A Treatise of Human Nature

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Hume in his work "Treatise of Human Nature" says that all our actions are the result of the way we perceive things. Hume talks about morality and reasons and distinguishes them from one another. He tries to make us clear what differentiates vice from virtue, is it morals or reasons. Morality is rather practical and it is supposed to influence our passions and actions but in this regard reason is inactive, inert and impotent in other words it cannot help to distinguish between moral good and bad. Morality is more felt than judged.

Reasons help to discover what is true or false. As actions are not derived from a "conformity or reasons" it cannot distinguish about moral good or bad. Hume talks about human beings being more aware as they have the power of reasoning. He gives an example of sapling, which grows up and destroys the parent tree and compares it to a child murdering his parents.

However we humans as children have a choice to kill or not kill them but the saplings don't. He then says that our sense of reasoning helps us differentiate between rights and wrong hence, vice or virtues can be only compared by perception of mind and not by qualities in object.

As we know how that morals distinguish between moral good or evil, morality can be felt rather than judging. People, hence are influenced by their sentiments, so morality differs from people to people.

Our own understanding in divided into two kinds, comparing if ideas are getting knowledge from facts. Hume then gives an example to show that where good or evil is universally evident. He says that the worst of all crime is the crime of ingratitude, especially when committed against one's own parents. The guilt of such...