David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature has been called “one of the keystone books of western philosophy,” “the founding document of cognitive science,” and perhaps the “most important philosophical work” in the English language.
In my previous essay, David Hume on How Not to Lose Your Mind, I considered how Hume’s ideas anticipated modern neuroscience.
For those who believe reason governs them, further consideration of Hume’s philosophy exposes their arrogance.
“Nothing is more usual in philosophy, and even in common life,” Hume wrote in his Treatise, than to claim the “pre-eminence of reason above passion.”
By passions, Hume means our predispositions, charged thinking, and emotions generated by beliefs of which we are often unaware. Hume argues, “reason alone can never produce any action, or give rise to volition.” He adds, “I infer, that the same faculty [reason] is as incapable of preventing volition, or of disputing the preference with any passion or emotion.”
Hume argues our “passions” come first, and then we use “reason” to justify what our emotions have decided. We think reason drives our decision-making bus, but reason is often only a passenger.
When you let the implications of this sink in, it should bring your mind to a full stop. Hume challenges the assumption that we can rely on reason to manage our emotions.
Authoritarian politicians know that arousing intense emotions, such as fear and hatred, is far more effective at galvanizing the public than reasoned debate. President Biden, for example, while in office, did his best to censor different opinions about COVID vaccines while promising a “winter of… death” to the unvaccinated.
Similarly, your friend, colleague, or family member, driven by their passions, may never respond to reason until you first stir their passion.
Hume’s memory of his “past errors” and his “numberless [mental] infirmities” made him “dread” the possibility of making still more errors. We, too, make one mistake after another, and reason doesn’t keep us from yielding to our errant passions.
Hume makes what he calls an “extraordinary” claim: “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” So, what could he or we do to separate ourselves from the dysfunctional dictates of our passions? What refines or tempers our passions?
Hume allows that first we must “perceive the falshood of any supposition” that stirs our passions.
In his later essay “The Sceptic” in his volume Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, Part 1, Hume outlines a robust solution of upgrading our conditioned programming. The goal is to achieve “a lively sense of honour and virtue, with moderate passions.” Then our “conduct will always be conformable to the rules of morality; or if [we] depart from them, [our] return will be easy and expeditious.”
Yet, not all people pursue virtue. Hume writes of such people:
Where one is born of so perverse a frame of mind, of so callous and insensible a disposition, as to have no relish for virtue and humanity, no sympathy with his fellow-creatures, no desire of esteem and applause; such a one must be allowed entirely incurable, nor is there any remedy in philosophy.
Hume’s portrait of the unvirtuous is grim: “He feels no remorse to controul his vicious inclinations: He has not even that sense or taste, which is requisite to make him desire a better character.”
Hume himself wondered what can be done to reform such a person: “Should I tell him of the inward satisfaction which results from laudable and humane actions, the delicate pleasure of disinterested love and friendship, the lasting enjoyments of a good name and an established character.”
For those who don’t value virtue, Hume admitted, “my philosophy affords no remedy in such a case, nor could I do any thing but lament this person’s unhappy condition.” In short, no amount of pleading will convince them to cultivate virtue to temper their passions. Hume was under no illusions that good advice would quickly transform anyone.
To those of us who are, in Hume’s words, “tolerably virtuous,” Hume advised deepening the understanding of the conditions under which passions become more virtuous: “It is certain, that a serious attention to the sciences and liberal arts softens and humanizes the temper, and cherishes those fine emotions, in which true virtue and honour consists.”
As Hume’s “tolerably virtuous” person studies, he develops “a greater sensibility of all the decencies and duties of life. He feels more fully a moral distinction in characters and manners.”
Suppose I am agitated by the speed at which a supermarket clerk scans groceries. Although reason comes up with an excuse for my less-than-charitable thoughts, my non-virtuous passions drive my reaction. The more I study and reflect on the inherent humanity in all people, the less likely I am to notice such trivia. As Hume writes, as soon as I discover the “falshood of [my] supposition,” (in this case that the clerk is a mere object to me), my judgment of the clerk falls away.
In Hume’s view, our studies will teach us that “the mind is not altogether stubborn and inflexible, but will admit of many alterations from its original make and structure.”
Hume advised the student of virtue to “propose to himself the model of a character” and become “well acquainted with those particulars, in which his own character deviates from this model.”
Hume prescribed ongoing practice for those who want to avoid mistakes stirred by jealous passions: “Let him keep a constant watch over himself, and bend his mind, by a continual effort, from the vices, towards the virtues; and I doubt not but, in time, he will find, in his temper, an alteration for the better.”
In short, “exhortations” are not enough. Instead, by working toward better habits and personal “reform,” “good dispositions and inclinations” are possible:
A man, who continues in a course of sobriety and temperance, will hate riot and disorder: If he engage in business or study, indolence will seem a punishment to him: If he constrain himself to practise beneficence and affability, he will soon abhor all instances of pride and violence.
Reading Hume, it is hard not to despair about the future of humanity. Unbridled passion is the norm on college campuses, and the canons of moral philosophy in Western civilization have been eliminated from curriculums.
In her book The Soul of Civility, Alexandra Hudson makes a stirring case for the classical education abandoned in today’s public schools and universities. She observes that “the liberal arts and the humanities were the modes of education that made a person free and fit for citizenship.” Such an education, Hudson writes, cultivated a “love of virtue and the polis, and by promoting the reason and self-governance… allowed people to move beyond being dominated by their own passions.”
Hudson recommends “the study of philosophy and literature, which exposes us to beauty, goodness, and truth.” Such studies help us “appreciate our own humanity, and that of others.” Such curriculums soften “the rougher edges of our human nature, teaching those who studied it ways to pursue peace and harmony with others, and to avoid cruelty, violence, and conflict.”
Will we follow the wise prescriptions of Hume and Hudson before it is too late? A people without virtue, driven by unbridled passions, will not remain free.