Hume's Difficulty with the Virtue of Honesty (original) (raw)

In Book 111, Part ii of the Treatise Hume makes the following claims about the virtue of equity, or honesty with respect to property: ... it may be establish'd as an undoubted maxim, that no action can be virtuous, or morallygood, unless there be in human nature some motive to produce it, distinct from the sense of its morality. (T 479)' 'Tis requisite, then, to find some motive to acts of justice and honesty, distinct from our regard to the honesty; and in this lies the great difficulty. (T 480) ... we have no real or universal motive2 for observing the laws of equity, but the very equity and merit of that observance; and as no action can be equitable or meritorious, where it cannot arise from some separate motive, there is here an evident sophistry and reasoning in a circle. Unless, therefore, we will allow, that nature has establish'd a sophistry, and render'd it necessary and unavoidable, we must allow, that the sense of justice and injustice is not deriv'd from nature, but arises artificially, tho' necessarily from education, and human conventions. (T 483) Although our topic is honesty, we should note that later Hume offers an intentionally parallel claim about the virtue of fidelity to promises: