Comments on Mikko Tolonen’s “Politeness, Paris and the Treatise”
Hume Society Meeting, Toronto, July 2005
Elisa A. Hurley
Georgetown University
hurley@georgetown.edu
Mikko Tolonen’s paper, “Politeness, Paris and the Treatise,” has two main tasks: 1) to
argue that Hume advances a consistent account of politeness which appears first in a 1734
letter from Paris to Michael Ramsay and is developed further in his discussion of the natural
and artificial virtues in Book 3 of the Treatise and 2) to situate this account within a larger
18th century debate about the nature of politeness. According to Tolonen, this debate
centered around the question of whether politeness ought to be understood as a natural
virtue or quality of humankind, viz., the “virtuous sociability” promoted by Shaftesbury,
Ramsay, Addison and Steele; or whether, and following Mandeville, politeness was more
properly understood as an artificial virtue—i.e., as a moral institution designed to allow us
to indulge our high opinions of ourselves while at the same time fostering the smooth
functioning of civil society. Tolonen claims that, pace much recent scholarship on the issue,
Hume consistently comes down on the latter side of this debate. It is evident from early on
in Hume’s writings, he claims, that politeness is for Hume an “outward principle” rather than
a “natural quality of the heart”; it is, in other words, a prime example of what Hume will
come to call an “artificial virtue.”
To bolster his case, after briefly summarizing the historical debate and giving us his
take on Hume’s letter to Ramsay, Tolonen spends the second half of his paper looking
closely at Hume's discussion of politeness in relation to the passion of pride in Treatise 3.3.2
(SBN 592-601). He argues that Hume there makes it quite clear that politeness is, along
with justice, a central artificial virtue: both are necessary for the continued cultivation of
our natural, self-promoting passions—pride and self-interest—within the confines of civil
society. In this passage, Tolonen claims, Hume is suggesting that politeness, far from
reflecting an inner quality natural to human beings, is, strictly speaking, hypocritical,
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because it is concerned with providing an outward appearance of humility and deference,
while hiding our true (and often perfectly appropriate) inner feelings of pride.
Tolonen’s paper offers a rich account of Hume’s view of politeness, one that touches
on a number of deep and interesting issues both in intellectual history (such as 18th century
debates about the significance of court civility and manners) and in Hume scholarship more
specifically (including Hume’s theory of artificial virtues, the operation of two central
principles—viz., sympathy and comparison—in Hume’s moral psychology, and Hume’s
famously difficult account of the passion of pride). All of these areas are ripe for discussion.
Since I am not an historian of ideas, I will not engage with Tolonen’s reconstruction of the
18th century debates on the nature of manners and politeness, deferring to those in the
audience who are better versed in such topics. Instead, I want to question whether we
have enough evidence to understand Hume as proving anything like a consistent and unified
theory of politeness as a central artificial virtue analogous to justice. I suggest that a closer
look at both Hume’s letter to Ramsay and the Treatise, as well as a review of some of his
uses of “politeness” in other writings, raises serious doubts about such claims.
Tolonen makes a compelling case that in the Treatise, Hume suggests that there is an
artificial virtue concerned with the regulation and redirection of the passion of pride and that
it is in many ways analogous to the artificial virtue of justice. Hume is fairly explicit about
this: “In like manner, therefore, as we establish the laws of nature in order to secure
property in society, and prevent the opposition of self-interest; we establish the rules of
good-breeding, in order to prevent the opposition of men’s pride, and render conversation
agreeable and inoffensive.”1 Tolonen therefore seems right to suggest that good breeding is
an artificial virtue designed to redirect and cultivate natural pride just as justice is an
1
T 3.3.2.10; SBN 597. See also T 3.3.1.9; SBN 577.
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artificial virtue designed to redirect and cultivate natural self-interest, both for the sake of,
and within the confines of, civil society.2
But is politeness the same as “good-breeding”? Throughout this section and in fact
throughout the Treatise as a whole, Hume uses “good manners” and “good-breeding”
almost exclusively (and interchangeably) as the names for the artificial virtue in question.3
In fact, the term “politeness” appears only once in the Treatise. 4 While that appearance is
in the section Tolonen focuses on for his analysis—viz., “Of Greatness of Mind”—I do not
think we can conclude from this fact that “politeness” is just another name for the artificial
means by which we regulate our pride both for the benefit of others and so that we can
continue privately to cultivate our pride within a civil society. And we certainly should not
conclude from this single use that Hume is here solidifying anything like a general theory of
politeness, as Tolonen claims. For the type of politeness that Hume is operating with here is
just one of several concepts to which the term “politeness” seems to refer in his writings.
