Paul Benidict Alba

David Hume on Reason, Passion and Morals

In this paper commentators takcles on David Hume famous dicta that “Reason is, and

ought only to be the slave of the passions. Nuyen claim that Hume only argues in the rationlaistic

position that reason is not enough to move one to act, perhaps reason can be a simple condition

but not essential but then the two must be present for their cannot be moral judgement without

reason. By saying Reason is the slave of Passion David Hume does not mean that Reason is not

important. Reason must be understood as the groundwork, analization of facts, percieving

relation, and drawing conclusions. Looking in the positive side as for Reason is the Slave of

Passion, Nuyen claims that Rason should be cultivated, sharpened and use it to its maximum

capacity. Nuyen provide two steps in rationalization fisrt step is removing all beliefs that had

been passed down from generation which is now contrarty to the belief in our present time.

Second is learning and finding new beliefs that supports are present actions.

One of the commnentators named Mackie believes that there is a conflict on the

psychology of action considering to what factors performs us to action. Mackie claims that it is

not the desire that moves one to perform an action but a rational perception that the action is

fitting. Looking closely there is a plause in this theory, Definitely the perception of the fitness of

an action is absolutley influential to one’s action but again we have to consider that one performs

an action because one want to do what is fitting.

Looking on the perception of D.D Raphael, He thinks that at least there are some moral

judgement that is grounded from reason. He claims that Hume’s argument is invalid but had

failed to prove it because it is right to say that an individual can judge an action to be right and

wrong without performing it. What Hume is trying to say is that his argument does not depend
Paul Benidict Alba

on whether an action is right or wrong but what moves us to act. Again it is agreeable that that

reason alone can lead us to judgemet but most likely what moves us to act is passion and judging

someone with a special kind of passion is what Hume calls moral sentiment. Clearly this is

where Hume argument circles.

According to John Haugeland there is a crisis about artificial intelligence. Computers

thinks, calculates and can be programmed, but computers does not care of the consequences, is

not not proud of its abilty because it does not have passion. As Ned Block says “the computer is

only a conduit of intelligence and the computer itself has the intelligence of a toater” meaning

that a computer can reason in a split seconds because it is programmed that way, it cannot act on

its own or by will because it lacks will or passion. The computers action can never be necessary

as to that programmer and most importantly it cannot judge moral actions because it lacks that

special kind of passion which is moral sentiment.