ABSTRACT

The Utilitarian ethics of Hume enable him to solve the contradiction that Mandeville flaunted in the faces of philosophers, between economics and politics on the one hand and morality on the other. The merit of the social virtues, he thinks, is due to "that regard which the natural sentiment of benevolence engages us to pay to the interests of mankind and society." 3 In the case of justice, utility is the sole source ; and in the case of other virtues, it is the chief source of merit.4 Virtue demands "just calculation and a steady preference of the greater happiness " ; yet reason and calculation alone are not enough to move to action ; there must be " feeling for the happiness of mankind, and a resentment of their misery." Reason, in fact, tells us the tendencies of our actions; humanity (or sympathy) tells us which to approve ; and the ones approved are those which "give to a spectator the pleasing sentiment of approbation." I approve those acts of my own, in which if they were done by another, I should find pleasure. 5 The test is thus the

pleasure of the agent ; but it is his projected or reflected pleasure ; the agent puts himself in the place of a spectator of his own conduct, and asks himself how it would impress him if he were not agent, but spectator.