Hume

This is the mausoleum of David Hume, in Calton Cemetery, Edinburgh. At the age of 26 Hume wrote his Treatise of Human Nature, a work which had a huge impact on me when I was a student reading philosophy.

Hume did not believe in universal moral laws, which exist in an abstract sense, like the laws of physics. It will always be true that two plus two equals four, whether or not there are people there around to make the calculation. Morality, though, is a human construct and is therefore subjective.

So far so good, but most of us recognise 'good' and 'evil' and agree to a very large degree on what's good and what's evil. So just because morality is subjective, that doesn't mean we can do what we like. This is the paradox which stumps ethics students everywhere. Hume's solution is one that makes a lot of sense to me. It was longer ago than I care to remember that I studied this, but here's my rough recollection of how it goes.

Morality - 'virtue' - as opposed to solipsism (selfish desire), is the subconscious awareness of what will benefit society at large. This is often at odds with the course of action which will be best for us, individually. Hence the need to codify morality into a set of rules backed up by law, or religion. Morality is the collective expression of a culture's sense of what will best benefit that culture. No wonder, then, that most cultures in history have agreed to a fairly wide degree on what is right and what is wrong, but never completely. If moral laws were universal truths, then surely there would be even greater overlap between moral codes in different cultures and different historical periods. The fact that some cultures think homosexuality, or female circumcision, or capital punishment, or child labour, are right, and others think they are wrong, is pretty good evidence that there's no such thing as 'right' or 'wrong', just a collective sense of what best benefits society. This collective sense of course can (and does) change over time and space, as you'd expect. Even within a society, there will be strongly held views for and against.

So why do what's 'right'? Why indulge in guilt? Hume argues that the absence of universal moral laws does not absolve us of the responsibility to respect morality. Just because we deny the universality of morality, does not make us amoral, or immoral. As social beings, we understand that we must weight our own desires against the needs of our society, which are reflected in the prevailing moral code. This has really interesting and important implications for political theory, the right to civil disobedience, one's duty to one's country, etc.

Anyway, I've opened up a whole can of worms there, with my mince pie and sherry-fuelled hazy recollection of ethics tutorials, triggered by this photo of Hume's tomb. I should read up on this stuff again - it had an incredibly powerful effect on me as a student, brought up as someone who believed in absolute right and wrong, good and evil.

Details: Nikon D70, 105mm, f/8, 1/40s, ISO 400. Edinburgh, 28 December 2005.