Morality from David Hume, Adam Smith and Immanuel Kant

Morality concerns principles that attempt to explain what is right and good, and wrong and bad. It is a topic that has fascinated many philosophers over centuries, yet it still remains baffling, despite the fact that we all seem to have a universal understanding of what is good and bad. In this article, the question of what determines morality will be discussed in depth by attempting to understand to what extent the theories of morality vary in different perspectives of David Hume, Adam Smith, and Immanuel Kant, in a humble attempt to discuss my own viewpoints regarding their theories of morality and evaluate several parts of their arguments that may be worth digging into more. I will specifically refer to Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature, Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and Kant’s moral philosophy to closely examine and compare their views.

The primary question to be addressed is where the root of morality lies: is it a sentiment or a reason? Hume and Smith have a very similar view that both argue morality based on sentiments, whereas Kant claims the exact opposite, that reason must be the source of morality. The following parts of the essay will attempt to illustrate their claims in more detail.

David Hume argues that the basis of morality derives from our passions, namely, sentiments. When faced with turpitude of a kind, the reason is simply not needed for us to understand if the action is right or wrong, as we just feel in the first place. He argues that reason consists of elements of agreement and disagreement, and thereby anything that is incapable of having such elements is also not resolvable through the use of reason, explaining why this universal sense of morality is therefore also not an object of reason. Instead, he claims that one’s feeling of approbation and disapprobation of others is what motivates our actions to be generally moral. Specifically, he mentions three motives of why we behave in certain ways we do: self-love, private benevolence, and general benevolence, where what matters for justice is the last two motives that contribute to the overall utility of society. Hume believes that it is innate in our instinctive nature to have a sentimental approval of virtuous acts that lead to a better society.

Adam Smith also makes a similar yet distinctive argument about morality. He views compassion as the fundamental principle of human nature, and therefore, it is the sentiment in our nature that promotes moral behaviour. The idea of sympathy, and hence the morality, Smith argues, is not something calculable, but rather something natural that stems from the feeling of approbation by what he calls an impartial spectator, an imaginary metaphor that constantly observes and approves/disapproves of our action. Thanks to its existence, men have the natural capacity to have self-consciousness for moral introspection, which, over time, gradually turns into collective self-consciousness within a society, where certain actions begin to be collectively viewed as moral or immoral behaviour in a universal sense.

Despite their similar approach, there is one main difference in which they argue differently — how they identify the notion of sympathy, as well as its role and hence the moral judgment. Hume argues that our sympathy lies in our ideas of another person’s pleasure and pain that are transformed into our corresponding feelings. (Treatise, 317) He then further claims that the more vivid the idea appears, the stronger the sympathy is generated within us and that the vividity is dependent on how close the relationship between the object of sympathy and I is. For instance, Hume supposed a scenario of a sinking ship, and how, at a far distance, it will provoke less sympathy in us than at a close distance, near enough to perceive the horror of dying people on the ship. On the other hand, Smith argues that in some cases, we sympathise not only with how we imagine others feel but also with how we would actually feel in their place. He puts greater significance, contrary to Hume, on the surrounding circumstances more than our imaginary ideas, which he further strengthens by pointing out how we sometimes even sympathise with the dead, even though we are aware that they do not feel anything (TMS, 12–13).

Their different approaches to explaining the role of sympathy, therefore, affect what they mean by morality rooted in sentimental approbation. Now, it is time for us to examine how Immanuel Kant argues the complete opposite of their arguments and hence the discrepancy.

Kant takes a fundamentally different approach to understanding the notion of morality. He believes that the foundation of morality lies in the “autonomy” of an individual’s rational will. In other words, an action is good if and only if there is one’s will to do the right action, with that will being good in itself. Truly moral actions are motivated solely by goodwill, and therefore, for Kant, it is the reason that gives rise to our moral behaviour. He argues that morality is a set of moral obligations that you impose on yourself, and hence, acting not in accordance with the rules but in anticipation of sorts, such as rewards, punishment, feelings of acknowledgement, etc., can never be considered true moral behaviour.

Kant calls this the categorical imperativ,e which consists of different formulas of how one should act morally. One of them explains its universalizability where one must “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.”(G, 4:421) In other words, we should behave in such a way that it is completely acceptable for everyone else to act the same way. Another crucial formula states that we should treat humans as ends, and never merely as a means. In this light, Kant views surrogate motherhood as morally wrong because it uses women as means to produce offspring.

Now, because Hume and Smith were mainly concerned about the basis of morality rather than its practical principles, like Kant, it becomes a little difficult to compare their viewpoints. However, I believe it is still worth discussing their dissimilarities to thoroughly understand different aspects of morality. I personally found Hume and Smith’s idea of approbation quite questionable when looking from Kant’s perspective. They both claim that we act morally ultimately to be seen as good by others. Although it may just explain human behaviour, I was repelled by this idea that I act morally just to be seen and approved as a good person by others. In that respect, if we can recall Kant’s argument, it seems problematic in the sense that Hume and Smith’s “moral behaviour” comes from a rather inappropriate will that is not necessarily good in itself, with the difference being the will to be seen as good, and the will to just be good. Such a will to merely seek positive approbation may not always lead to a moral act since the will itself is not purely good in itself. Furthermore, it also may result in consequences where one unknowingly treats humans as a means — if the will is to be seen and not to be, this implies the possibility that one may also pretend to fulfil that will, essentially using himself/herself as a means to achieve a certain aim. Hence, my argument is on board with Kant’s idea, yet with a clear understanding that Hume and Smith did not intend to offer an explanation in this area.

However, there also seems to be an issue with Kant’s argument when viewed from Hume and Smith’s perspective: it can be inhumane sometimes to place the strict law of morality above our feelings. For example, white lies. Suppose a scenario where a depressed man has 6 more months to live, and a doctor has a choice to tell him a white lie that there is a 50 per cent chance that he may recover to give him hope and thus a chance to stay happy in his remaining time. Kant would nevertheless argue that the white lie in this scenario is still not acceptable, as it is against the categorical imperative. What seems to be missing here, however, is that he may not have taken into account the part about human nature, where, in fact, humans are almost always concerned about the consequences of our actions. In this regard, therefore, Kant’s argument seems contradictory and almost self-defeating, considering that the moral laws apply to us, rational beings, who, at the same time, possess parts of human nature which care about the consequences of our acts. Hence, in certain scenarios, Hume and Smith’s approaches towards morality are more reasonable to understand that moral behaviour stems more from our emotions that could have derived from another innate human nature of being capable of thinking about the consequences of our actions.

To conclude, Hume and Smith both believe that morality is based on our sentiments and our moral actions are driven by the feelings of approbation and disapprobation of others, whereas Kant argues that morality comes from our reason to understand that what constitutes moral behaviour is rather a rigid set of universal laws of morality which every individual imposes on themselves. There seemed to be some cases where both of their arguments lack certain aspects to fully make sense of the true moral behaviour, yet combining their claims with much flexibility will help us gain even more insights into better understanding what is just to do.