do not relatedirectlyto perceptual objects in the manner identified by Hume. If Hume is offering up a description of human nature, he obviously overlooks the circumstance that human nature in all times and places has tended to turn to religious expression. Hume actually edits "human nature" according to his own Scottish and Epicurean preferences. Kant, who also limits theoretical knowledge to the world of experience, nevertheless allows "postulates of practical reason" for moral or religious issues that do not relate directly to scientific knowledge.2. Thecertaintythat Hume attributes to the necessary connection of causality and the laws of nature has been a matter of confusion ever since. Since our own psychological certainty obviously has nothing to do with any necessity among the objects of nature, it is easy to infer that Hume did not believe there was any certainty. It should then be surprising to find how easily Hume rules out, not just miracles, but also free will and evenchancejust because all would involve violations of causality, as he understands it. This goes back to the kind of Skeptic that Hume is, not aPyrrhonian, who suspends all judgment because of lack of objective knowledge, but anAcademic Skeptic, who continues making the reasonable judgments of ordinary life, regardless of lack of objective knowledge -- these differences were already sorted out inHellenisticphilosophy. Hume'ssubjectivecertainty as a Skeptic is thus just as strong as the certainty of those who might believe in objective necessity among objects: Indeed, Hume's certainty often seemsgreater; for it does not follow from a belief in necessity among objects that there should be certainty in beliefs about them, and anyone who believes in necessity among objects can easily be more sceptical than Hume, in the ordinary sense, about what those necessities are. There are thus two false inferences to guard against: (1) that Hume was "uncertain" about his beliefs because he knew that experience could not justify them; and (2) that we should deny necessity among objects just because we are uncertain about our beliefs. Hume's own certainty, indeed, rises to the level of dogmatism, disparaging, not just the "superstition" of Roman Catholicism, but even attacking geometry, along with metaphysics, for the problems of infinite divisibility. [Note]3. Hume's attack on geometry is instructive:No priestlydogmas, invented on purpose to tame and subdue the rebellious reason of mankind, ever shocked common sense more than the doctrine of the infinite divisibility of extension, with its consequences; as they are pompously displayed by all geometricians and metaphysicians, with a kind of triumph and exultation. [p. 156]Although Hume has already said, "Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the truths demonstrated by Euclid would for ever retain their certainty and evidence" [p. 25], he must turn against geometry where it conflicts with his empiricism: Quantities too small to be seen correspond to no "impression" and are thus "without any meaning or idea." The division of such quantities into even smaller quantities is that much the worse. Unfortunately for Hume, his attack here cannot just be on "geometricians and metaphysicians," it must also be on physicists, for Newton'scalculusof infinitesimal quantities is part of the geometry of infinite divisibility. It might be argued, indeed, that an infinitesimal is something that is the result of afinitedivision; but it is also certainly something that is not a discernible quantity, which must necessarily offend Hume's empiricism. "Too small to be detected, but there" is not a formula for Empiricist mathematics. Perhaps Hume did not notice, as Berkeley did, that his epistemological presuppositions might put him on a collision course with a modern physics dependent on many mathematical ideas that have "shocked common sense."4. The attack on geometry is a clue to something larger: Hume's empiricism, while ruling out various metaphysical entities (free will, the soul, God, etc.), to the applause of his many admirers, also ruled out many of the future developments of science, which few admirers this side ofdeconstructionare likely to applaud:Our senses inform us of the colour, weight, and consistence of bread; but neither sense nor reason can ever inform us of those qualities which fit it for the nourishment and support of a human body. [p. 33]These ultimate springs and principles [of events in nature] are totally shut up from human curiosity and enquiry. Elasticity, gravity, cohesion of parts, communication of motion by impulse; these are probably the ultimate causes and principles which we shall ever discover in nature. [p. 30]The course of science in the 19th and 20th centuries would have astonished Hume, as it certainly discredits the foundation of his predictions for the future of human knowledge. That proteins, vitamins, carbohydrates, minerals, etc. explain the basis of human nutrition, and that electromagnetism and atomic, nuclear, and particle physics explain much of the fundamental