Hume & Nietzsche Questions

Summary Questions – Hume, Nietzsche

Put things in your own words unless the question asks for a direct quote.

Answer each question in 8-12 sentences.

Save your time - order a paper!

Get your paper written from scratch within the tight deadline. Our service is a reliable solution to all your troubles. Place an order on any task and we will take care of it. You won’t have to worry about the quality and deadlines

Order Paper Now

1. What is Hume’s final view on the relation of reason and sentiment in ethics? Do you agree or disagree with him? Why or why not? As part of your response, include a direct quote from Hume, using quotation marks and the in-text citation (Hume, 1751/2010, section ___).

2. How does Nietzsche define aristocratic and priestly ethics? Give examples to illustrate these differing ideals. Also, include and explain a direct quote from the Nietzsche reading, using quotation marks and the in-text citation (Nietzsche, 1887/2010, section ___).

3. Choose one of the following thinkers—Kant, Mill, Noddings, Aristotle—and describe how that thinker might respond to Nietzsche’s critique of priestly ethics. Would they agree or disagree with Nietzsche? Why? Bring in concepts from Nietzsche and the previous thinker as part of your response.

Main Ideas in Hume

 

Background on Hume David Hume (1711-1776) was a Scottish philosopher who lived and worked during the time of the Enlightenment. He was friends with Adam Smith, the founder of modern capitalist economics, and like Smith was interested in the question of what motivates people to act in different ways. In the reading, we will see Hume pursue this question in regards to ethical thought and behavior.

New Course Themes Most of the course so far has focused on competing ethical theories, which each seek to provide a general account of what makes any action right or wrong. Now, for the last several readings, we will explore some more general questions about ethics, such as what ultimately causes people to act morally or to commit to a certain set of ethical principles. So, in these readings, we will not be searching for a one-sentence definition of right and wrong, but will instead study some other ideas about ethical decision-making.

Reason and Sentiment In the first part of the reading, Hume asks a key question he will try to answer in the reading: whether the ultimate source of ethics is reason or sentiment (feeling). We have seen this somewhat before, with Kant defining ethics by pure reason alone, while Noddings stressed the centrality of feelings and memories of care as the driving force behind ethics. In setting up the question, Hume makes some points to highlight the tension here:

• On the one hand, we often find people debating about ethics. As Hume (1751/2010) states, we can observe “The long chain of proofs often produced on both sides; the examples cited, the authorities appealed to, the analogies employed, the fallacies detected, the inferences drawn, and the several conclusions adjusted to their proper principles” (section I, para. 5). This all seems to suggest that ethical claims are the product of reason, and can be true or false in the same way as claims from math or science.

 

 

• At the same time, though, we also observe certain feelings connected to ethics. We might hold that 2+2=4 without feeling much of anything about this. However, ethical claims tend to involve certain feelings, such as desire or admiration toward what is good, and aversion or guilt about what is bad. If a person sincerely believes that cheating in sports is wrong, for example, we would also expect them to feel certain ways when they learn that a friend has cheated, or if they consider cheating themselves. This all suggests a key role for sentiment in ethics.

Benevolence and Justice To learn more about the role of reason and sentiment in ethics, Hume zooms in to consider the concepts of benevolence and justice. Hume notes that we admire people and actions that are benevolent—that promote or support the good of others, especially the general good. In the middle section of the reading, Hume gives a number of examples along these lines, highlighting how utility (the general good) plays a key role in judgments about benevolence. Hume also discusses justice, in a part of the reading I did not assign since it is pretty long. In this section, Hume notes that framing rules of justice can be more complicated than identifying actions as benevolent, but that rules of justice also tend to draw support from their promotion of the common good.

The Role of Reason in Ethics After covering the topics just mentioned, Hume returns to give his answer about the role of reason and sentiment in ethics in the first three paragraphs of “Appendix 1: Concerning Moral Sentiment.” So, this is a good section to study closely 🙂 In the analysis, Hume explains that:

The role of reason in ethics is to think through the effects of actions or rules. If benevolence, for example, seeks to promote the good of others, then we need to reason about what will really benefit them. This would involve knowledge of fields like health (what food and exercise will benefit others), education (how can we best help others learn), and economics (what economic systems lead to a prosperous society). We would also use reason to consider the effects of specific actions, such as giving money to a certain charity or electing a certain politician. These examples illustrate why people often debate, form arguments, and do research when considering ethical issues.

 

 

The Role of Sentiment in Ethics However, despite the role of reason in ethics, Hume holds that the ultimate source of ethics is sentiment (feeling). This is because none of the reasoning just mentioned would make a difference if we did not also have a desire or emotional disposition to benefit others and pursue good ethical choices. As Hume explains:

The role of emotion in ethics is to motivate us to promote the good of others, including the common good of society.

Hume believes that humans naturally have empathy toward others, and that this gives rise to moral sentiments such as desire and admiration toward what is beneficial to them. These feelings, in turn, move people to perform good actions and avoid bad actions, so long as they are not overridden by other contrary emotions. In all of this, sentiment is the motive force propelling people towards ethical behavior, while reason is used to determine what will actually benefit others.