To see this, I want to begin by returning to the initial piece of evidence that Tolonen
marshals for his interpretation of Hume’s view of politeness, viz., his 1734 letter to Michael
Ramsay. In response to Ramsay’s suggestion that the English have more “real Politeness of
the Heart” and the French a “Better way of expressing it,” Hume in the letter suggests that
during his time in Paris, he has found things to be just opposite, that, in fact, “the French
have more real Politeness & The English the better Method of expressing it.” 5 Tolonen
interprets this passage as expressing Hume’s disagreement with his mentor’s view that
Whether good breeding is one of the central artificial virtues, as Tolonen claims, seems to me a more
dubious claim. It is worth pointing out that Hume himself does not include good manners or good
breeding within the section explicitly discussing artificial virtues in the Treatise. Instead, he deals with
good manners and good breeding almost wholly within the confines of his discussion of the natural
virtue of (well-regulated) pride. Now, it is true that he includes it several times in lists of artificial
virtues—see, e.g., T 3.3.6.1; SBN 618 and T 3.3.1.9; SBN 577. But if it were in fact a central artificial
virtue, one might have expected Hume to treat it explicitly as such.
3 See, in addition to the above, T 1.3.13.15; SBN 151, T 3.3.2.10; SBN 597, and T 3.3.6.1; SBN 618.
4 The passage reads: “When it goes beyond its just bounds, [pride] loses the first advantage [i.e., its
utility], and even becomes prejudicial; which is the reason why we condemn an extravagant pride and
ambition, however regulated by the decorums of good-breeding and politeness” (T 3.3.2.14; SBN
600).
5 David Hume to Michael Ramsay, September 12, 1734, 20. The Letters of David Hume, Vol. 1, edited
by J.Y.T. Greig (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932); 19–21.
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politeness is something that springs from within (i.e., that it is a quality of the heart), and,
furthermore, as suggesting that Hume instead believes that politeness is an artificial
principle or quality that begins with outward gestures and expressions and can only make
an imprint on one’s character, and therefore become “real politeness,” when such gestures
expressions are constantly and consistently applied.
But it is not clear why Tolonen draws this lesson from what Hume says in the letter.
For consider what Hume writes immediately following the passage quoted above:
By real Politeness I mean Softness of Temper, & a sincere Inclination to oblige & be
serviceable; . . . By Expressions of Politeness, I mean these outward Deferences and
Ceremonies, which Custom has invented, to supply the Defect of real Politeness or
Kindness, that is unavoidable toward Strangers & indifferent Persons. . . . 6
Here Hume seems precisely to be maintaining a distinction between real politeness—which
has to do with what appear to be qualities of character like sincerity and softness of
temper—and expressions of politeness, which have to do with our outward manners and
with following the rules of decorum.
Hume goes on in the letter to say that the French are actually quite dreadful at the
expressions of politeness. While the general civilities and manners—i.e., the expressions of
politeness—of the English are typically so well-calibrated, refined, and subtle that we have a
hard time even putting our finger on just what it is that strikes us as so polite about the
English fine gentleman, the civilities of the French are “too glaring” and “absurd.” Their
expressions of politeness and deference are, he says, “too remote” from the truth, i.e., they
are excessive, contrived, and overdone, and unlike the manners of the English, too obvious
and affected to be pleasing to observers. It is hard, therefore, to see how it could be that
the French could have more “real politeness” if that is conceived, as Tolonen thinks it should
be, as solely a matter of outward gestures and expressions of politeness being properly
habitualized and internalized.
6
Ibid., 20.
4
That said, Hume does allow, as Tolonen points out, that “the little Niceties of the
French Behaviour, tho’ troublesome & impertinent, yet serve to polish the ordinary Kind of
People & prevent Rudeness & Brutality.”7 Tolonen relies heavily on this claim to support his
suggestion that, for Hume, politeness is often a matter of internalizing outward expressions
until they become a matter of habit. But it is not clear that this passage supports Tolonen’s
further claim that, according to Hume, such internalization is all there is to “real” politeness.
Hume certainly does seem to be suggesting that where there is a lack of real politeness—as,
for instance, there might be among the “ordinary Kind of People”—then external
expressions of politeness, even those that are overwrought and absurd, can step in and pick
up the slack, removing “rudeness and brutality” from the interactions of such people. And it
may even turn out that, for those lacking real politeness, these rules and expressions can
be internalized through practice and habit, thereby becoming a matter of second nature.
But are these internalized “Niceties” that Hume speaks of the same as “real politeness”?
Contrary to Tolonen’s suggestion, Hume does not give us any indication that this is the
case. After all, he explicitly says that we need the expressions to step in when real
politeness and kindness are failing us. It seems that Hume is keeping in place the
distinction between expressions of politeness, which can and perhaps sometimes ought to
be internalized so that they can reliably be counted on to pick up the slack caused by the
lack of real politeness, and real politeness, a genuine quality of a person’s character
comparable to kindness. In other words, even if Hume does speak of a form of politeness
as an artificial virtue, that does not support the claim that he takes politeness to be wholly
an artificial virtue.
Skepticism about Tolonen’s central claim is bolstered by other remarks about
politeness that Hume makes in his writings. To be sure, Hume several times in his Essays
and letters speaks of “politeness of manners,” by which he seems to mean specifically the
rituals or ceremonies of civility and deference that are needed to rein in our natural
7
Ibid., 21.
