Reason for Everything Hume Essay
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“There’s a reason for everything.” I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve heard this clichй without anyone stopping to think about its meaning. This expression seems to intend a literal translation, but seldom is it ever questioned. So, is there a reason for everything, and if so what is the reason for reason? I would have to say that there most definitely is a reason for everything based on the fact that I believe in God; an argument will save for another time. Reason, on a non-supernatural level, I believe is grounded in something else and as David Hume expresses in his writing, it is not the essence of morality rather it is the presence of sentiment.
I would like to start off, as Hume does in his work, “Treatise of Human Nature,” by discussing the misconception of reason as the source of morality. Hume begins by leading us through the history and misconceptions reason has played in determining the source of morality in past philosophers works, by informing us of its place above passion in most of these works. In comparing the relation of reason and passion in common previous thought, Hume states, “…give the preference to reason, and assert that men are only so far virtuous as they conform themselves to its dictates. Every rational creature, it is said, is obliged to regulate his actions by reason; and if any other motive or principle challenges the direction of his conduct he ought to oppose it…” Reason is obviously being given too much credit here I believe Hume would say.
It is true that reason guides our actions and our actions toward objects human and not, is what reflect our morality. I believe this point can be conceded in Hume’s argument. Which seems to give the impression that reason is then the source of morality; however, this is not so. Hume points out, if you think a little more about reason it becomes noticeable that reason cannot be the source of morality because reason itself must be the source of something else. Which is where we arrive at his main points, “…first, that reason alone can never be the motive of any action of the will; and secondly, that it can never oppose passion in direction of the will.”
Furthermore, reason is only an abstract relation of our ideas, or the relations of objects through which we gain experience. This is where Hume begins to hint that reason is nothing more than what we have learned through pleasures and pains. He gives the example of the apple on the tree that looks good by all things measurable before biting into it, but is definitely bad and bitter after biting into it. This being the simplest of comparisons makes it easy to transfer the idea to vice and virtue when considering passions. Many things in life look good when they are not, but our reason tells they are because it has not yet learned otherwise from the absence of pain or presence of pleasure. For this I will give other examples of simple lessons you may have learned as a kid; the red rings on the stove hurt, so do the two little holes in the wall that make blue sparks, and sharp things make you bleed and that hurts. Even the simplest lessons in life can be used to show that something precedes reason.
If reason is not the source of morality what is? Hume says, “Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office, but to obey them.” I believe he is right.
There are many desires that if left to reason would go unfulfilled in life without just existing in human nature. Hume describes these desires as “…two kinds; either certain instincts originally implanted in our natures, such as benevolence and resentment, the love of life, and kindness to children; or the general appetite to good and the aversion to evil, considered merely as such.”
Passions, whether truthful or not, lead to the actions people take. If a passion is founded on things which do not exist it is false to say, “my passion reasoned wrong” if I kill someone,