behavior of matter, are not just things that escaped Hume's imagination -- they escaped everyone's imagination until the discovery of them was effected -- but they are things that occupy acognitive spacewhose very existence Hume explicitly denied: They do not correspond to "impressions" any more than God or the soul do. By Hume's criterion they are "without any meaning or idea."Thus, when Hume shifts the burden of proof to protect his empiricism, he shuts off any possible understanding, not just of metaphysics and religion, but of much of mathematics and science. That is a price some, like Wittgenstein and Rorty, are still willing to pay: That mathematics and science really tell us nothing about the world but are elaborate tricks we have devised that unaccountably produce results that we want in practical matters. Such a dismal aspiration can be found to have motivated few, if any, historic scientists. AsRoger Penrosesays in a footnote toThe Emperor's New Mind:I have taken for granted that any 'serious' philosophical viewpoint should contain at least a good measure of realism. It always surprises me when I learn of apparently serious-minded thinkers, often physicists concerned with the implications of quantum mechanics, who take the strongly subjective view that there is, in actuality,noreal world 'out there' at all! The fact that I take a realistic line wherever possible is not meant to imply that I am unaware that such subjective views are often seriously maintained -- only that I am unable to make sense of them. [p. 299]Thedesire to knowthat drove Galileo, Newton, or Einstein cannot be addressed by a philosophical theory of knowledge that denies that any such knowledge can be had. No one who thought that "knowledge" was simply a "device for calculation" would bother to spend years in purely theoretical research; nor would anyone bother to trouble themselves with all the difficulty of mathematical study and scientific research if they believed the next step in nihilistic theory, that scientific "knowledge" is an arbitrary construction of power relationships. In that case, "knowledge" would tell us nothing either about the world or about practical results but simply would embody the power relationships that distribute goods according to the race, class, and gender construction built into it.While Hume does not go as far as much more recent theory, it is rarely recognized, as it was by Kant, that he shut off much of science as well as religion with his empiricism. Since many great defenders and devotees of science in the 20th century, like the Logical Positivists, thought that Hume's philosophy was very nearly sufficient for a proper philosophy of science, this has been a very dangerous oversight. But this whole direction of error can be forestalled just by noticing the trick at the very beginning: An "idea" without an "impression" is not to be dismissed as "without any meaning" but is actually counter-evidence against Hume's whole empiricism. Until Hume shifts the burden of proof, his own work provides some of the best evidence against empiricism, as Kant himself appreciated.

When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask,Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?No.Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.This famous passage, which ends theEnquiry Concerning Human Understanding[op.cit. p.165], with its rather chilling call for book burning, starkly exposes the kind of petard upon which Hume's own project is hoist; for Hume's own books, including theEnquiryand theTreatiseboth, contain no mathematics or experimental science. By his own criteria, they are thus to be committed to the flames. To be sure, Humethoughtthat he was doing empirical "experiments" in his book; but he was confused about this and has never really been considered ascientistby anyone. No, he is a philosopher, discussing the form and implications of an Empiricist theory of knowledge. He therefore paints himself into the same corner as any philosopher advocating scientism or positivism, that his own theory rules out the possibility or meaning of his own theory. This would become an occupational hazzard in some of his spiritual successors. The Logical Positivists could never admit the absurdity of the doctrine of their school on the basis of the principles of that very doctrine. The youngerWittgensteindidrecognize that theTractatuswas nonsense in terms of its own theory, but then the older Wittgenstein, abandoning scientism, nevertheless did not admit that his later theory was not ordinary language, which for him became normative, but was actually a "private language," whose possibility he denied.Hume and all these successors thus cannot escape an accusation that could easily have been made by either Socrates or Kant: that they insensibly practice metaphysical thinking and appeal to metaphysical principles even when they do not think they are doing so and even while they try to argue against the possibility of such things. As Plato said ofProtagoras, they thus manage to refute themselves.

