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tain ways. This is, as I have said, a normative account. One is working within a kind of system of natural law, with all its overtones. Whereas on Hume’s view, any system of rights is just going to be a system of institutional rules that will be recognized in society and acted upon because of certain psychological forces that he has attempted to explain. It’s a very different kind of view that Hume is presenting, in which any account of rights is going to be derivative from some notion of utility and on how it actually can be expected to operate in social institutions.

§3. The Judicious Spectator

Now I will end by saying something about Hume’s principle of humanity and then his notion of the “judicious spectator,” which is one of the most interesting and important ideas in the Enquiry, and which is also found in the Treatise of Human Nature.7 You should think of this as a psychological account of how we make moral judgments. Hume is explaining the “mechanism” of moral judgments. How are they made and what accounts for their content? Hume aims to explain our moral judgments and feelings as natural phenomena. He wants to be the “Newton of the Passions.” In contrast to Locke, he does not present a normative system of principles founded on the Laws of Nature as the laws of God known to reason. Instead he is investigating how morality comes about as a natural phenomena, the role it plays in social life and in establishing social unity and mutual understanding, and what natural human capacities make morality possible. In short, how does morality work, and what aspects of human psychology support it?

The “principle of humanity” is the psychological tendency we have to identify with the interests and concerns of others when our own interests do not come into competition with them. There are two main discussions of the principle of humanity in the Enquiry, in Sections V and IX, and also an important passage in Section VI.8 These are Section V: especially ¶¶17,

7.[See Rawls, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, Hume Lecture V, pp. 84–104, for an in-depth account of the role of Hume’s idea of the “judicious spectator.” —Ed.]

8.[In addition to “the principle of humanity” (p. 272), Hume refers in the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals to “the principles of humanity and sympathy” (p. 231), also to “such principle in our nature as humanity or a concern for others” (p. 231), “the sentiment of humanity” (p. 272), and the “affection of humanity” (p. 273), and says “it alone can be the foundation of morals” (p. 273). —Ed.]

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41–45, and then the footnotes to ¶¶3–4 (contra the argument that morals are an invention of politicians), and ¶¶14–16 (contra psychological egoism). In Section IX, see especially ¶¶4–8; and in Section VI, see ¶¶3–6. In Part II of Section IX, Hume considers the problem of moral motivation versus the epistemological problem, and perhaps most clearly in his answer to the “sensible knave” (¶¶22–25) he takes his stand with the “confederacy of humankind” (¶19), which is no doubt implicit in the Enquiry (even though it holds itself out as a psychological and social inquiry).

In its simplest form he is saying that, when we say qualities of character are virtuous or vicious, or actions are right or wrong, we are considering them from a suitably general or “common point of view,”9 the point of view of the “judicious spectator,”10 without any reference to our own interests; and we are expressing, by making the moral judgment, our approval and disapproval. The reason why we approve or disapprove of qualities of character or institutions is that, when we consider them from this general point of view, our judgments are guided by the tendency of these actions or qualities or institutions to affect the general interests of society, or the general happiness of society. What Hume is trying to do is explain the fact that we agree. How can there be a basis on which people can agree when they judge institutions? When looked at from each person’s own standpoint, it is not possible to have agreement as to whether institutions or actions are good or bad. How then can there be a basis for people to agree about these things? On Hume’s view there is only one possible basis, and that is one that appeals to our principle of humanity, which again is the psychological tendency we have to identify with the interests and concerns of others when our own interests do not come into competition with them.11

The point of view of the judicious spectator is one we take up towards others’ qualities of character, or towards rules of institutions; it enables us to appraise them solely according to their tendency to affect the general in-

9.Hume, Enquiries, Sec. IX, Part I, p. 272.

10.[“Judicious spectator” is a term used only in the Treatise of Human Nature, Book III, Part 3, Sec. i (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 1978), p. 581. In the next paragraph Hume distinguishes “his peculiar point of view” from “some steady and general points of view.” Hume uses “common point of view” and “spectator” in conjunction in the Treatise, on p. 591. —Ed.]

