Abstract

The “motive of justice” is ambiguous between three quite different categories of motivation. These are: the motive to perform a particular just act; the motive to set up institutions of justice, most particularly the conventions or “artifices” which regulate and establish property; and a motivational disposition, or essential part of a complex of motivational dispositions, that is characteristic of a person with the virtue of justice. The question now arises: Can justice as a basic virtue be understood as having at its core a natural motive which is expressed in its various differentiated forms? More particularly, could Hume find such a motive? This chapter argues that compassion can be seen as just that natural motive. It considers two problems for the understanding of compassion as the natural motive for justice in sense, in relation to Hume's theory of the passions.