Virtue Ethics - Hume, Nietzsche - And An Idiot's Comments

I came to David Hume and Friedrich Nietzsche at the same time. When I was eighteen, I first became aware of philosophy. I decided I needed to work on my education (yes, self-education has an early start in my life). I walked into Decker's (a long-departed department store in Anderson) and walked out with several Modern Edition books on philosophy. These included Hume and Nietzsche. Since then, I have been of the mind that there are affinities between Hume and Nietzsche. Coming out of prison, I decided to see if anyone else agreed with me.

This is how I found Craig Beam's review, The Virtue Ethics of Hume and Nietzsche. He reviews Christine Swanton, The Virtue Ethics of Hume and Nietzsche (At $99, not a book I see myself reading any time soon.) With a welcoming opening paragraph:

This book, part of the New Directions in Ethics series, argues that Hume and Nietzsche should be interpreted as virtue ethicists, that they have much in common, and that they provide useful supplements to classical aretaic theories.

Although, I detect nothing in the review indicating how, or if, Hume did influence Nietzsche, I did find these paragraphs of interest:

Finally, Swanton sums up the distinctive contributions of Hume and Nietzsche to the virtue ethical tradition. In Chapter 9, she considers Hume and focuses on the virtues of benevolence and love. She looks at how Michael Slote in Morals and Motives developed a morality of university benevolence based in part on 18th-century sentimentalism, and suggests doing something similar with the virtue of love. In Chapter 10, Swanton deals with Nietzsche and argues that he offers us a "virtue ethics of becoming" in which creativity plays a central role (195). Nietzsche, like Aristotle, is concerned with self-realization, but for him it's not a fixed telos related to the good for humans in general, but something unique, open-ended, and creative.

If asked to explain Hume's distinctive contribution to ethics, I'd focus more on how he represents the pre-eminent expression of an Enlightenment virtue ethics, and how his pluralism can open up dialogue between virtue ethics and utilitarian or contractarian views. Yes, he puts more emphasis on love and benevolence than do Aristotle and the ancient Greeks, or Kant and the moral rationalists, but one could point to many lesser-known modern theorists who have placed love or compassion at the centre of ethics -- from Christians who emphasize love over law, to Schopenhauer's morality of pity, to the eloquent treatment of Caring by Nel Noddings. Often these theorists have departed from the pluralism of the virtue tradition and tried to make one other-regarding sentiment the sole basis of ethics.

As for Nietzsche, his expressive individualist emphasis on creativity, pride, and self-development is more novel as a contribution to virtue ethics, although something he shared with many 19th-century thinkers influenced by Romanticism. For example, Nietzsche was a reader and admirer of Emerson, and Mill cites Wilhelm von Humboldt in On Liberty when upholding individuality and self-development as elements of human well-being. 

Love, self-realization, and creativity may not be mutually exclusive. Without love, I think we will find ourselves adrift in the world and alienated from ourselves. The growth of our minds, souls, and hearts means we are alive. Implementing these ideas requires creativity in the face of a chaotic universe. The virtues give us signposts on the road.

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