Hume Ground Of Morality Analysis

About the Ground of Morality
In the controversy of the general foundation of morality, Hume insists that sentiment is the ground of morality, and Kant holds that reason is the foundation of morality. In my opinion, although reasons play a role in morality, it is sentiment that ultimately determine what is morally good or evil. In this essay, I will explain both Hume and Kant’s arguments, elaborate on an objection to Kant’s argument with explanation, and finally provide the potential objection to Hume’s argument.
Hume contends that sentiment is the foundation of morality. He proposes two instances of moral goodness, benevolence and justice, in his paper to show that all human beings approve of benevolence and justice, because they are conducive to public utility. Therefore, benevolence and justice are morally good. In other words, people feel a sense of …show more content…
According Hume, they say, since morality is based on sentiment, if people feel pleased when they kill someone, killing should also be morally good, but it is absolutely not. It seems like a sound argument, but Hume may respond that this is not the case for following reasons. First, we should know more information besides the action of killing. For example, people who are killing because of self-defense should not be blamed even though they feel the sense of pleasure because their lives are saved. After we rule out this self-defense case, another response might be that those who kill other people deprive others from happiness, thus violating public utility. Hence, those people should be blamed even though they get pleasure out of killing. However, opponents may bring other cases such that both the person being killed and the person who kills the other feel pleased when killing. In this circumstance, Hume could say those people are exceptions. The nature is that we normally feel displeased towards