Hume Studies

Hume Studies Volume XIX, Number 2, November 1993, pp. 273-288 Hume on the Mezzanine Level SIMON BLACKBURN I. Groundwork Those who like to compare moral qualities to secondary qualities have occasionally claimed Hume as an ally. In this paper I want to explore the complex territory that the comparison with secondary qualities—hereafter, the Comparison—opens up. My primary aim is to show not only that Hume did not rely upon the Comparison in his theory of ethics, but that he could not possibly have done so, for reasons lying deep within his philosophy. I have, indeed, an agenda of my own here. Hume has equally been claimed as an ally of the kind of expressivist theory of ethics that I myself endorse. But the 'secondary quality' reading challenges this alliance. If Hume is firm on the Comparison, and if he has an entirely non-expressivist story about secondary qualities, then he seems to be theorizing in quite a different way, and any expressivist appropriation of him will be unjustified. Seeing Hume as impressed by the Comparison has at first sight good textual backing. The most famous direct passage is in Treatise III i 1: Vice and virtue, therefore, may be compared to sounds, colours, heat, and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind: and this discovery in morals, like that other in physics, is to be regarded as a considerable advancement of the speculative sciences; though, like that too, it has little or no influence on practice. Nothing can be more real, or Simon Blackburn is at the Department of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 USA. 274 Simon Blackburn concern us more, than our own sentiments of pleasure and uneasiness ; and if these be favourable to virtue, and unfavourable to vice, no more can be requisite to the regulation of our conduct and behaviour. (T 469) Hume directly returns to the Comparison only once more. A very similar statement occurs in a footnote to the Essay, "The Sceptic": Were I not afraid of appearing too philosophical, I should remind my reader of that famous doctrine, supposed to be fully proved in modern times, "That tastes and colours, and all other sensible qualities, lie not in the bodies, but merely in the senses." The case is the same with beauty and deformity, virtue and vice. This doctrine, however, takes off no more from the reality of the latter qualities, than from that of the former; nor need it give any umbrage either to critics or moralists. Though colours were allowed to lie only in the eye, would dyers or painters ever be less regarded or esteemed?1 It is quite clear that he is tapping into the familiar list of secondary qualities: tastes, colours, sounds, heat, and cold, although by what principle things get onto that list remains undiscussed. It is at first sight equally clear that he draws a consequence from qualities being on that list, namely that they become "not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind" or they "lie in the senses." Notice, however, that while Hume is prepared to tolerate the inference, he does not himself present it with any great enthusiasm. It is only "supposed to be fully proved in modern times" or "according to modern philosophy" that secondary qualities lie in the senses. I am not suggesting that Hume dissociates himself from the modern philosophy at this point. Rather, the tone is one of distaste for the issue, especially visible in the way he introduces the discussion in the second passage, and the place it has in a footnote. Hume is maintaining a cautious distance from the modern philosophy, and we shall see that he has good reason to do so. Each passage then goes on to reassure the reader that their place in the mind does not detract from the "reality" of the properties, and this reassurance is clearly the main purpose of introducing the comparison. We are not to think that because virtue and vice are "in the mind" they cease being "real," and the point of saying that is to keep afloat the...