Hume Moral Judgments

Moral judgments attribute moral qualities to an action. They concern either the existence of moral qualities (qualities of virtue or of obligation) or causal relationships between those moral qualities and other objects of our experience. If moral judgments are matter of fact judgments, then there are two senses in which moral judgments may be reasonable or unreasonable, true or false. Moral judgments are false when founded on a false supposition about the existence of moral qualities or when founded on misinformation about means and ends, or cause and effect. In either case it is the judgment which is mistaken. The point was first made by Hume in a general way:
A person may be affected with passion, by supposing a pain or pleasure to lie in an object, which has no tendency to produce either of these sensations, or which produces the contrary to what is imagined. A person may also take false measures for the attaining his end, and retard, by his foolish conduct, instead of forwarding the execution of any project .
But Hume also makes the same point with specific …show more content…
Only passions, according to Hume, can motivate us. Reason can guide our conduct, but it can never motivate conduct or oppose the course of the passions. In order to explain how moral judgments can influence or guide conduct, we must understand the relationship between moral judgment and moral sentiment. Moral judgments are factual judgments about moral sentiments. One of the properties of moral sentiments or impressions is that, like all impressions, they give rise to ideas, in this case moral ideas. Among the properties of moral ideas, the ideas of virtue and vice, is that they give rise to the indirect passions. By giving rise to the indirect passions, action can be produced. The moral judgment which embodies the moral idea thus influences action by informing us of matters in which we are predisposed to