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Hume Shifts the Burden of Proof, Note;Confusions about Hume in Antony Flew

I have found a very explicit demonstration of common confusions about Hume in a recent book,There Is A God, byAntony Flew[HarperOne, 2007]. Flew himself was the product of the linguistic "Oxford Philosophy" of his supervisor, the infamous (in my eyes) Gilbert Ryle. As it happens, Flew's book recounts his transformation from a militant and notorious atheist to a deist (or something -- he favorably references manytheistic arguments, some of which seem incompatible with deism, i.e. the doctrine of an impersonal God who now leaves the world alone to follow the mechanical laws that God with infinite prescience designed at the beginning); but we also get some retrospective on the analytic tradition of philosophy he has always represented, a tradition that purportedly reveres, and can certainly be expected to understand, Hume. Yet Flew says:Humedenied causationin the firstInquiry[sic-- should be "Enquiry"] and claimed that all theexternal worldreally contains is constant conjunctions; that is, events of this sort are regularly followed by events of that sort. We notice these constant conjunctions and form strong habits associating the ideas of this with the ideas of that. We see water boiling when it is heated and associate the two. In thinking of real connections out there, however, wemistakenlyproject our own internal psychological associations. Hume's skepticism about cause and effect and his agnosticism about the external world are of course jettisoned the moment he leaves his study. Indeed, Hume jettisions all of his most radical skepticism even before he leaves his study. There is, for instance, no trace of the thesis that causal connections and necessity are nothing butfalseprojections onto nature in the notorious section "Of Miracles" in the firstInquiry. [p.58, boldface added]Each of the expressions that I have quoted in boldface represents a misunderstanding of Hume, something which must go back to Flew's failure to appreciate the difference, cited by Hume himself, between a Pyrrhonian and an Academic Skeptic. Thus, Humenever"denied causation" but simply argued that it was not the result of anyrational inferencesbased on instances of perception. This meant that Humeneverasserted that the "external world" contained nothing but constant conjunctions. Such an assertion would benokind of Skepticism. Similarly, Hume would never assert that we "mistakenly" project our internal psychological associations onto the world.Indeed, Hume holds in mind a possibleobjective groundof the subjective associations, namelyHuman Nature, to which the title of his first book makes reference. He reflects in theEnquirythat it is probably better for our survival if our knowledge of cause and effect is produced instinctively by association than by some fallible chain of rational inferences from objective knowledge. It is hard to imagine that Flew actuallyoverlookedthis whole dimension of Hume's philosophy. But he did. Indeed, Flew writes as though in his youth he accepted without qualification that Hume "denied causality," while later in the perspective of mature reflection he realized that Hume "jettisoned" his Skepticism in regard to various applications. However, Hume never denied causality nor was he so careless as to inconistently allow causality in order to deny miracles, etc. Flew's mature reflection still hasn't gotten it quite right.No one who has noticed Hume's explicit assertion that none of his Skepticism will have any effect on ordinary practice, or that after philosophical reflection we still leave the room by the door and not by the window, would be surprised, as Flew is, that even in his study Hume rejects chance, free will, and miracles all because they violate causality. Flew's statement that "causal connections and necessity are nothing but false projections" shows how badly he, and probably most of his teachers and colleagues, construed Hume's philosophy.My practice, you say, refutes my doubts.But you mistake the purport of my question.As an agent, I am quite satisfied in the point; but as a philosopher, who has some share of curiosity, I will not say scepticism, I want to learn the foundation of this inference [i.e. from cause to effect]. No reading, no enquiry has yet been able to remove my difficulty, or give me satisfaction in a manner of such importance. Can I do better than propose the difficulty to the public, even though, perhaps, I have small hopes of obtaining a solution? We shall at least, by this means, be sensible of our ignorance, if we do not augment our knowledge. [An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,op.cit., p.38, boldface added]Nor need we fear that this [Sceptical] philosophy, while it endeavours to limit our enquiries to common life, should ever undermine the reasonings of common life, and carry its doubts so far as to destroy all action, as well as speculation.Nature will always maintain her rights, and prevail in the end over any abstract reasoning whatsoever.Though we should conclude, for instance, as in the foregoing section, that, in all reasonings from experience, there is a step taken by the mind which is not supported by any argument or process of the understanding;there is no danger that these reasonings, on which almost all knowledge depends, will ever be affected by such a discovery.[ibid., p.41, boldface added]Hume says, "There is, indeed, a more mitigated scepticism oracademicalphilosophy, which may be both durable and useful, and which may, in part, be the result of thisPyrrhonism, or excessive scepticism, when its undistinguished doubts are, in some measure, corrected by common sense and reflection" [ibid., p.129, boldface added]. "The great subverter of Pyrrhonism or the excessive principles of scepticism is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life" [p.126]. Kant already understood Hume better than Hume's own Analytic admirers. Hence Kant famously says that Hume's critics "were ever taking for granted that which he doubted, and demonstrating with zeal and often with impudence that which he never thought of doubting..." [Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, p.259]. Kant's comment is often quoted, but it cannot be properly understood if the confusions of Flew's tradition stand in the way. They exemplify Kant's point.

