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Take any action allow'd to be vicious: Wilful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. In which-ever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. You never can find it, till you turn your reflexion into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact; but 'tis the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object. So that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it. Vice and virtue, therefore, may be compar'd to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind[.]

David Hume#18

ReasonMoralityEthicsSentiment

About this quote

What does it mean?
Vice is a feeling in the observer, not a fact in the act.
In plain terms
Badness is in your reaction, not the thing.
What can you take from it?
Morality comes from feeling.

Where it applies

  • ethical judgment
  • philosophical debate

Putting it to work

  • reflect on your feelings
  • understand bias

Questions to consider

  • Is vice real or felt?
  • Where does blame come from?

Another view

It denies objective right and wrong.

More from David Hume

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  3. Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conc…

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