Hume's Use of "Moral Distinctions" in Treatise 3.1.1

Abstract:There is widespread scholarly disagreement concerning Hume's use and understanding of the term "moral distinctions." While commentators offer a range of interpretations of this term, there has been little attempt to understand the diverse range of meanings attributed to it, or to adjudicate between them. The present paper attempts to contribute to the understanding of Hume's position on the nature and origin of moral distinctions by filling this lacuna. I argue that Hume uses "moral distinctions" in two senses. First, in the context of his refutation of the moral rationalist position on moral distinctions, Hume uses "moral distinctions" to refer to the demonstrable, eternal, and necessary relations that obtain between, and apparently exist separately from, moral qualities. And second, in the context of his account of the role that sentiment plays in moral perception, Hume uses "moral distinctions" to refer to the differences that we uniformly experience when evaluating an object, between qualities that are both distinctively moral and the strict opposites of one another. For example, the difference between moral good and evil, or the distinction between particular virtues and vices, such as the difference between justice and injustice, or between gratitude and ingratitude, and the like. Hume explains the uniformity in the way we experience and talk about moral distinctions, by locating their origin in the same sentiment or impression that, in his understanding, explains how we perceive and, consequently, have ideas of moral qualities themselves. This enables Hume not just to replace the rationalist's moral epistemology, but also to reject Hobbesian skepticism about "the reality of moral distinctions" (EPM 1.2; SBN 169–70), despite arguing that "moral distinctions" does not represent anything external to the mind.