The Ethical Depreciation of Religion

Abstract

It does not cease to produce wonder that Hume, who looks in The Natural History of Religion for the origins of religion in human nature, should have been able to reveal such a small amount of humanity to be present in religion. Sympathy, compassion, generosity, gratitude, enlightened self-interest, indeed rationality, these features of the social life, which have such an important place in his analysis of the principles of morality, may also be substantial components of the religious life. Yet if one takes Hume as a guide, it is only by an effort of the imagination that one can conclude that those qualities are conspicuously displayed there, too. Religion all too often degenerates into a furious madness, but the moral life is not exempted from falling into aberrations of its own. Religious foibles he generously describes; the moral ones — although he affirms that his aim is not to promote or recommend morality — he barely touches upon, except for a few mocking remarks directed against the Cynics and Stoics.¹ In the The Natural History he strongly suggests that religion is the one main factor which invariably leads men astray in the pursuit of the good life; for no other reason he titled Section 14, “ Bad Influence of Popular Religion on Morality.” The determination of the actual psychological motives and biographical factors which may have inclined Hume to depreciate historical religion does not fall within the scope of our scrutiny.² All I shall attempt to show is, first, that Hume’s peculiar conception about the origins of historical religion naturally leads in the direction of such ethical depreciation; and, second, that such a thesis is not inevitable, even within the framework of Hume's philosophy, and that it appears to be at odds with some basic tenets of his moral theory. We will not examine, however, Hume’s famous thesis that morality is independent ofreligion.^3>

See, for example, I, 272; EHU, 101; EPM, “A Dialogue,”342–343

This emphasis on the negative may be attributed, at least in part, to the polemical character of the work, perharps written with the Evangelican wing of the Scottish Church in mind. During the period of publication of the The Natural History Religion,the Highflying or Evangelical Party conspired to produce the most severe condemnation of Hume’s person and writings, i.e. his excommunication from the church of Scotland. Had it occured, this would probably have led Hume, as E. C. Mossner convincingly suggests, into his voluntary exile from Scotland. See The Life of David Hume,pp. 336-355. On the other hand, the militant attack on religion typical of the deistic controversy, had ceased already at the time Hume chose to publish the Natural History.See Sir Leslie Stephen, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, I, 77, 136.