Hume and Racism
[ Seems the great skeptic and freethinker was a racist and antisemite. ]
David Hume is a philosopher highly respected for his clarity of thought and constructive use of scepticism. His scepticism, however, did not extend to all the prejudices of his time:
I am apt to suspect the Negroes to be naturally inferior to the Whites. There scarcely ever was a civilized nation of that complexion, nor even any individual, eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the Whites, such as the ancient Germans, the present Tartars, have still something eminent about them, in their valour, form of government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction between these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are Negro slaves dispersed all over Europe, of whom none ever discovered the symptoms of ingenuity; though low people, without education, will start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession. In Jamaica, indeed, they talk of one Negro as a man of parts and learning; but it is likely he is admired for slender accomplishments, like a parrot who speaks a few words plainly.1
The above quote comes from a footnote in Hume’s essay ‘Of National Character’. The footnote was not in the original 1748 version of the essay, but was added in 1753. The first two sentences were revised in 1777 by Hume in response to criticisms he received (this is the version above). The opening sentences of the original 1753 footnote read:
I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. On the other hand, …
Note that in this earlier version, Hume refers to other species, not other races. Non-whites were, it appears, not even human (or at least not the same kind of human). Although he was swayed to remove this claim, the passage of twenty-four years obviously did not changed his opinion of blacks.
To give some idea of context of the footnote(s), both versions come as a note attached to the end of this passage in the main text:
And indeed there is some reason to think, that all the nations which live beyond the polar circles or between the tropics, are inferior to the rest of the species, and are incapable of all the higher attainments of the human mind. The poverty and misery of the northern inhabitants of the globe, and the indolence of the southern, from their few necessities, may, perhaps, account for this remarkable difference, without having recourse to physical causes. This, however, is certain, that the characters of nations are very promiscuous in the temperate climates, and that almost all the general observations which have been formed of the more souther or more northern people in these climates, are found to be uncertain and fallacious.2
The discounting of ‘physical causes’ was part of Hume’s refutation of climate-based theories such as Montesquieu’s, which claimed that environmental factors had a large influence in determining intellectual abilities, with ‘temperate’ zones producing the optimal conditions for the development of superior peoples. Hume argued instead that sociological factors such as the form of government and character of the political body were more important. Note that although Hume didn’t accept Montesquieu’s reasoning, he did share the prejudice (that the inhabitants of temperate zones—such as Europeans—were in general more highly developed). Towards the end of the essay, the Scot speculates that the increased presence of strong liquors in southern lands contributes to their moral inferiority:
You may obtain anything of the Negroes by offering them strong drink, and may easily prevail with them to sell, not only their children, but their wives and mistresses, for a cask of brandy.3
Hume’s views were clearly a stark contrast to his empiricist philosophy, for there was plenty of empirical data contradict his ideas. There were, for instance, two black professors of philosophy in Europe at the time. And the Jamaican to whom Hume referred was Francis Williams, a well-educated schoolmaster who composed poetry in Latin. To Hume, however, he was merely a ‘parrot’—capable of mimicking the comments of others, but not of creating anything himself. An article on Francis Williams and contextualisation of Hume’s views [p.4] can be found here.
What relationship does Hume’s obvious racism have to his philosophy? For a worst-case scenario, consult Eric Morton’s article ‘Race and Racism in the works of David Hume’: “We may not dismiss Hume’s comments on black people as an aberrant instance of his shortsightedness that has nothing to do with his overall philosophy.” But surely Hume’s racism in a essay on national characteristics has very little to do with the theorising he is most remembered for—empiricism—and his enormous contribution to issues of pure philosophy, such as induction and causation? “Hume’s theory of knowledge is driven by Hume’s racism and the built-in racism in his philosophical and conceptual worldview.” Motion may show that Hume’s racism taints his own conceptual worldview (hardly a difficult task, given the evidence) but fails to justify philosophically how “the conceptual framework of empiricism itself may be racist.” Is it not possible to simply apply the abstract principles of Humes’s philosophy without the empirical prejudices the philosopher himself held?
CITATIONS:
1. David Hume, footnote to ‘Of National Character’ (1748), in The Philosophical Works of David Hume, Volume III, Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1996, p228.
2. ibid. p.228.
3. ibid. p.235.
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We may not dismiss Hume’s comments on black people as an aberrant instance of his shortsightedness that has nothing to do with his overall philosophy. However, there are scholars and professors who point out that Hume also made prejudicial remarks about the Irish, the Catholics, and the Jews. They say that Hume was only yielding to the cultural attitudes of his time and in this sense revealed that he was human too. Clearly, this line of argument is problematic when one investigates the totality of Hume’s position—his life, the entire essay, his philosophy of human nature in general, and the malignant influence his essay had on others. Hume’s attitude towards blacks cannot be dismissed as an aberrant observation. His racial law contributed to the subtext by which the idea of a human as slave was justified. His racial views were inextricably related to two of the major events of eighteenth-century European history—the enslavement of Africans and the subjugation and extermination of the people who occupied the overseas lands coveted by Europeans.