Key Distinctions for Value Theories,and the Importance of Hume

Karman.y evdhikras te m phales.u kadcana /m karmaphalahetur bhr m te sango 'stv akarman.i,Set thy heart upon thy work, but never on its reward.Work not for a reward; but never cease to do thy work.The Bhagavad Gita, 2:47, Juan Mascar translation [Penguin Books, 1962, p.52]

Should we then, in the face of this criticism, reconcile ourselves to the view -- expressed countless times by so many: by some of the Sophists in Plato's dialogues, by Hobbes and by many more recent authors -- that what is just is what has been laid down as law by the legislator, and that there is no other valid law apart from this? This view can of course be expressed with varying degrees of consistency. The radical version says that whatever a sovereign or ruling power has established is indeed just: Hitler's Nrnberg laws, and Stalin's codes, and the American Constitution -- all are equally just. But this compels us to accept the inconvenient conclusion that norms which contradict each other may be equally legitimate and equally just. Advocates of this view, therefore, usually try to circumvent the problem by arguing that the value-laden concept of justice has no discernible meaning if it is taken to suggest a supreme paradigm according to which we can measure and assess existing legislation; if, on the other hand, 'justice' means nothing except positive law, i.e., what is established in existing legislation, it is a misleading and useless concept.Leszek Koakowski (1927-2009), "On Natural Law,"Is God Happy? Selected Essays[Basic Books, 2013, pp.242-243]

Some key distinctions can be used to characterize the nature of ethics. Most fundamental is whether morality is a matter of rational knowledge or not. If it is a matter of rational knowledge, then our doctrine would beobjectivism, which implies that morality is "out there," in the objects, and so isindependent ofpersonal preferences or sentiments. If it isnota matter of rational knowledge, then we could subscribe tosubjectivism, that morality is indeed a matter of personal preferences or sentiments, in the subject, i.e. only in the mind or self.David Hume, is very properly often cited as the classic representative of subjectivism, as in the ethics textbookMoral Reasoning, by Victor Grassian, which I used to use in my ethics class. To Hume, morality depends on our own sentiments or feelings, as there is no matter of fact to determine moral truth [note].Nor does this reasoning only prove, that morality consists not in any relations,that are the objects of science; but if examin'd, will prove with equal certainty, that it consists not in anymatter of fact, which can be discover'd by the understanding. This is thesecondpart of our argument; and if it can be made evident, we may conclude, that morality isnot an object of reason.... Take any action allow'd to be vicious: Wilful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you callvice. In which-ever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you considerthe object. You never can find it, till you turn your reflexion into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact; but 'tis the object offeeling, not of reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object. So that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have afeeling or sentimentof blame from the contemplation of it. [A Treatise of Human Nature, Shelby-Bigge edition, Oxford, 1888, 1968, pp.468-469, original spelling, boldface added]If morality is just a matter of feeling, and not a matter of rational knowledge, then it is not really amenable to dispute. I have my feelings and you have yours. It is not uncommon, however, for people to think that others disagree with them on moral issues, not because ofdifferentfeelings, but because of alackof feeling. We see this in an example given by Grassian, who recalls responding at the time to a speech by Secretary of State Dean Rusk on the war in Vietnam.At that moment, it appeared to me that the Secretary of State simply did notfeelsufficient sympathy for the vast suffering of human beings who were being sacrificed for unclear ideals of American security. As I listened to Rusk, my predominant reaction was not to argue with him rationally, but in