Åsa Carlson

Abstract:Hume’s theory of pride has been dismissed due to the contingent relation between passion and object. But why did Hume state the theory as he did? Why did he give two accounts of pride, one holistic and one atomistic? This paper considers Hume’s reasons for giving two accounts, and how he unified them. The holistic account enables Hume to explain how moral distinctions are made, whereas the atomistic allows him to anchor morality in human nature. The accounts are unified by the distinction of feeling pride and being proud: a steady passion of pride would not count as that if it did not contain feelings of pride identified by their introspective quality, and would not be a state of pride without the causal relation of ideas.

Judith Butler finds Michel Foucault's ideas about the body incoherent: the body is both constituted and causally constructed by culture. The alleged incoherence stems from this double role that culture supposedly plays in relation to body. On the one hand, if we take constitution as the primary relation between culture and body, then they are inseparable; the body is so to speak made of culture. If, on the other hand, we take construction as primary, culture and body are separate entities - culture works on the body. In order to avoid this paradox, Butler introduces the concept materialization. This paper argues that for the notion of materialization to be comprehensible, it has to be interpreted as a dually constructive and constitutive notion. Nevertheless, the paradoxical nature of the body-culture relation is not reinstated. With a suitable understanding of the notion of constitution no paradox follows from the claims ascribed to Foucault. In addition, if we understand the concept of constitution as a quasi-transcendental condition, most of Butler's objectives are preserved, despite the rejection of materialization.

Hume’s mysterious words, “we must distinguish betwixt personal identity, as it regards our thought or imagination, and as it regards our passions or the concern we take in ourselves” have been the focus of a variety of different interpretations, some more creative than others. But the solution to this interpretative problem is indeed very simple, too simple to occur to most readers. What Hume has in mind is actually nothing but the different ways association works with regard to, on the one hand, imagination, and, on the other hand, passion. Hence, one may easily read the entire Treatise as containing just one idea of self, that is, the bundle of perceptions discussed in “On personal identity.” Contrary to what many scholars have recently suggested, this idea may very well be “the idea, or rather impression” of self at play in the mechanism of sympathy, as well as the object of pride and humility. This faithful but dull reading makes Hume coherent, probably more coherent than any two-ideas interpretation does.

In the Treatise, Hume writes several seemingly incompatible things about the moral sentiments, thus there is no general agreement about where they fit within his taxonomy of the perceptions. Some passages speak in favor of the view that moral sentiments are indirect passions, a few in favor of the view that they are direct passions, and yet a couple of explicit statements strongly suggest otherwise. Due to these tensions in Hume’s text, we find at least five competing characterizations in the literature: • Moral sentiments are calm emotions. • Moral sentiments are calm direct passions. • Moral sentiments are calm versions of the indirect passions of love or hatred. • Moral sentiments are unique species of calm indirect passions. • Moral sentiments are indirect secondary impressions. This paper assesses each of these interpretations. When their virtues are brought together, a new interpretation of the origin of moral sentiments starts to emerge.