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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 August 2019
A survey of theories on the passions and action in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain and western Europe reveals that few, if any, of the major writers held the view that reason in any of its functions executes action without a passion. Even rationalists, like Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth and English clergyman Samuel Clarke, recognized the necessity of passion to action. On the other hand, many of these intellectuals also agreed with French philosophers Jean-François Senault, René Descartes, and Nicolas Malebranche that, for passions to be useful or to become virtues, they must be governed by reason. Without the moderation of reason, passions will be unruly, distort our notions of good, and disrupt our rational volitions. In response to these popular early modern perspectives, Enlightenment thinker David Hume offered a now-famous argument that reason without passion cannot motivate, drawing the further conclusion that reason cannot govern the passions, either. Given that no one in Hume's era seemed to defend the claim that reason alone can motivate action, what was Hume's intention?
1 The ideas in this essay are developments from material in my Hume, Passion, and Action (Oxford University Press, 2018).
2 See James, Susan, Passion and Action: The Emotions in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1997), 40–42Google Scholar.
3 See McIntyre, Jane L., ‘Hume's “New and Extraordinary” Account of the Passions’ in Traiger, Saul (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Hume's Treatise (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2006), 200–04Google Scholar; Harris, James A., ‘The Government of the Passions’, in Harris, James A. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 270–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 Coeffeteau, Nicolas, A Table of Humane Passions (London: Printed by Nicolas Oakes, 1621)Google Scholar, Chap. 1, 2–3.
5 Reynolds, Edward, A Treatise of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man (London: Printed by R.H. for Robert Bostock, 1640)Google Scholar, Chap. V, 31–32.
6 Reynolds, Treatise, Chap. VI, 43–44.
7 Reynolds, Treatise, Chap. XL, 517–18.
8 Senault, Jean-François, Use of the Passions, Fourth Treatise, Henry, Earl of Monmouth (trans) (London: Printed for J. L. and Humphrey Moseley, 1641), 126–27Google Scholar.
9 Senault, Use, Third Treatise, 117–19.
10 Senault, Use, Second Treatise, 66–73.
11 Descartes, René, Passions of the Soul, Voss, Stephen (ed and trans) (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 1649/1989)Google Scholar, art. 56–57. Walter Charleton, seventeenth-century physician who claims Descartes's influence, studied the passions as an inquiry into human health and well-being. He echoes the theme from Senault that the passions can be useful when moderated and directed by reason, but when not, they suggest ‘false opinions and exorbitant desires’. We can achieve internal serenity by directing our desires to things we know through the understanding clearly and distinctly to be good. He, however, argues, contrary to Descartes, that we possess a rational and a sensitive soul, which explains instances of internal conflict (Charleton, Walter, The Natural History of the Passions [Printed by T.N. for James Magnes in Ruffell-Street, 1674]Google Scholar, preface, no page numbers).
12 Descartes, Passions, art. 40. Lilli Alanen writes, ‘…passions, as Descartes describes them, are experienced as inclinations of the will. They typically present themselves as volitions, as if they were grounded in our own evaluative judgments about their objects and hence as having, true rational grounds’ (‘The Intentionality of Cartesian Emotions’, in Byron Williston and Andre Gombay (eds), Passion and Virtue in Descartes (Amherst, New York: Humanity Books, 2003), 122.
13 See Book IV of Nicolas Malebranche, The Search after Truth, (trans and eds) Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J. Olscamp (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1674–75/1980).
14 Malebranche, Search, 5.
15 Ayloffe, William, The Government of the Passions according to the Rules of Reason and Religion (London: Printed for Knapton, 1700), 50Google Scholar.
16 Ayloffe, Government of the Passions, 23.
17 Ayloffe, Government of the Passions, 53.
18 Ayloffe, Government of the Passions, 28–29.
19 Ayloffe, Government of the Passions, 47–51.
20 Burghope, M., The Government of the Passions. A sermon preach'd in the Temple Church, on Midlent Sunday, March the 30th, 1701 (London), 4Google Scholar.
21 Bragge, Francis, A Practical Treatise of the Regulation of the Passions (London: Printed by J.M. for John Wyat, 1708), 1, 6–8Google Scholar.
22 Bragge, A Practical Treatise, 13.
23 Passmore, J.A., Ralph Cudworth: An Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951), 52–53Google Scholar; Gill, Michael, The British Moralists on Human Nature and the Birth of Secular Ethics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 38–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24 Cudworth, Ralph, Mr. Cudworth's Sermon Preached before the Honble House of Commons at Westminster, March 31st, 1647 (Cambridge: Reprinted for J.T. Wheeler, 1852), 14Google Scholar.
25 Cudworth, Sermon, 26.
26 Passmore, Ralph Cudworth, 52.
27 Passmore, Ralph Cudworth, 52; Ralph Cudworth, Collection of Confused Thoughts, Memorandums relating to the Eternity of Torments collected out of my little Book (manuscript fragments).
28 Passmore, Ralph Cudworth, 53; Ralph Cudworth, On Liberty and Necessity (manuscript).
29 Cudworth, Ralph, A Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality with A Treatise of Freewill, (ed) Hutton, Sarah (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1731/1838/1996), 173Google Scholar.
30 Cudworth, Of Freewill in Hutton, 176–77.
31 Cudworth, Of Freewill in Hutton, 179.
32 Cudworth, Of Freewill in Hutton, 183.
33 Clarke, Samuel, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God in Vailati, Ezio (ed), A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God and Other Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1705/1996)Google Scholar.
34 Clarke, Samuel, A Discourse concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion (1706) in Selby-Bigge, L.A. (ed.), The British Moralists (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897), vol. 2Google Scholar.
35 Clarke, Discourse, in British Moralists, vol 2, 4.
36 Clarke, Discourse, in British Moralists, vol 2, 11.
37 The discrepancy reflects the difference in the civil calendar and the church calendar. The sermon is subtitled, ‘Preach'd before the Queen, at St. James Chapel, on Sunday, the 7th of January, 1710–11’.
38 Samuel Clarke, ‘The Government of Passion, A Sermon Preach'd before the Queen, at St. James Chapel, on Sunday the 7th of January, 1710–11’, in XVII Sermons on Several Occasions [Eleven of which Never Before Printed] (London: printed by William Botham, for James Knapton, 1724), 143–44.
39 Clarke, ‘Government of Passion’, 144.
40 Clarke, ‘Government of Passion’, 145.
41 For a discussion of Clarke's difficulties with free will, see Chapter 2 of Harris, James, Of Liberty and Necessity: The Free Will Debate in Eighteenth-Century British Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
42 Clarke's Answer to Bulkeley's First Letter in Vailati, 126.
43 Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature, (eds) David and Mary Norton (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1739–40/2007)Google Scholar. As is the standard, references to the Treatise are by Book, Part, section, and paragraph number.
44 Hume, Treatise 1.3.7.2.
45 Hume Treatise 3.1.1.9.
46 Baier, Annette, A Progress of Sentiments (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 160, 164Google Scholar.
47 Hume, David, An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, (ed.) Beauchamp, Tom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1751/1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
48 Thanks to audiences at the Eastern Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Baltimore, MD, in January 2017, and at the London Lecture Series of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, in October 2017.