some sense to shake him into an emotional realization of the enormity of human suffering we as a nation were creating in Vietnam. [Moral Reasoning, Second Edition, Prentice Hall, 1992, p.24]We have no difficulty, however, imagining Rusk telling Grassian that he "did notfeelsufficient sympathy for the vast suffering of human beings" who lived underCommunism. There are no "unclear ideals of American security" involved. After mass murderers like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung, and Ho Chi Minh, the United States wanted to preserve South Vietnam and Cambodia from Communism. We failed. As it happens, more people were murdered in Indo-Chinaafterthe Communist takeovers than had died in the wars there that involved France and the United States [cf.Death by Government, by R.J. Rummel, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1995]. Many Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees live in the United States after fleeing the terror of the new regimes.Richard Nixon'sprediction that there would be a "bloodbath" after a Communist victory, greeted with derision at the time, was fully born out by events.Basing a moral argument, with an appeal to feeling, on onlypartof a story of suffering, has also occurred in relation to the invasion of Iraq by the United States in 2003. Many antiwar protesters express outrage over the suffering to the Iraqi people caused by the United States in military actions in Iraq. But the story of an Iraqi exile in Los Angeles, Tamara Darweesh, was related by theLos Angeles Timeson 24 March 2003:A few days ago, Darweesh went to the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, where antiwar protesters were gathered. She asked to talk to them about why it is important to topple Hussein. The protesters thanked her, turned and walked away."I'm so disappointed with the left," said Darweesh, who considers herself aliberal. "They are in complete denial because it doesn't fit into their equation of the Mideast. But Saddam is an Arab leader who has killed more Arabs than Israel ever has."The antiwar protesters, she added, are "very condescending. They are supposed to be for human rights, but the suffering of the Iraqi people just doesn't exist for them. They deny us our stories."For people whose argument is their sensitivity to suffering, the politicalleftthus puts itself in the position of protecting one of the nastiest neo-Nazi dictators in recent history. As a matter of fact, examinedelsewhere, feeling cannot be morally commanded; and so the approach of insufficient feeling for moral correctness is barking up the wrong tree.If morality is not just a matter of feeling, but of rational knowledge, we then must face the question of how that works. This is addressed in detailelsewhere. Here it may be noted that Aristotelian arguments about knowledge, which reduce reason to the self-evidence of first principles, leaves us with certainties that seem fully as subjective as Hume's moral sentiments. There is no more verification of self-evident propositions than there is of those based on feeling. This problem is resolved when it is noted that Socratic Method, as used by Socrates himself (not that described by Plato in theMeno), examines the logicalconsequencesof propositions in order to expose contradictions. This willfalsifysome of our premises, in a manner first appreciated byKarl Popper.Whichpremises is a matter of continuing inquiry. This does not, to be sure, verify with certainty any remaining premises, but it does give us something to do, which subjectivism and self-evidence do not.A common misconception in ethics is that another distinction,absolutismandrelativism, means or amounts to the same thing as objectivism and subjectivism, and that any absolutist or objectivist view of ethics is necessarilyheteronomous(see definitions in chart below). Likewise withrelativism,subjectivism, andautonomy. The "Pirsig" of the chart is Robert Pirsig in the popular philosophizing novelZen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Grassian and Pirsig, although no more than a popular novelist, are taken to represent views that are very characteristic of current academic philosophy. (A further version of this chart, below, proceeds to better known recent philosophers.)

