The Difficulty with the Virtue of Honesty

Abstract

Abstract This chapter considers the problem of circularity that Hume claims to find when he attempts to analyze the character trait of honesty with respect to property. It offers an explanation of the paradox Hume identifies and of his solution that sheds light on his entire theory of the artificial virtues, showing it to be rather radical at its foundations, though not in its consequences. One of the questions to answer is in what sense honesty is artificial and in what sense it is a virtue. It is argued that it is artificial in the sense that the attitudes and behavior that embody it are socially invented and this manufacture is then concealed, so that once the trait is widely internalized, it provides a prosthesis that lets human beings overcome their natural deficiencies. It is a virtue in Hume's own sense, but not according to the natural conception of virtue.

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