With the introduction of race-based slavery in 1650, and the gradual colonization of the New World, many European thinkers became systematically racist towards the people of the continent of Africa, as well as the inhabitants of the New World. 12 The expansionist rhetoric of many European thinkers included rampant racial theories of Caucasian, Aryan, or Anglo-Saxon destiny. They adopted various racial theories of human nature which fit the historical exegeses. For them there were two options: either Africans and Indians were civilized and not subject to enslavement and genocidal treatment by civilized Christians; or they were uncivilized and their lands were terra nullius and terra incognita, without local government and claimed by no one. The desire to exploit other people and continents inclined European thinkers to accept the idea that some men are by nature slaves, especially since the idea was acceptable to a man as important as David Hume. 13 The development of racism based on skin color occurred, or at least intensified, simultaneously with the increasing importance of the New World colonies and the twin policies of enslavement of black Africans and the extermination of Native Americans.
Hume’s racialist theory of human nature was one of several racial theories concocted to meet the eighteenth century European conditions of a people who had emerged as colonizing, conquering “nations on a worldwide quest for wealth and power.” 14
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Hume’s theoretical importance could be seen in his intellectual endeavors. During his lifetime, Hume wrote, lectured, taught, and served in governmental positions at home and abroad. He was a one-time British Under-Secretary of State, (where he dealt with colonial affairs). Also, during Hume’s lifetime the nations of Europe were experiencing the ordeal of change from agricultural societies to nation states with imperial ambitions. Economic power was shifting from the landed gentry to the middle classes and to large-scale employers, who, themselves, were being confronted by a growing class of wage earners. One might argue that the demonization of other groups, such as blacks and American Indians, offered a convenient philosophical framework in which the presumptive humanity of European serfs, peasants, and other lower classes was preserved even as their substantive humanity was being challenged, even undermined by the economic and social changes then unfolding in Europe.
An important factor in Europe’s economic change was the role of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The slave trade not only supported a leisurely life style for the growing middle and upper classes but it stimulated an intellectual debate and rethinking of cultural attitudes and cultural theorizing. The character of slavery provoked politicians and thinkers to reconsider European notions regarding the “social contract” of societal organization, e.g., who belonged in the human family and who did not and on what terms one did belong.
Slaving played a substantial role in the wealth of the United Kingdom and the fact that it was savage and brutal did not check its spread and growth. John Hawkins was the first Englishman to carry slaves in 1562; Queen Elizabeth I quickly became a shareholder in his later ventures. The demand for slaves was so great that by 1698 the monopoly given to the Royal African Company was withdrawn, and the trade was opened to all British subjects. 20 Philosophers like John Locke invested a large sum in the Royal African Company, an enterprise specifically devoted to trading in slaves for sale to the plantations in the Americas. 21 Locke also served in administrative capacities in a number of positions dealing directly with colonization and slavery. As unofficial secretary to the Lord Proprietors of Carolina, for example, Locke co-authored the “Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina” which provided a very un-Christian proviso that “every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slave of what opinion or religion soever.”
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Between 1650 and 1713 Europeans engaged in a number of wars amongst themselves for dominance in maritime trade, the slave trade, overseas possessions, and international markets. With the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Europe underwent a transference of power from several European states to a few. England was one of the principal beneficiaries. Along with land concessions won from foes, England extorted the asiento from Spain. The asiento (which was sought by France) granted England the lucrative right to supply not only her own colonies but all of the Spanish colonies in the Americas with African slaves. This amounted to a contract for providing hundreds of thousands of black slaves yearly. 23
The rise of Bristol and Liverpool from obscure English ports to great trading centers of the world depended on the towns’ constantly increasing involvement in slave traffic, a process that is tied to the depletion of people in Africa and that created the horrors of the Middle Passage. In 1708, the first slaver sailed from Liverpool. By 1720, it was home port for twenty-one ships in the slave trade. Twenty years later, well over half of England’s slave fleet sailed from Liverpool. A myriad of slave related industries necessary to support the ships, slavers, and sailors were established and made Bristol and Liverpool boom towns. As the need for slaves increased, guns were shipped to Africa and wars were encouraged in Africa among Africans for the purpose of capturing prisoners to be sold. Captain John Newton, author of the hymn ‘Amazing Grace’ and a reformed slave-trader who became Reverend John Newton, admitted as much, after his reformation and renunciation of slaving. He asserted: “The far greater part of the wars, in Africa, would cease, if the Europeans would cease to tempt them, by offering goods (guns) for slaves. The intercourse of the Europeans has assimilated them more to our manners: but I am afraid has rather had a bad than a good influence on their morals ... they are generally worse in their conduct in proportion to their acquaintance with us.” 24 The interactive relationships of imperialism are important. Newton’s description focuses our attention on one very significant interactive aspect of European influence in the “underdevelopment” of Africa from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries which allows us to see that by the middle of the eighteenth century, Birmingham alone was manufacturing over 100,000 muskets annually to be sold in Africa. Half of the 2,700,000 tons of gunpowder exported each year also went there. 25
As a critical student of philosophy what conclusions can one draw from Hume’s statements about Africans? How can one explain the phenomenon of a European philosopher who confronts people and cultures and incorporates them into his worldview as less than human and civilized? Two conclusions immediately come to mind. First, Hume’s views are not politically innocent. Hume’s use of Europeans and European culture as paradigms of the “best” in human development and human culture is a conclusions that hides culturally and politically laden assumptions with grave consequences for good science. Second, Hume’s notions about Africa and Africans, Indians and Asians were not based on factual, empirical information which he had gained by “experience and observation.” No, his empirical methodology did not fail him nor did he fail it. The issue is that he never had an empirical methodology to explain racial and cultural differences in human nature. He only pretended that he had. I argue that the purpose of his racial law was not one of knowledge, but one of justification for power and domination by some over others.
