An Enquiry Concerning The Principles Of Morals Essay example -- essays

     What is a moral? This is a question that has plagued philosophers for some years. Is it possible to have a set of universal ethics? on that point atomic number 18 many questions that surround the mystery of morals. They seem to drive our all put to death. We base our decisions on what is right and what is aggrieve. But what is it that actually determines what is right and what is wrong? Is it our sense of indicate? Is it our sense of sentiment? This is a question that David Hume spent much of his life pondering. What exactly is it that drives our actions? Yes, morals drive them, but what determines what our morals are? What is it that ultimately drives our actions our feelings or our minds?      Hume would guess that it is our sentiment that ultimately drives our actions. tally to Hume, drive is incapable of motivating an action. According to Hume, reason cannot fuel an action and therefore cannot motivate it. Hume feel that a ll actions are motivated by our sentiment. For example, on page 84 Appendix I, he gives the example of a criminal. "It resides in the mind of the person, who is ungrateful. He must, therefore, feel it, and be conscious of it." Here, it is spare that Hume is saying that unless the person, or criminal in this case, sincerely believes in what he wants to do, he will not be able to motivate the action. In other words, unless the sentiment is there, the action cannot be willed into being. Hence, the sentiment is the driving major power behind the action.      Hume does not however say that reason is incapable of determine wether an action is virtuous or vicious (moral or felonious), but or else he tries to say that the reason for the morality of an action does not consecrate the execution or perversion of an act so far as determination of wether the action is executed or not. In simpler terms, reason has its array in determining morality, but it is not i n the motivation of an action. indigence must come from the heart, or better yet, from within the person from their beliefs. causal agency merely allows the person to make moral distinctions. Without reason, there would be no morality. Without reason, one moral clause would not be differentiable from another. That is to say that below all morals, there must be some inherent truth because "Truth is disputable n... ...reasons are NOT necessarily the persons sentiments, they do not motivate actions. One other reason why reason does not impel action is because reason is establish on truths. Truths are never changing whereas sentiments are dynamic and are in a constant change of flux. At one moment, the criminal could feel almsgiving for his victims and decide to spare a life, and the very next, the same criminal could conk enraged at the pimple on a hostages forehead and put one over him.      Of course these are extreme cases, but the point is clear. Reason would say that only the first action would be moral. If reason drove actions, hence moral behavior would prevail and there would be no immoral actions and hence there would be no crimes. This shows how sentiments can change as the individuals perception of the universe changes. Obviously, the driving force behind the criminal dead reckoning the victim because of a skin blemish is not one based on reason, but instead it is based on feeling, emotion, sentiment. Although it is an abstract composition and a seemingly tiny technicality, it is easy to see that indeed reason is not the ultimate motivator but instead sentiment is.