It iseasily assumed that autonomy implies subjectivism and relativism. This is especially deceptive when dealing with Hume, whoisa subjectivist and is thus liable to be presented (as in Grassian'sMoral Reasoning, and elsewhere) as a relativist. But Hume's theory of knowledge allows him tobelievethings he cannot rationallyknow(or prove); so while his theory is subjectivist, his beliefs are in fact absolutist. That was also the case with the issue he is the most famous for -- causality: He had no doubt that everything that happened had a cause, he just didn't believe that this could be proven or otherwiserationallymotivated. Most important for our purposes is theSocratic differentiationof absolutism.Socratic Ignorancemeans that ethical values are real, objective, and absolute but that the human condition is to be ignorant of them. This enables us to distinguishSocratic Absolutism, where values are absolute but unknown, fromDogmatic Absolutism, where absolute values are claimed to be already known.Platonic Recollectionis Plato's theory that knowledge is possible but that it comes from within and is our memory of another world, a place of perfect goodness, justice, and beauty (the "World of Being"). This is the classic combination of autonomy with objectivism, although, of course, it isnot the only waythat autonomycan becombined with objectivism.Whether Hume was a heteronomist or autonomist is a good question. After a fashion he was both: he explains the occurrence of morality by reference to thecustomsof society as those develop over time, just as he explains causality itself on the basis of habit and custom. That sounds very heteronomous. However, as with causality again, he is aware that morality is notprovenor rationally justified by his explanation. Indeed, itcannotbe: Hume is also famous for noting that a proposition with an "ought" (assertions of value) cannot be logically derived from propositions merely with an "is" (assertions of fact):I cannot forbear adding to these reasonings an observation, which may, perhaps, be found of some importance. In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remark'd, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs;when of a sudden I am surpriz'd to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions,is, andis not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with anought, or anought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For asthisought, orought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it shou'd be observ'd and explain'd; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable,how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this small attention wou'd subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceiv'd by reason. [op.cit., pp.469-470, original spelling, boldface added]And so the assertions of moralitycannotbe logically derived from factual assertions about social or historical habit and custom. The force, certainty, and actualmoral natureof morality is a residue that reference to society cannot account for. Since that residue is found in our own moral sentiments, this is something left to autonomy. While Hume's distinction between "is" and "ought" is often used as an argument that moral statements are baseless or meaningless, this was not what Hume had in mind. Instead, we must take him as arguing for what now would be called the "axiomatic independence" of ethics, something that would have already been comprehensible to Aristotle, who expected that each area of knowledge possessed its ownfirst principles. It seems like many recent philosophers neither know their Aristotle nor understand their Hume.Hume is askeptic(which in philosophy means believing that knowledge is impossible) but of a certain kind. "Pyrrhonian" skepticism, named afterPyrrho of Elis(365-275 BC), is that because knowledge is impossible, we should practice suspension (epoch) of judgment on all things. On the other hand, this was later modified when the scholars in Plato's Academy went through a phase of skepticism. Carneades of Cyrene (d. 129 BC), a Scholarch (president) of the Academy, is particularly associated with this movement of "Academic" skepticism. The Academic skeptics ultimately said that although there may be no certain knowledge, there isreasonable belief, and this is necessary for practical judgments in life. That is the term that Hume uses, as he says, "The great subverter ofPyrrhonismor the excessive principles of scepticism is action, and employment, and the occupations of common life" [Enquiry Concerning Human Understandingp. 126], and "There is, indeed, a moremitigatedscepticism oracademicalphilosophy, which may be both durable and useful, and which may, in part, be the result of this Pyrrhonism, orexcessivescepticism, when its undistinguished doubts are, in some measure, corrected by common sense and reflection" [p. 129]. Kant understood that Hume was in no doubt of thequid facti(the matter of fact, the existence) of causality or morality but that his skepticism merely consisted in his inability to account for thequid juris, the foundational justification of them. The failure to find thequid juriscastno doubt whatsoeveron thequid facti. Hence Kant famously says that Hume's critics "were ever taking for granted that which he doubted, and demonstrating with zeal and often with impudence that which he never thought of doubting..." [Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysicsp. 259, Lewis White Beck translation, Library of the Liberal Arts, 1950, p.6].To think that Hume did not believe in the principles of causality and morality is to confuse the content of knowledge with its object, orde dicto("concerning what is said") properties withde re("concerning the thing") properties. Observing that moral claims are made in historically contingent, fallible, and corrigible ("correctable") propositions, some infer that theobjectsof those propositions share in the same historical contingency. There is no force to that inference whatsoever, since it can only be made by confusingdictumwithresand applying predicates of the former to the latter. Could that inference be made, it would simply erase the entire significance of moral discourse: no moral imperative (an "ought"), as Hume himself noted, can be derived from thecontingent factof something being said at some moment in history (an "is"). The idea that the description of practice, as thenatural historyof what we actually do, is sufficient for moral theory, which is what many philosophers today wish to do with Hume, effects a grotesque reductionism of people's sense that theyoughtto do certain things into the bare, retrospective indicative that theyhave. This would indeed be a pure Pyrrhonian suspension of moral judgment, and it is not at all a reflection of Hume's views.

