A Treatise of Human Nature · Chapter
Section I: Of the Object and Causes of Love and Hatred explained
Hume begins by noting that love and hatred, like pride and humility, are simple impressions that cannot be defined.
What happens
Hume begins by noting that love and hatred, like pride and humility, are simple impressions that cannot be defined. He establishes that the object of love and hatred is always another person, not oneself, and that the cause of these passions must be distinct from their object. He argues that the causes are diverse, including virtues, talents, bodily accomplishments, and external advantages, and that these causes must be related to a thinking being and produce a separate pleasure or uneasiness. He draws parallels to his earlier analysis of pride and humility, suggesting that the same qualities that cause pride in oneself cause love in others.
Themes in this chapter
Passions and the Self
Hume distinguishes love and hatred from pride and humility by their objects: the former directed at others, the latter at self.
Sympathy and Social Influence
The desire for reputation and the correspondence of sentiments between individuals suggests a social dimension to these passions.
Morality as Sentiment
Virtue and vice are cited as causes of love and hatred, indicating that moral judgments are tied to emotional responses.
Characters to notice
- David Hume
The author and narrator, presenting his philosophical analysis of love and hatred.
Key passages
“It is altogether impossible to give any definition of the passions of love and hatred ; and that because they produce merely a simple impression, without any mixture or composition.”
Love and hatred cannot be defined because they are simple, unanalyzable impressions.
Hume emphasizes the simplicity of these passions, similar to his treatment of pride and humility.
“As the immediate object of pride and humility is self or that identical person, of whose thoughts, actions, and sensations we are intimately conscious; so the object of love and hatred is some other person, of whose thoughts, actions, and sensations we are not conscious.”
Pride and humility are directed at oneself, while love and hatred are directed at other people.
This distinction sets the foundation for his analysis of these passions.
“There must, therefore, be some cause different from the object.”
The cause of love and hatred must be something other than the person they are directed at.
Hume argues that if the object were the cause, opposite passions would cancel out.
“The virtue, knowledge, wit, good sense, good humour of any person, produce love and esteem; as the opposite qualities, hatred and contempt.”
Positive qualities in a person lead to love and esteem, while negative qualities lead to hatred and contempt.
He lists various causes that are related to a thinking being.
“It is not so evident at first sight, that a relation of impressions is requisite to these passions, and that because in the transition the one impression is so much confounded with the other, that they become in a manner undistinguishable.”
The need for a relation of impressions is not obvious because the impressions blend together during the transition.
He acknowledges the complexity in separating the impressions involved.