An experiment . . . which succeeds in the air, will not always succeed in a vacuum. When men depart from the maxims of common reason, and affect these artificial lives, as you call them, no one can answer for what will please or displease them. They are in a different element from the rest of mankind; and the natural principles of their mind play not with the same regularity, as if left to themselves, free from the illusions of religious superstition or philosophical enthusiasm. (EPM 123/343)
Superstition and enthusiasm, then, are seen as interfering with the natural principles of the mind. More specifically, according to Hume, it is abstract speculations that interfere, when they intrude into the realm of morality. In the ancient world, religion had “very little influence on common life,” but the philosophical schools sought “to regulate men’s ordinary behaviour and deportment” and “produced great singularities of maxims and conduct.” At present, argues Hume, it is religion, rather than philosophy, that has appropriated to itself this dubious honor; it “inspects our whole conduct, and prescribes an universal rule to our actions, to our words, to our very thoughts and inclinations” (EPM 122/342). Where natural lives are concerned, in contrast, however great the variations, it is always possible, argues Hume, to discern the operation of the same underlying principle, which lies at the heart of his account of morality: moral approval is given to those qualities that are either useful or agreeable, to the agent or to those affected by the agent (EPM 118/336).
Whereas the term “artificial” is rarely derogatory in Hume’s thought—after all, the artificial virtues include justice and promise keeping—in this context, it clearly designates something very problematic. Both the maxims of common reason and artificial lives admit of a wide range of internal variation, but Hume argues that there is an absolute division between the two: sympathetic understanding is possible only of the former. This is because sympathetic understanding requires grasping the goods for which agents act, their reasons for acting. But the actions of those who live artificial lives are unintelligible; they do not act for the sake of things that (Hume’s rhetorically constructed) “we” can grasp as goods (“no man can answer for what will please or displease them”). They are, then, apparently like the insane, who may speak as though they have reasons for acting or pursuing particular goods, but whose actions do not follow from these purported reasons in any intelligible way. Their “actions” are thus merely pieces of behavior, to be explained, perhaps, but not understood.
Hume’s twofold move is to identify artificial lives with actions performed for no good at all, that is, irrational actions, while identifying as natural those lives in which moral judgments admit of the particular account he gives in terms of usefulness and agreeableness: “It appears, that there never was any quality recommended by any one, as a virtue or moral excellence, but on account of its being useful, or agreeable to a man himself, or to others. For what other reason can ever be assigned for praise or approbation? Or where would be the sense of extolling a good character or action, which, at the same time, is allowed to be good for nothing?” (EPM 118/336). Hume’s principle of sympathetic understanding requires that we be able to discern the reasons for which agents act, the goods they are pursuing. An action that is not directed toward anything under the denomination good is pointless, unintelligible. But it is not the case that an agent—or observer—must think of an action as useful or agreeable in order for it to have a point. In practice, the discernment of reasons for action is highly concrete and specific. If you pick up your umbrella as you head out the door on a rainy day, your action is immediately intelligible to me as having a point—to stay dry. If you pick up your umbrella and head out the door on a sunny day, having just heard a forecast of glorious weather, I will need some help in understanding the reason for your action—perhaps you wish to return the umbrella to your car, where you usually keep it; or perhaps there is a hidden camera in your umbrella, and you plan to use it to spy on your colleagues. The more foreign and distant your way of life, the more thick description I will need of surrounding beliefs and practices in order to make sense of a particular action. Perhaps you live in a culture that regards umbrellas primarily as parasols, protection from the sun. Perhaps you are a member of a gang that identifies itself by carrying a particular kind of umbrella. When we attempt to describe reasons for action in general, we abstract from all of this concreteness, saying things like, “actions, unlike pieces of behavior, are intentional,” “actions are performed for reasons,” “actions are directed towards ends perceived by the agent as good.”
The monkish virtues were for Hume the epitome of character traits that are “good for nothing”:
celibacy, fasting, penance, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence, solitude, and the whole train of monkish virtues; for what reason are they everywhere rejected by men of sense, but because they serve to no manner of purpose; neither advance a man’s fortune in the world, nor render him a more valuable member of society; neither qualify him for the entertainment of company, nor increase his power of self-enjoyment? We observe, on the contrary, that they cross all these desirable ends; stupify the understanding and harden the heart, obscure the fancy and sour the temper. (EPM 9.3/270)
We can see that the monkish virtues, at least as described by Hume, seem neither useful nor agreeable to anyone. However, is it really the case that Hume is unable to grasp virtuous monks as acting for reasons? Is he unable to discern the goods for which they act? Is he unable to see their actions as expressions of intentional agency, unable to see them as acting at all, rather than simply exhibiting pieces of behavior?
What lends Hume’s statements regarding the impossibility of sympathetic understanding of artificial lives some initial plausibility is the analysis he offers of theistic beliefs—and the artificial lives based on these beliefs—as utterly self-contradictory and as requiring sustained self-deception. This analysis, which is most fully developed in the Natural History of Religion, essentially presents theists as insane—as perpetually driving themselves insane through their fears and insecurity, their simultaneous tendencies to exalt the deity and to regard the deity as a harsh and arbitrary tyrant, their efforts to laud the deity even as they secretly hate him. According to Hume’s “natural history,” polytheism, though arising out of fearful ignorance, is not irrational or self-contradictory; polytheists simply imagine the unknown causes of the unpredictable events that determine their fates as personal agents subject to potential human influence. Theism emerges out of polytheism as the attempt to influence one deity, seen as particularly relevant, gives rise to ever more exaggerated praise, until this deity is honored as sole, omnipotent, infinite divine power. Contradictions begin to enter in as the deity is praised as transcendent and infinite and yet believers continue to anthropomorphize the deity in order to have some hope of influencing that god; “it is well, if, in striving to get farther, and to represent a magnificent simplicity, they run not into inexplicable mystery, and destroy the intelligent nature of their deity, on which alone any rational worship or adoration can be founded” (NHR 53–54). Since it is fear and anxiety that drives the formation of religious belief, believers naturally tend, argues Hume, to conceive of the deity as a malicious entity who must be placated. On the other hand, in order to have some hope of flattering the deity into compliance with their wishes, believers tend to praise their god not only as omnipotent and omniscient, but also as perfectly good. And while praise of the gods might initially be purely affected, once the deity is regarded as omniscient, it is no longer sufficient to display devotion. Believers thus struggle to suppress their hatred and fear of the deity: “while their gloomy apprehensions make them ascribe to him measures of conduct, which, in human creatures, would be highly blamed, they must still affect to praise and admire that conduct in the object of their devotional addresses” (NHR 78). Theistic belief is thus on Hume’s analysis pervaded by self-contradiction and self-deception. In fact, it hardly amounts to real belief at all, argues Hume: “the conviction of the religionists, in all ages, is more affected than real, and scarcely ever approaches, in any degree, to that solid belief and persuasion, which governs us in the common affairs of life” (NHR 71). If the lives of theists were indeed dictated by such a contradictory set of pseudo-beliefs, Hume’s claim that sympathetic