Modern historicist and linguistic relativist theories (seeRelativismabout Wittgenstein, Rorty, and Robert Solomon) combinerelativismwithobjectivismandheteronomy-- since history and language are objective things that exist outside of us but vary in time, place, and context. These connections are the worst of all possible worlds: putting the moral agent at the mercy of external standards (language, society, culture, etc.), even while these standards cannot berationallyquestioned.Hegelhadthought that history was the concrete exemplification of Reason and so could be rationally critiqued and changed, but thereal, external reality, as such nevertheless derived authority from its presupposed rationality. Other versions of heteronomous relativism, even those derived from Hegel, now do not need to take Hegel's notion, or any notion, of reason very seriously. This can give near or complete totalitarian force to mere social and cultural traditions.

The idea thatactual, heteronomous institutions and practices thereby possessmoral forceis "judicial positivism" -- whatLeonard NelsoncalledRechtswissenschaft ohne Recht, "Jurisprudence without Justice." This can be stated as the doctrine that:1. "Justice is the practice of the courts," and2. The only law is "positive law," i.e. actual statutory and case law.The opposite of "positive law" isnatural law, i.e. principles ofnatural justice, includingnatural rights, that do not exist as statutes or case law but that actually have moral force. Thus, Martin Luther King,quotingSt. Augustine, said, "An unjust law is no law at all" ["Letter from a Birmingham Jail," 1963].While the terminology of natural law goes back at least to St. Thomas Aquinas (also quoted by King), the scholastic versions of it nevertheless emphasized obedience to authority. This changed withJohn Locke, who justified the English Glorious Revolution (1688) on the principle that unjust authority did not merit obedience, and might rightfully be overthrown. This view was simply taken over by Thomas Jefferson and the other theorists of the American Revolution.Later, in the debate over the Constitution, one problem was whether there should be a Bill of Rights. The Federalists Alexander Hamilton and James Madison argued that a Bill of Rights could produce misunderstandings:1. People might say that we only have the particular rightslistedin the Bill; and2. That we onlyhavethe rights because theyarelisted and so positivelygranted.When most of the States insisted on a Bill of Rights, and Madison was won over by his friend Jefferson, he suggested the Ninth Amendment to prevent such misunderstandings: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Various sophistries have been offered to get around the plain meaning, and the historical motivation, of this text, but it clearly allows that rights exist which are not listed in the Constitution, and it thus implies that such rights do not exist because they are granted by positive law.Today, the most infamous self-professed judicial positivist is probably the lateRobert Bork, who famously stated that the Ninth Amendment was a "blot of ink," i.e. a meaningless hieroglyph that could not be interpreted. In this, he at least honestly admitted that his judicial philosophy denied the existence of the very things the Ninth Amendment was talking about. Bork was not confirmed for the Surpreme Court. Later, however, when Clarence Thomas was nominated, he was actuallyattacked, before other things were found to accuse him of, fornot beinga judicial positivist. Thomas's acknowledged adherence to, and Bork's rejection of, natural law principles, however, are both unusual. Most judges today (and most Constitutional case law) are reflexive and unconscious positivists; and modern American political and judicial attitudes are overtly hostile, as was Bork, to principled disobedience to existing law, even law that is grotesquely unjust and, on any honest reading of the Constitution, unconstitutional. A good example of this reflexive positivism was PresidentClinton, who said, after the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City:When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights,giving[sic] a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly... that they would work for the common good, as well as for the individual welfare... However, now there's a lot of irresponsibility. And so a lot of people say there's too much freedom. When personal freedom's being abused,you have to move to limit it. [boldface added]The stigmata of positivism are all over this, with Clinton, a former professor of Constitutional law (!), considering whether some of the freedom "given" to us in the Bill of Rights should be taken back. To have politicians, and especially such a man as Clinton, considering howothershave been "irresponsible" and should be deprived of their freedom is full of a particularly bitter but tragicomic irony. The same positivist animus to natural law principles of justice and freedom can be found in the modern rejection of the powers ofjuries, and in recenttreatmentsof Jefferson.While Bork is now infamous as a positivist, more prestigious Justices articulated positivist priniciples long ago. An important and influential example of that wasOliver Wendell Holmes(18411935), who said:There is a tendency to think of judges as if they were independent mouthpieces of theinfinite, and not simply directors of a force that comes from the