GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

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useful to their possessor, which cannot possibly be useful
to others; for example, the possession of good taste in
literature or painting. We can even admire in our enemies
virtues such as courage or resolution, which make them more
dangerous to us.
If we do not in fact value and admire qualities and characters
and actions in others which do not conduce to our own
advantage, then, Hume points out, the sentiment of benevolence
must be a delusive appearance of something else.
How, then, are we to account for this appearance? There are,
Hume argues, broadly speaking, only two alternatives. The
first is that the appearance ofthe sentiment is due to deliberate
fraud; the second that it is due to self-deception. The first
objection is dismissed as palpably absurd. If everybody
knew that there was no such thing as benevolence, it
would obviously be no use trying to pretend that there
was. With regard to the possibility that our so-called
benevolence is a piece of self-deception, Hume admits
that it may be so, but asks in effect, 'what if it is?' For
let us suppose that it is self-deception; it would still be the
case that men think it necessary to believe that altruism
and benevolence exist and are real, even if they do not
exist and are not real. What is more, because of this belief
they will be habitually led to perform actions which
benefit others, and we shall feel approval for these actions
and for the persons who do them, even if we are only
approving of those who habitually deceive themselves.
Hume's Subjectivism assists his argument at this point.
His theory is not based on the supposition that actions
are in fact benevolent, or that characters do possess moral
worth in their own right. The basis of his theory is, it
will be remembered, the fact of human approval; those
things are good of which most men approve. Provided
thai, that there is human approval, provided, that is to
say, that we do approve of actions which benefit others,
or which are designed to benefit them, then benevolence
is, for Hume, established. Now we undoubtedly do approve
of such actions and, men are, therefore, benevolent.