gogol

Although Hume assigns a central role to emotion in moral action, he does not eliminate reason. "A very accurate reason or judgment is often requisite, to give the true determination, amidst such intricate doubts arising from obscure or opposite utilities.Professional Editing services for college and university people by talented editors " The moral person thus must possess a well-developed rational capacity in order to be capable of morally correct action. In regard to the emotions, Hume makes a distinction between calm and violent passions. The calm passions produce little emotion in the mind and are of two kinds: "either certain instincts originally implanted in our natures, such as benevolence and resentment, the love of life, and kindness to children; or the general appetite to good, and aversion to evil." The violent emotions include fear and jealousy. It is the calm passions, not the violent, that are at the heart of moral action. According to Hume, "What we call strength of mind, implies the prevalence of the calm passions above the violent." The Humean moral person would exhibit such strength of mind. What about the Humean woman? I believe it reasonable to suppose that Hume perceived woman's inferior strength of mind as affecting the degree to which she possessed the very qualities needed for moral action: a prevalence of the calm passions over the violent and an accurate judgment. Despite the fact that Hume wrote remarkably little about woman's nature, comments that support this conclusion can be found in Hume's writings. The most telling piece of evidence is Hume's claim that "the fair sex has a great share of the tender and amorous disposition." According to Hume, the amorous passion is not a calm passion, but one of "force and violence.If you need written term paper, order original custom paper writing assistance online! " Having defined the virtuous mind as one which "reduces the affections to a just moderation," Hume offers a number of warnings about the passions of love. Hume admonishes us to base our marriages on friendship rather than love, for "love is a restless and impatient passion, full of caprices and variations arising in a moment from a feature, from an air, from nothing, and suddenly extinguishing after the same manner." Furthermore, he tells us that the amorous passions, although agreeable, can "weaken and enfeeble" the mind. Thus one of the weaknesses of woman's mind, her susceptibility to the passions of love, an inferiority Hume perceives as innate, inhibits her ability to properly judge the utility of actions, and thus to act virtuously.