On The Theory Of Sympathy In Hume’s Moral Philosophy

Hume’s moral philosophy can be said to be a sentimental moral philosophy.He thinks the position of rationality in the moral is subordinate to the emotion,moral judgment is based on moral sense rather than rationality.The driving force of moral judgment people produce is human nature to pursue happiness and avoid suffering hardships,also called the sense of happiness and unhappiness.Sympathy is a kind of ability that can transfer other people’s feelings to oneself.Hume believes that a human has a species similarity,so everyone has the ability of sympathy which makes moral judgments based on sympathy is universal and normative.In Hume’s moral philosophy,sympathy is undoubtedly the most important and basic moral principles.Through the theory of sympathy,the efforts of Hume are revealed that he wants to achieve harmonious and unification between personal interests and social interests,private benefit and social benefit.This helps to make up for the shortcomings of the utilitarianism which over emphasizes the individual,and also the deontology which over emphasizes the universality of morality.However,the theory of sympathy is also faced with some questions and criticism.Sympathy will be different because of close or distant degrees between others and self,and also Hume believes that all knowledge comes from perception,we cannot direct gain perception to the emotions of others.So sympathy is actually a speculation from self to others,which results the drawbacks of relativism and egoism.The introduction of this paper begins with an overview of the Hume’s science of human nature and his view of emotionalism moral.The moral judgment is decided by emotion rather than reason.There is a special sense of happiness and unhappiness---moral sense.The generation and function of this kind of moral feeling lies in the principle of sympathy in the heart.Secondly,the literature review at home and abroad in accordance with the two part of Hume’s moral philosophy and the principle of sympathy to sort out.Finally,the research ideas and methods of this paper is analyzed.With"The theory of human nature","The study of human reason" and"The study of moral principles" as the main reference to the text,while in sorting out the basic principles of moral theory of sympathy,present difficulties and contradictions of its ideas,and show the function of sympathy theory in communication theory of Hume’s epistemology and emotion as well as moral theory.Chapter one--The mechanism of sympathy is divided into two stages:the first stage for the formation of the concept and the second stage for the formation of the sensibility.That confirms the Hume’s impression and idea of the dual relation theory of knowledge,and to achieve the shift from the concept of behavior and the character of others for their own emotional process and communicate with the others and self.But there are also other kinds of sympathy with different general mechanisms in Hume’s theory.Chapter two--Hume think virtue can be divided into artificial and natural virtue,moral judgment is made by a special sense of happiness and unhappiness---moral sense.It,s different of the function of emotion and reason in moral judgment.Reason is subject to emotion,only emotion can become the real motive force of moral judgment and moral behavior.It appears that there is a conflict between personal interests and the artificial virtue of justice,but Hume thinks that sympathy makes people experience a sense of public interests to consciously recognize the rules of justice.Chapter three--The theory of sympathy faces challenges of comparison principle and relativism.Hume thinks that the comparison principle and sympathy principle does not exist contradictions,and the principle of compassion is a prerequisite,because of the different vitality of the concept lead us dominated by principle of sympathy or comparison.Hume,moreover,put forward the wise observer,the general principles etc.such concepts to solve the challenge of relativism.But fundamentally sympathy principle is only a hypothesis.Once it has the contradiction,Hume’s moral philosophy is in jeopardy based on this principle.