Rousseau Stated That "Discourse Is Book Report

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In Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume discuss the relationship between sympathy, natural virtue, artificial virtue, and human nature. How (if at all) do they function in Hume's account of society?

Our moral evaluation of a person comes through our sentiments -- through that which gives us pleasure or repugnance and through which we see as beneficial for the well-ordering of society. So a negative characteristic such as theft, for instance, called by us a vice is called so since it disrupts the harmony of society, whereas, a 'virtue' such as charity is commended for its constructiveness. It is in this way too that the so-called vice accords repugnance whilst the so-called virtue gives pleasure. In fact, we distinguish between virtue and vice by means of the sentiments that we feel towards these attributes. All of the virtues, moreover, have societal value in that they are either agreeable or pragmatic to self and/or others. Vices have the reverse characteristics.

Sympathy is based on our own experiences and identification with a person. Seeing certain expressions on a person's face we associate them with our own internal feelings when evoking those same expressions.

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Furthermore, context also expands the feelings of sympathy such as when seeing someone undergo surgery. The vivacity of our perception is instinctively and unconsciously transferred to another so that we interpret context and expressions of the other as though they happen to ourselves.

Furthermore, the greater the contiguity and resemblance to the other person, the more this empathy will be reinforced. This prompts altruism.

There are also artificial virtues which are contrivances of society, such as justice with respect to property, allegiance to government, and dispositions to obey the laws of nations and the rules of modesty and good manners ). We approve of these even when they threaten our own self-interest since they benefit societal order. We find their character traits agreeable since they are useful, and they therefore give us the feeling of sympathy and hence pleasure when we find them actualized or represented by someone or by some group......

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