source that gives them their authority. I think our court has fallen into the error at times and it is that that I have aimed at when I have said that the Common Law is not abrooding omnipresence in the skyand that the U.S. is not subject to somemystic overlawthat it is bound to obey. [quoted by Thomas Sowell,Intellectuals and Society, 2011, p.159; boldface added]Noteworthy about this passage is the apparentcontemptanddisparagementthat Holmes has for natural justice, natural law, and natural rights. He dismisses such conceptions as about "the infinite," a "brooding omnipresence in the sky," or a "mystic overlaw."But the United States, and every American, is indeed subject to some "mystic overlaw that it is bound to obey," and that is, in the memorable words of PresidentCalvin Coolidge, "the eternal foundation of righteousness":Men do not make laws. They do but discover them. Laws must be justified by something more than the will of the majority. They must rest onthe eternal foundation of righteousness. That state is most fortunate in its form of government which has the aptest instruments for the discovery of law. [to the Massachusetts State Senate, January 7, 1914; boldface added]In the great words ofSherlockHolmes, "It's every man's business to see justice done" ["The Crooked Man,"Memories of Sherlock Holmes, 1892]. Justice Holmes directly contradicted this when one day JudgeLearned Hand(18721961) told him, in parting, "Do justice, sir, do justice." Holmes actually stopped and called Justice Hand back so that he could object that their job was to apply the law, not to "do justice": "That is not my job... It is my job to apply the law."One wonders if Holmes would have enforced the Fugitive Slave Laws without flinching. Ironically, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had named his immortal detective after the father of Justice Holmes, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (18091894). But one might not know from Justice Holmes's words that he was denying the philosophical basis of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, as Coolidge and Hand were affirming them.We see the full meaning of the positivism of Justice Holmes in his statement that law is "the articulate voice of some sovereign or quasi-sovereign that can be identified" [ibid.]. This goes back to the Code ofJustinian, that "law is the will of the sovereign" -- although, with Holmes, in a democracy, sovereignty lies in the People, not with a Roman Emperor. But this is still not right. Even democracy does not miraculously turn things that are unjust into things that are just. As Coolidge says, "Men do not make laws"; and, as shown at right, Leonard Nelson correctly held that moral obligation depends on no will, either our own or that of any other. Socrates already argued this in theEuthyphro. The Pious is loved by the gods because it is pious, not pious because it is loved by the gods. Justice Holmes and most Constitutional jurisprudence since does not believe in eternal righteousness; and, indeed, Holmes is regarded as representing a form of moral skepticism -- very different from that of Hume, at least in his autonomous form.

Confusions about Hume in Antony FlewThe Polynomic Theory of ValueThe Fallacies of Moralism and Moral AestheticismChinese VirtuesEthicsValue TheoryHome PageCopyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2003, 2011, 2012, 2013Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D.AllRightsReserved

Key Distinctions for Value Theories,and the Importance of Hume, Note

I am discussing Grassian here because the book is familiar to me, having used it in my ethicsclassesfor a number of years, and because it seems to be representative, in ideology, to other contemporary ethics textbooks that I have examined.As it happens, Grassian shies away from a complete commitment to feeling and subjectivism:Although Hume was right that the ultimate source of our moral principles resides in our feelings, one should not assume that we must be slaves to our feelings. One cannot only change one's principles when they conflict intolerably with one's natural feelings, one can also attempt to adjust one's feelings when they conflict with one's reasoned preferences. The moral life is a constant interplay between reason and feeling. [p.24-25]Unfortunately, on page one of his book, Grassian quotes one of Hume's most famous statements, "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions..." If Grassian now disagrees with Hume, and frees reason from Humean slavery, he must explainhowreason provides a source of moral knowledge and certainty independent of feeling. This is precisely what Hume denied, and Grassian, now inexplicably breaking with Hume, does not bother to explain how it is that reason, with no identified resources of its own, can overrule moral sentiment -- what is the moral "matter of fact" that Grassian has discovered that Hume did not? Having trashed any clarity in his commitment, Grassian naturally goes on to say that we cannot choose between objectivism and subjectivism. Indeed. The result is simply incoherent, or, at best, missing an account of rational moral knowledge. Since he begins the passage by actually saying that "Hume was right" that the "ultimate source" of our moral principles is in feeling, he evidently doesn't realize that an account of rational moral knowledge, of the rational moral matter of fact, has been rendered necessary.