To recap the main points of book 1:
-Every idea we have refers to experience, or some sense-impression
-The basis of knowledge is the relation of ideas, the most important of which is cause and effect.
-Our idea of causation includes its necessity; we cannot arrive at this idea through the understanding, or by pure reason, but only through experience and observation (i.e. observing the constant union of two objects)
-All belief and reasoning are based upon how we relate ideas.
I found this clip from a BBC documentary:
Of the Passions
The passions are also impressions, and as with external objects our emotions also fit into a cause/effect relationship. We don't feel love or pride or anger for no reason at all; these things don't arise out of thin air. So, from this point of view Hume is determined to find out just what the nature of the passions are.
The mind is a bundle of perceptions, and perceptions are of two kinds: impressions and ideas. Impressions can be further divided into original and secondary. Original impressions are the sensations we experience, which include all bodily pains and pleasures. Secondary impressions are reflective; they proceed from sensations, and these include the passions. Reflective (secondary) impressions can be either calm - such as the sense of beauty you feel when observing a sunset - or violent. These "violent" impressions include the passions such as love, hatred, pride, humility, joy, or grief. The passions can be divided into either direct or indirect; the former arising directly from pain or pleasure (desire, aversion, grief, joy, hope etc.), the latter from pain or pleasure in conjunction with some other quality (pride, humility, love, hatred, etc.)
Of Pride and Humility
First of all, when considering humility here I find it easier to think of 'humiliation'. Humility, in the way Hume uses it, is meant to be contrary to pride. But, there is a way of thinking of it as being perfectly complimentary to pride, as simply being an acknowledgment of your limitations - keeping vanity at bay. This isn't really what Hume is referring to, so you may also find it easier to think of humiliation, though I will still use his wording.
I think pride is a very interesting thing. It's probably not a stretch to say that pride motivates the actions of people more than even love or hatred. For example, when the grass on your front lawn gets to be a certain length, is it only aesthetics that causes you to mow it? Now that's a pretty harmless example, but on the other extreme, how much death and destruction have been wrought in this world because of somebody's wounded pride?
Though contrary, pride and humility have this in common: their ultimate object is self, which Hume defines as "that succession of related ideas and impressions, of which we have an intimate memory and consciousness." Without there being some relation to the self there can be no pride or humility.Yet, self cannot be the cause of either of these emotions because self, "being perfectly indifferent to either, must produce both in the very same proportion."
The cause is always some other object that has a relation to self:
- From the body; our appearance, agility, dexterity, strength, etc, can be causes of either pride or humility.
- From the mind; our imagination, judgement, memory, courage, good sense, and integrity.
-Anything with the least relation to us may be the cause of these passions. Country, community, family, riches, clothes, houses, and anything which we consider our property.
But, even this is not enough to fully explain the cause. The object must also have some quality, which makes you feel either pleasure or uneasiness; it isn't just memory that gives us pride, but a good memory. If someone builds a beautiful house out of hand-cut logs, pride would naturally follow; if one of the walls fell down a week later, that person would know the feeling of humiliation. The causes of pride are so universal Hume surmises that there is some natural and original principle at play. How is it that something causes pride or humility? Fundamentally, it has to do with the relation of impressions and ideas. The first thing you notice is the sensation of pleasure or pain - or if not pain, then uneasiness. Whatever the sensation is, it is what becomes pride or humility once you relate the feeling (impression) to the idea of the thing that caused it, which is related to you.
"All agreeable objects, related to ourselves, by an association of ideas and of impressions, produce pride, and disagreeable ones, humility."
A few more notes
i) The difference between joy and pride: say you are at a great party where the food is top quality, the drinks are free, and the entertainment has you in stitches. The sensation of pleasure will be there, but unless you are the host, the sensation is that of joy rather than pride. If the host is your close friend, it may be that you experience some feeling of pride, but it will be shades lighter that what is felt be your friend. Joy doesn't require anything of its object only that it give you a pleasant feeling, or as Hume puts it, joy arises from "a more inconsiderable relation." Something may have absolutely no relation to yourself, but still be capable of producing delight and joy.
ii) The object producing pain or pleasure must also be peculiar to ourselves, or at least common to us and a few others. If everyone was born with the ability to memorize pi to a hundred decimal places, nobody could take pride in that accomplishment.
iii) The pleasant or painful object must be discernible and obvious to ourselves and to others.
iv) The object or cause of either of these emotions should have some considerable duration. It is not easy to feel pride from a car that you have only rented for the weekend.
v) Custom often fixes a value to things, and our feelings of pride and vanity are guided by this. It is difficult to take pride in something which custom and "establish'd maxims" have deemed unworthy.
vi) Since Hume mentions it a lot, I should mention the "double relation of ideas and impressions", which he says is necessary for the passion to be produced. The impression of pleasure alone cannot cause pride; neither can the ideas alone. The impression relates to the idea of the object, and both impression and idea relates to the self, creating a new impression (pride or humility).
