ABSTRACT
At the start of his discussion of Treatise 3.1.1, Mackie (1980: 51-2) observes, with particular reference to the practicality argument, that it is unclear for what meaning of ‘reason’ Hume is saying that moral distinctions are not derived from reason. He goes on to explain how the more comprehensive the view of reason that is being ruled out, the more compromised becomes the moral objectivism that can survive Hume’s strictures. If Hume wished only to deny that moral distinctions could be demonstrated, he would leave standing (and could consistently espouse) the view that they are derivable from ‘true beliefs’. If, more ambitiously, he included under ‘reason’ any true belief, so ruling out the view that drawing moral distinctions is a matter of having such beliefs, his former allies in this view would now be opponents. He could still maintain, positively, that in making a moral judgement about an action we attribute a relevant moral quality to the action itself. However, he would be compelled, Mackie maintains, to say that, in doing so, we are mistaken, and that in fact we are really just projecting onto the action our own feelings. Hume may wish, however, to defend the still more sweeping claim that moral judgements are not beliefs of any kind, even false ones: he may wish to deny that they even have the form of beliefs. The only position then open to him, according to Mackie, would be that a person making a moral judgement no more even mistakenly attributes the given moral quality to actions, than she does her own pain to something outside her. Morality is finally just a matter of subjective feeling.
