Hume's Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals › The Social Virtues: Justice and Benevolence

Hume devotes particular attention to justice and benevolence, the two great social virtues that make civilized life possible. Benevolence is natural and immediate. When we see someone in distress, we feel an instinctive sympathy that motivates us to help. This requires no elaborate reasoning, no calculation of consequences. The sentiment arises spontaneously from our psychological constitution. Benevolence is what Hume calls a "natural virtue," one that would exist even outside society. Justice is different. It is an "artificial virtue," a human invention that serves social utility. Consider property rights. There is nothing natural about the idea that this piece of land belongs to me and that piece belongs to you. The institution of property is a convention, developed because it serves everyone's long-term interests. Without secure property, no one would bother to cultivate land, build houses, or accumulate goods. Society would collapse into a war of all against all. ::: {.callout-note title="Artificial vs. Natural Virtues"} Natural virtues like benevolence arise from immediate sentiment and would exist even in a state of nature. Artificial virtues like justice are human conventions that serve social utility. The distinction is not between genuine and fake virtues; both are real and important. The difference lies in their origin and the directness of their connection to sentiment. ::: But if justice is artificial, why do we feel such strong moral sentiments about it? Hume's answer is that we come to approve of justice because we recognize its utility. We see that societies with stable property rights flourish while those without them descend into chaos. This recognition, combined with our sympathy for the beneficiaries of just institutions, produces a genuine moral sentiment. The artificial becomes naturalized through habit and education. This explains why justice can sometimes seem to conflict with benevolence. The just thing to do (return the borrowed sword to its owner) might not be the benevolent thing to do (if the owner plans to use it for murder). Hume acknowledges these tensions without fully resolving them. His general view is that justice operates through general rules whose overall utility outweighs the occasional bad outcomes in particular cases. We must resist the temptation to violate just rules whenever we think we can produce better consequences, because this temptation is precisely what just rules are designed to constrain. Whether this fully answers the problem remains debated.