If, as Hume claimed, he was scrupulously obedient to an empirical methodology, then surely an empiricist as respected, experienced and erudite as Hume should have known, or could have discovered, that from the Nile to the Niger, from the Arctic to the Caribbean, from ancient times through European discovery, powerful cultures rose and fell on the African, North and South American continents leaving behind obvious legacies of civilization that would amaze any unbiased observer. After all, he had seen service in overseas governmental positions and he was recognized as being a product of the so-called “Enlightenment.”
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Another interesting example of Hume’s racial theories that reveals historical inconsistencies and absurdities can be seen in his opinion regarding Jews. Hume allowed that the dispersal of the Jewish people and their climatic conditions may have had a singular influence on their character that would have nothing in common with the people amongst whom they lived:
“Thus the Jews in Europe, and the Armenians in the East, have a peculiar character; and the former are as much noted for fraud as the latter for probity.” 41
Hume rejected the climate theory for Africans who had settled in other communities, such as England, and the free blacks in America, and opted instead for listing them as inferior in all seasons. What makes this point very important is not the fact that it is at variance with Hume’s empirical methodology and known historical facts—facts that had been around for over a century and were readily available to Hume—but that Hume wrote as if he was ignorant of these facts.
One of England’s greatest writers (and a keen observer of human differences, I might add) William Shakespeare, wrote two plays between 1601 and 1620: Othello, and The Merchant of Venice. Considering the portrayal of the two main characters in the plays, Othello and Shylock, one can assume that the cultural climate in seventeenth-century England was more receptive to a Christianized black than to a practicing Jew. It is not accidental that the woman who perishes at the hand of Othello, and the other woman who judges and ruins Shylock—Desdemona and Portia—are described by Shakespeare as blonde. It gives added emphasis to the contrast with the two dark-skinned and dark-haired men—who represent the two ancient cultures, Africa and Asia—polarized by the younger, middle culture of Europe. Their presence in England’s literature calls attention to this cultural tension.
The ethical and moral questions regarding slavery, freedom and social justice were probably debated in England in Hume’s time, so Hume could not plausibly feign ignorance of such issues.
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His comment on blacks in ‘Of National Characters,’ though a mere footnote, had an enormous influence on racist thinkers for the next half-century. Winthrop Jordan, who has analyzed English and American racist literature of the period quite thoroughly, reveals that Hume stated the case of black inferiority “more boldly than anyone.” According to Jordan, Hume went further than Aristotle and earlier thinkers “by hitching superiority to complexion.” 43 Many American and European thinkers and politicians cited Hume as their authority on race. Immanuel Kant took Hume’s findings as establishing that “the Negroes of Africa have by nature no feeling that rises above the trifling.”
Mr. Hume challenges anyone to cite a simple example in which a Negro has shown talents, and asserts that among the hundreds of thousands of blacks who are transported elsewhere from their countries, although many of them have even been set free, still not a single one was ever found who presented anything great in art or science or any other praiseworthy quality, even though among the whites some continually rise aloft from the lowest rabble, and through superior gifts earn respect in the world. So fundamental is the difference between these two races of man, and it appears to be as great in regard to mental capacities as in color ... The blacks are very vain but in the Negro’s way, and so talkative that they must be driven apart from each other with thrashings. 44
Hume’s empirical methodology assumes the existence of distinct racial variants that shape the historical paths of humans of different skin colors. Given that he did not provide any supporting evidence for his expostulations, we may conclude that his theories of human understanding and human nature are not universal; nor do they have universal applicability since they reject or ignore the greater part of the human family. Hume’s views are not merely the banal blunders that are bound to occur in complex philosophical arguments. On the contrary, Hume represented a form of color-racism that is a modern phenomenon which entered the world about the same time as European imperialism did.
Hume played a major and conscious role in the institutionalization of the hatred of blacks.
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