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inclinations and “curb and conceal that presumption and arrogance so natural to the human
mind."8 This is, of course, just the use picked up in Hume’s single Treatise reference to
politeness, where he speaks specifically of the “decorums” of politeness which are
synonymous with good breeding and good manners. It is clear then that Hume sometimes
does use “politeness” to designate what Tolonen suggests he does, viz., an artificial virtue
concerning refinement of manners and rules of civility that we need to follow when our
natural inclinations toward deference and civility fail us.9
But there are also several places where Hume uses the term “politeness” to refer to
what seems to be a more natural feature of character, as well. In a 1776 letter to Horace
Walpole, for instance, Hume uses it in conjunction with “humanity” to refer to a “usual”
quality of Walpole’s character.10 In another letter from that year, Hume describes
Rousseau’s constitution and character in some detail, claiming at one point that everyone
who meets him admires the “simplicity of his manners, his natural unaffected politeness,
the gaiety and fineness of his conversation.”11 And in other letters, Hume links politeness to
hospitality,12 ties it to the agreeableness of conversation,13 and includes it on a list of
companionable qualities along with amiability, gaiety, and sociability. 14 These uses suggest
a view of politeness as, at least sometimes, a genuine feature or quality of someone’s
See “On the Rise of Progress of the Arts and Sciences,” 127-28. David Hume, Essays Moral, Political
and Literary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963): 112-38. See also “Of National Characters” and
his letter to Lord Elibank, April 12, 1758.
9 An examination of his Essays and letters reveals that Hume most often uses “politeness” to indicate
a general refinement, cultivation and learnedness displayed in the arts, letters and sciences, and
among particular peoples, nations, and cultures of the world (see in particular, “On the Rise and
Progress of the Arts and Sciences”; “Of National Characters”; “Of Refinement in the Arts”; and “Of the
Standard of Taste”; and “Of Essay Writing”). Arguably, then, the use of politeness that Tolonen picks
up in a more narrow application of this broader notion, i.e., it refers to refinement and cultivation as
applied to manners, specifically.
10 David Hume to Horace Walpole, November 20, 1766, 109. The Letters of David Hume, Vol. 2, 10811. See also his correction to his remarks regarding Horace Walpole in his letter to Thomas Becket,
December, 1766.
11 David Hume to the Comtesse de Boufflers, April 3, 1766, The Letters of David Hume, Vol. 2., 34-38.
12 David Hume to the Comtesse de Boufflers, May 15, 1761 and October 19, 1763.,
13 David Hume to the Comtesse de Boufflers, January 22, 1763,
14 David Hume to the Comtesse de Boufflers, January 19, 1766.
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character; at the very least, they do not obviously support the idea of politeness an artificial
principle, as always a matter of expressions or manners that have been internalized.
Finally, in the second Enquiry, Hume makes politeness’s status as a virtue explicit.
Although Hume had by then given up the natural/artificial virtue distinction, if we look at his
several references to politeness in that text, we can distinguish two ways in which he sees it
as a quality of mind immediately agreeable to others, consistent with the two uses of
“politeness” I have been highlighting. On the one hand, he refers to politeness as an
immediately agreeable quality of a person similar in this respect to wit and ingenuity. 15 On
the other hand, he uses “politeness” as synonymous with good manners and as a matter of
following “rules” which are designed to facilitate smooth social intercourse and ease of
conversation in a way that is immediately agreeable to others. 16
So what does all of this mean for Hume’s overall account of politeness? While I
certainly think that we have sufficient evidence to conclude that the good breeding and
good manners that Hume discusses in the Treatise are of a piece with the “expressions of
politeness” that he mentions in his early letter to Michael Ramsay, I believe it would be
hasty to conclude, as Tolonen does, that politeness is solely an artificial virtue for Hume.
For all that the evidence indicates, the “real politeness” Hume refers to in his letter may
very well be a natural quality of politeness, indicating a natural softness of temper or
refinement, an admirable and agreeable quality of character comparable to kindness,
generosity, humanity, or wit. We can therefore agree with Tolonen that Hume develops a
consistent account of good manners and other outward expressions of politeness, viz., as
artificial means to make up for a lack of natural generosity, hospitality, deference, and
kindness on our part toward others and therefore as elements of an important artificial
virtue. And it may even be true that Hume focuses more on this aspect of politeness—its
rules and manners, i.e., its artificiality—in his more theoretically rigorous works like the
15
16
See EPM 8.4; SBN 262, EPM 8.15; SBN 267, and EPM 9.19; SBN 281.
See EPM 8.1; SBN 261.
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Treatise and the second Enquiry. But (and I’m speculating now) that may only indicate that
he has found “real” or natural politeness to be, among his contemporaries, quite rare. In
any case, I think we should be dubious of Tolonen’s claim that Hume advances a unified and
consistent theory of politeness as an artificial virtue. What this means for Hume’s place in
the historical debate about the nature and relative merits of politeness, I leave to others to
decide.17
My thanks to Tom Beauchamp for helpful discussion on these topics and to Thane Naberhaus for his
thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this commentary.
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