To praise benevolence for the pleasure it brings to its recipients is to miss what is truly valuable in benevolent action. An action has moral worth not because it makes people happy but because it is done from duty, from respect for the moral law. Benevolence is indeed a duty—we ought to promote others' happiness—but what makes it morally worthy is not the happiness it produces but the good will from which it proceeds. An action done from benevolent inclination, without the motive of duty, may be praiseworthy and useful, but it lacks moral worth. Hume's account, by grounding merit in the pleasant consequences of benevolence, fails to capture the moral dignity that comes from acting from duty alone.

This is precisely right. Benevolence—the disposition to promote the happiness and welfare of others—is the most praiseworthy virtue because it most fully engages our sympathetic sentiments. When we observe or contemplate benevolent actions, we sympathize with the gratitude of the beneficiary and the noble motives of the benefactor, producing a compound sentiment of moral approval. The impartial spectator within us approves most highly of actions that flow from benevolent dispositions, because these actions are both meritorious (proceeding from praiseworthy motives) and beneficial (producing happiness for others). Hume's account could be strengthened by more explicitly analyzing the role of sympathy in generating these moral sentiments.

Hume is absolutely correct that benevolence is the highest virtue, and his explanation in terms of the pleasure and advantage it produces is sound utilitarian reasoning. However, we should recognize that benevolence is valuable not just in particular acts but as a general disposition or character trait. The utilitarian should cultivate and promote benevolent dispositions because people with such dispositions reliably produce happiness. Moreover, we should distinguish between different levels of moral thinking: at the intuitive level, we approve of benevolence directly through sentiment; at the critical level, we recognize that this sentiment is justified because benevolence tends to maximize utility. Hume's account operates primarily at the intuitive level.

Hume here gestures toward the virtue of benevolence, but his account lacks the teleological framework necessary to understand it properly. In the Aristotelian tradition, benevolence is a form of philia—the love appropriate to human community—and it is valued not merely because it produces pleasure but because it is a constituent of eudaimonia, human flourishing. We are by nature social animals, and our good involves living well in community with others. Benevolence is not valued instrumentally for the happiness it produces but intrinsically as part of the good life. Hume's sentimentalism, with its emphasis on pleasure and pain, cannot capture this richer understanding of why benevolence is truly excellent.