ABSTRACT
Reid is not the only philosopher of his time to dedicate so much attention to the motives involved in human action. Passions, emotions, desires, and motives in general are topics that hold a central position in the accounts of most of Reid’s predecessors and contemporaries. Reid recognizes this fact (EAP 55), but he writes that no consensus has been reached, and that, judging ‘from the very different and contradictory systems of Philosophers on this subject, from the earliest ages to this day,’ it is a matter of great difficulty to form a distinct notion of the various principles of action (EAP 77). Reid also notices that the names usually given to the different principles of action have very little precision, ‘even in the best and purest writers in every language’ (EAP 77):
The words appetite, passion, affection, interest, reason, cannot be said to have one definite signification. They are taken sometimes in a larger, and sometimes in a more limited sense. The same principle is sometimes called by one of those names, sometimes by another; and principles of a very different nature are often called by the same name. (EAP 77-78)
In light of this lack of order and precision, Reid’s aim is not to settle the question decisively, since he suggests in several passages that he might be mistaken in how
Canadian Journal of Philosophy 123
Esther Kroeker* University of Antwerp, Center for Ethics, Stadscampus, Grote Kauwenberg 18, 2000
Antwerpen (Received 18 October 2013; final version received 25 October 2013)
My aim in this paper is to show that animal motives play an important role in guiding human agents to virtue, according to Reid. Animal motives, for Reid, are constituted of desires and of their objects. These desires are intrinsic desires for objects other than moral or prudential worth. However, from a rational and moral point of view, animal motives are good and useful parts of the human constitution that lead to happiness, teach self-government, create the habit of acting virtuously, and add force to rational motives. Understanding animal motives as guides to virtue provides Reid with the hybrid sentimentalist/rationalist account he seeks to offer. Keywords: Reid; animal motives; rational motives; desires; virtue
It is . . . a most important part of the philosophy of the humanmind, to have a distinct and just view of the various principles of action, which the Author of our being has planted in our nature, to arrange them properly, and to assign to every one its rank. By this it is, that we may discover the end of our being, and the part which is assigned us upon the theatreof life. In this part of thehumanconstitution, thenoblestworkofGod that falls within our notice, we may discern most clearly the character of him who made us, and how hewould have us to employ that active power which he hath given us. (EAP 75)
Thomas Reid’s account of the animal principles of action is rarely the main focus of any work on Reid. If they are discussed at all, it is usually as an introduction to the topic of Reid’s rational principles of action, and of duty in particular, or as part of a discussion of moral liberty. The rational principles of action and moral liberty are undoubtedly central topics in Reid’s Essays on the Active Powers. However, my aim in this paper is to show that the animal principles of action also play an important role in Reid’s understanding of the virtuous life, and of how agents should order their lives.
