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David Hume vs Jean-Jacques Rousseau on Virtue

Hume's account of virtue is naturalistic and sentimentalist: the virtues are character traits useful or agreeable to ourselves and to others, grounded in sympathy with their effects. Rousseau's account is moralistic and reformist: natural human virtue has been corrupted by civilization, and recovering it requires the reconstruction of social conditions that allow natural sentiment to flourish without comparison or vanity. Hume's tone is ironic and conservative; Rousseau's is earnest and revolutionary.

About this topic

Virtue has been a central category of ethics since the Greeks treated it as the excellence proper to a human being. Plato analyzed the cardinal virtues, Aristotle developed virtue ethics as habituated dispositions of character, and Confucian and Buddhist traditions parallel this concern with cultivated moral excellence. Medieval thinkers added the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity to the classical inheritance. The modern revival of virtue ethics in the twentieth century returned attention to character and practical wisdom as the ground of moral life.

For a side-by-side overview of the two philosophers more broadly, see the full David Hume vs Jean-Jacques Rousseau comparison. To browse philosophy more widely on this theme, see the Virtue quotes hub.

Representative quotes on virtue

David Hume on virtue

  • “He is happy whom circumstances suit his temper; but he is more excellent who suits his temper to any circumstances.”

    § 6.9 : Of Qualities Useful to Ourselves, Pt. 1

  • “When men are most sure and arrogant they are commonly most mistaken.”

    § 9.13 : Conclusion, Pt. 1

  • “The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.”

    Part X - With regard to courage or abasement

  • “Playfully ironic letter to Adam Smith regarding the positive reception of "The Theory of Moral Sentiments”

    A wise man's kingdom is his own breast: or, if he ever looks farther, it will only be to the judgment of a select few, who are free from prejudices , and capable of examining his work . Nothing indeed can be a stronger presumption of falsehood than the approbation of the multitude; and Phocion, you know, always suspected himself of some blunder when he was attended with the applauses of the popula

  • “Heaven and Hell suppose two distinct species of men, the good and the bad; but the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue. -- Were one to go round the world with an intention of giving a good supper to the righteous, and a sound drubbing to the wicked, he would frequently be embarrassed in his choice, and would find that the merits and the demerits of most men and women scarcely amount to the value of either.”

    Essay on the Immortality of the Soul

Jean-Jacques Rousseau on virtue

  • “A country cannot subsist well without liberty , nor liberty without virtue .”

    As quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tryon Edwards , p. 301.

  • Attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

    “Plants are shaped by cultivation and men by education.”

  • Attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

    “To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.”

  • Attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

    “People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.”

  • Attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

    “Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”

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