11.[As Hume says: “If he mean, therefore, to express that this man possesses qualities, whose tendency is pernicious to society, he has chosen this common point of view, and has touched the principle of humanity, in which every man, in some degree, concurs.” Enquiries, p. 272. —Ed.]

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terests or general happiness of society. How is it that that brings us into agreement? It does so because the only factor in our, you might say, “sensible nature” that is brought into play when we take up the point of view of the judicious spectator is our principle of humanity, or fellow-feeling. When our own interests and the interests of our family are not involved or affected, the only motivational aspect of our character that is going to direct our judgment, and that we are going to express, is how an action or an institution or quality of character is going to affect the interests and concerns of those who are themselves involved. So, on Hume’s view, then, what makes agreement on moral judgment possible is our being able to take up and to imagine ourselves into the point of view of the judicious spectator. We must be able to do that in such a way that we respond to and have, as it were, a kind of affinity with the effects of these institutions or qualities of character in virtue of their beneficial effects on the persons who are advantaged by them. We can then approve of virtuous persons, say, in other cultures and other countries and other times, because we are able by taking this point of view to identify with and sympathize with the people who are benefited by those institutions and characteristics.

That, then, will be what makes agreement in moral judgment possible, and it is by working out that idea that one can see why the principle of utility has the content it does. That is, the idea would be that the greater extent to which any institution were to satisfy that principle would correspond with the extent to which the person who takes the point of view of the judicious spectator would feel stronger approval of that institution. The more it satisfies the principle of utility, the stronger the effects on or the affinity with the person’s moral sensibility.

I believe this is supposed to be, in Hume’s view, a psychological account of how it is possible for us to make moral judgments and to come to agreement about moral judgments. It is his view that the only possible basis for agreement is via the principle of humanity. There is not any other aspect in human nature that, on his view, would make agreement possible. If we work that idea out, from the way in which he sets up the point of view of the judicious spectator, we can see why, I think, it is natural for him to have ended up with the criterion of right and wrong which he did, namely the principle of utility.

Just to conclude our discussion of Hume, the idea of the judicious spectator is one of the most important and interesting ideas in moral philoso-

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phy. It appears in Hume for the first time. Hume’s whole view, including his account of property and the judicious spectator, should be understood as an attempt to give a psychological account of our moral thought. There is a contrast between Hume and Locke in that regard. Hume is trying to explain how we are able to make moral distinctions with the idea of the judicious spectator. Where does the distinction between right and wrong come from? He is not talking about moral motivation—about why we are moved to do what is right or what we believe to be right. Rather, he’s interested in where the distinction between right and wrong comes from. He is asking, “How do we learn to make that distinction? How do we come to agree on what is right and wrong?” His answer is that we learn to take the point of view of the judicious spectator. All that is moving our judgments from that point of view is the principle of humanity. In this way, we all respond to things in the same way.

Finally, to repeat a point made earlier: If we contrast Hume’s and Locke’s accounts of property, we may think of Locke as a constitutional lawyer, where Locke is arguing within a constitution whose laws are set forth by God. He is arguing with Filmer. It is all a normative view, taking for granted certain fundamental ideas. The constitution is one of the universe of all humans. The basic law is the fundamental law of nature and the principle that God has supreme authority over all creation. His argument within that constitution is with Filmer. Hume is not working within this framework. Hume does not believe any of that. He hates religion. He is just trying to explain why there is property. Why does it exist? How did it come about? What sustains it? What social purpose does it serve? He is not answering the same question at all as Locke is—the normative question within the constitution of the universe—when he addresses the question of property. So for Hume, anything about past history of property or government does not count; it is not important for whether or not property or government is justifiable now. For Hume, let bygones be bygones. On a utilitarian view, what counts is how the institution operates now and into the future, and whether it is the case that the institutions we have now are more likely to serve the needs of society. Hume’s aim is to view these issues from the standpoint of what we now call “social science.” He is trying to give an empirical account of these matters.

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