I think that is enough to get an idea of what Hume is trying to say. He also talks about pride and humility in how they relate to vice and virtue, beauty and deformity, riches and power, and love of fame. But even though those are interesting, the same principles are in the mix, and I gotta try and keep this at a decent length!
Of Love and Hatred
The same reasoning which was used to account for pride and humility applies to love and hatred, even the same sensations are felt. The difference lies in the ultimate object: for pride and humility it is the self, for love and hatred it is some other thinking being. You might wonder about self-love or self-hatred, but these things more properly fall under pride and humility or mortification.
One interesting aspect of these passions is how they are rarely contained to just one person. For example, I was listening to the radio recently where the host was interviewing two mothers. The connection between them was this: the son of one of the mothers killed the son of the other. Now these two women get along fine, but at first the grieving mother bore such a hatred for the killer that it overflowed and fell upon the killer's mother as well. She could not bear the sight of either one of them. This is because, quite often, when we love or hate, the passion so overwhelms us that it extends to all contiguous objects (i.e. friends, relatives, etc.)
It is also noted that since there is such a close relationship between, say, love and pride, love may easily transition into pride if the person loved is related to yourself. If your sister or brother shows to the world some great virtue, you feel love, but the passion transitions to pride on account of that persons close relation to yourself. If you imagine that virtue on yourself, however, the passions do not so easily transition from pride to love. This is because the double relation of impressions and ideas cannot operate; there is nothing to really connect your own integrity, for example, to someone else (unless that person helps your resolve to act with integrity.)
Of Malice and Envy
These passions are related to humiliation and hatred, and arise from a comparison of your condition with that of another. Of envy, the object is the enjoyment of another that is usually superior to our own, though it may arise even when theirs is inferior but quickly approaching ours, "hence arises that species of envy, which men feel, when they perceive their inferiors approaching or overtaking them in the pursuits of glory or happiness."
Of malice, Hume calls it "the unprovok'd desire of producing evil to another, in order to reap pleasure from the comparison." I hope that joy in the suffering of others is a very rare thing!
What are the principles behind these affections? Fundamentally, it has to do with the comparison, and how by comparing two objects we experience a different impression even though no change has been made to the objects themselves, "how from the same impression and the same idea we can form such different judgements concerning the same object, and at one time admire its bulk, and at another despise its littleness." Gros Morne seems like such an immense mountain when compared to its surroundings in Northern Newfoundland, but place it in the middle of the Rockies or the Himalayas and I dare say we would scoff at its small stature. In one environment we feel an intense admiration, in another we feel indifference at best. Likewise, we feel greater or less satisfaction when reflecting on our own condition in proportion to the degrees of wealth, virtue, ability, or reputation which we believe another to have. "The misery of another gives us a more lively idea of our own happiness, and his happiness of our misery." How often do people become thankful for their own advantages after seeing someone in poor health, or in a lonely, poor, or afflicted condition? Here you may begin to see where another passion could enter: pity. Where malice imitates the effects of hatred, pity imitates the effects of love.
Of the Will and the Direct Passions
As was said at the beginning, the direct passions are those which arise immediately from some good or evil, pleasure or pain. The will, or our volition, is "the internal impression we feel and are conscious of when we knowingly give rise to any new motion of our body, or new perception of the mind." The will isn't really a passion proper, but Hume says it is necessary to have some understanding of volition for a full explanation of the passions.
What Hume is most interested in finding out is whether there is some freedom or liberty of the will, or whether the will acts by necessity, like the Earth orbiting around the Sun. Of external bodies such as these, "in the communication of their motion, in their attraction, and mutual cohesion, there are not the least traces of indifference or liberty." Since we discover these necessary connections by observing a constant union, the question becomes, is there a constant union in the actions of the mind? Hume answers in the affirmative: "our actions have a constant union with our motives, tempers, and circumstances." Yet why is it that most of us believe in the liberty of human actions? There are three reasons for this:
1) We imagine that that our actions are subject to the will, but that the will is subject to nothing. Yet, a spectator would be able to infer our actions from our motives and character given enough information about them.
