An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals

What is a moral? This is a question that has plagued philosophers for many years. Is it possible

to have a set of universal morals? There are many questions that surround the mystery of morals. They

seem to drive our every action. We base our decisions on what is right and what is wrong. But what is it

that actually determines what is right and what is wrong? Is it our sense of reason? Is it our sense of

sentiment? This is a question that David Hume spent much of his life pondering. What exactly is it that

drives our actions? Yes, morals drive them, but what determines what our morals are? What is it that

ultimately drives our actions; our feelings or our minds?

Hume would say that it is our sentiment that ultimately drives our actions. According to Hume,

reason is incapable of motivating an action. According to Hume, reason cannot fuel an action and

therefore cannot motivate it. Hume feel that all actions are motivated by our sentiment. For example, on

page 84 Appendix I, he gives the example of a criminal. "It resides in the mind of the person, who is

ungrateful. He must, therefore, feel it, and be conscious of it." Here, it is evident that Hume is saying that

unless the person, or criminal in this case, sincerely believes in what he wants to do, he will not be able to

motivate the action. In other words, unless the sentiment is there, the action cannot be willed into being.

Hence, the sentiment is the driving force behind the action.

Hume does not however say that reason is incapable of determining wether an action is virtuous

or vicious (moral or immoral), but instead he tries to say that the reason for the morality of an action does

not dictate the execution or perversion of an act so far as determination of wether the action is executed

or not. In simpler terms, reason has it's place in determining morality, but it is not in the motivation of an

action. Motivation must come from the heart, or better yet, from within the person; from their beliefs.

Reason merely allows the person to make moral distinctions. Without reason, there would be no morality.

Without reason, one moral clause would not be differentiable from another. That is to say that below all

morals, there must be some underlying truth because "Truth is disputable; not taste" (p.14). If truth were

not disputable, there would be no way to prove that a truth was just that... a truth. To make an analogy to

mathematics, truth is a function of reason, whereas taste is a function of sentiment. Sentiment is a

function of the individual whereas reason is a function of the universe.

The universe as a whole must follow reason, but the catch is that each individual's universe is

slightly different in that each individual perceives his or her universe differently. "What each man feels

within himself is the standard of sentiment." (p.14) That is to say each person's individual universe has

truths. These truths are based on reason. These truths/reasons are what help to determine the person's

sentiment. However, it should be noted that because the reasons are NOT necessarily the person's

sentiments, they do not motivate actions. One other reason why reason does not impel action is because

reason is based on truths. Truths are never changing whereas sentiments are dynamic and are in a

constant change of flux. At one moment, the criminal could feel sympathy for his victims and decide to

spare a life, and the very next, the same criminal could become enraged at the pimple on a hostage's

forehead and shoot him.

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