2) After we have performed an action we cannot imagine that it were impossible we could have done otherwise.
3) Religion often tries to refute any claim or hypothesis that it sees as having dangerous consequences to itself or morality. Here Hume actually makes a very interesting point; he argues that necessity in our actions is actually advantageous to morality. Necessity allows for something constant and enduring in us. We desire things or experience aversion on the basis of the consequences of the actions (reward, punishment, pain, pleasure). This is how we hold people responsible for their moral actions; if we had complete liberty and freedom we would actually be less responsible for our actions because there would be no principle that caused us to choose a moral action over one that is immoral. As it stands, there is a constancy in the understanding, motives, and expectations of people.
(I still think that freedom and necessity of the will are compatible, but I have to ask myself if this is just because that is how I want it to be.)
So what are the motives of the will? Reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will, Hume says in response to those who claim that the passions must be subservient to reason. Reason can never oppose passion in that way, but is guided by the passions. "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions." In trying to come up with an example to illustrate what he is saying here I thought of the passion of hatred, because that would be the most difficult. Imagine someone feels hatred towards another because that person burnt down their cabin. From this hatred they get the idea of doing some harm to that person in retaliation. This isn't unreasonable strictly speaking; it makes sense that such a desire would be motivated by that passion. If the victim of that arson finally decides not to follow through on their plan, it is because some other emotion opposed them - some moral or virtuous feeling. In this opposition reason also agrees, and so we can see here, I think, how reason is guided by the passions.
Again from book 1, ideas are copies of impressions, and our ideas cannot contradict those impressions. Therefore, reason obeys our impressions, and only becomes unreasonable when it tries to contradict those impressions, in which the passions are included. Yet, there are two ways a passion can be unreasonable:
1) when some passion such as hope or fear is founded on a supposition or the existence of objects that do not actually exist. Are you afraid of the boogeyman?
2) when acting on a passion, choosing insufficient means for its realization. For example, you want to show someone you love them, so you buy them something that only you would like (I'm thinking of Homer buying Marge a bowling ball for her birthday!)
Of the Direct Passions
And with this I'll finish.
Both the direct and indirect passions are founded on pain and pleasure (good and evil), yet the direct passions arise most naturally and with the least notice and preparation. When I see a beautiful guitar I experience the direct passions of volition and desire; I desire to have a guitar like that, and I begin to plan out how I can get it. If I almost have enough money saved to buy the guitar I begin to think of it as being already mine, and the double relation causes in me the feeling of pride. Pride is a new pleasure, and it returns to the direct passions and gives new force to my desire and volition, joy or hope. In this way the direct passions influence the indirect.
Joy: when good is certain or very likely.
Grief or Sorrow: When evil is certain or likely.
Fear or Hope: when either good or evil are uncertain. i.e. hope is when a good is less uncertain than an evil.
Aversion: arises from evil considered simply
Will: arises when something considered good may be attained by any action of the body or mind.
Hume focuses on hope and fear:
" 'Tis evident that the very same event, which by its certainty wou'd produce grief or joy, gives always rise to fear or hope, when only probable and uncertain."
The more probable an outcome the closer we come to grief or joy; the more uncertain, the more we shift between both outcomes, and feel either hope or fear depending on which side the probability lies. For a lighter example, let's say that tomorrow your favourite sports team is playing a big game. When we consider them winning we feel satisfaction, but when we consider the opposite chance we experience uneasiness. Joy and grief mixed together produce either hope or fear, depending on which side or chance we see as more likely. If your team is playing the team with the worst record, you feel hope more strongly; if they are playing an undefeated team, well, you'll feel fear.
Sometimes an evil may produce fear even if it is very unlikely to happen, if the evil is great enough. If we were to find out that a massive comet was going to pass just outside the moon, we may feel fear even if we were assured that there is less than a 1% chance of it striking Earth. In fact, any uncertainty by itself seems to have more of a connection with fear than it does hope.
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Anyway, if you're still reading this you may very well be a Humean!
The final book is called "Of Morals".
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