Hume's compatibilist contribution

HUME'S COMPATIBILIST CONTRIBUTION

Tom Minor

Hume thought that the "...long disputed question concerning liberty and necessity..." 1, which were his terms for what he saw as the compatible notions of free will and determinism, lay outside the scope of human understanding. This was so, Hume explains, because such questions regarding human liberty (free will) and necessity (determinism) had been, thus far, rendered un-instructive and un-entertaining by the "...labyrinth of obscure sophistry..." 2 which philosophers particularly, had been led into as they attempted to discuss these questions.

Desiring to renew our attention through his novel compatibilist approach, Hume attempts to resolve the apparent incompatibilism of free will (liberty) and determinism (necessity) by trying to make it appear "...that all men have ever agreed in the doctrine of both necessity and of liberty...and that the whole controversy has hitherto turned merely upon words." 3

For Hume, the thesis of determinism was equitable to the 'doctrine of necessity', which he illuminated as a 'universally allowed' way of thinking about the operations of cause and effect: the deterministic assumption that every effect (physical or mental) has antecedent causes and can, in principle, be predicted from understanding previous conditions and causal laws. Such determinism in the physical realm could be said to be universally allowed, but the suggestion of it within the human realm posed a serious threat to the conceptions of freedom and moral responsibility in Hume's heavily religious era. The question implicit to the acceptance of determinism or the 'doctrine of necessity', is how could punishment be appropriate if all human actions were products of causal laws? This question recurs throughout a reading of Liberty & Necessity (1748).

" Our idea, therefore, of necessity and causation arises entirely from the uniformity, observable in 1

David Hume, (1748) An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section VIII. ‘Liberty and Necessity’. Oxford: OU Press (2007) (pp. 59, §2) 2 3

ibid. ibid. §3

the operations of nature; where similar objects are constantly conjoined together, and the mind is determined by custom to infer the one from the appearance of the other. These two circumstances form the whole of that necessity, which we ascribe to matter. Beyond the constant conjunction [I] of similar objects, and the consequent inference [II] from one to the other, we have no notion of any necessity, or connexion.”4

Applied to human nature, Hume points out that the uniform conjunction between motives and voluntary actions is an inference and type of reasoning that is immanent to the human condition.

But an inference is all it is: "... all our faculties can never carry us farther in our knowledge…than barely to observe, that particular objects are constantly conjoined together, and the mind is carried, by a customary transition, from the appearance of one to the belief of the other. But… men still…believe, that they…perceive…a necessary connexion between the cause and effect..." 5 For Hume, man must relinquish his false belief that he can perceive further into the idea of necessity or causality than this 'constant conjunction' and 'subsequent inference', in order to put an end to the dispute between the supposedly incompatible notions of liberty and necessity, or freedom and determinism.

In true compatibilist style, Hume affirms that both the doctrines of necessity and liberty "…are not only consistent with morality, but are absolutely essential to its support.” 6 With necessity conforming to the two definitions of cause (constant conjunction of events and inference from one to another), and being founded upon "...the experiential union of like actions, with like motives, inclinations, and circumstances."7 The only allowance he gives to the refusal of such necessity is that people may not give these properties of human action the name of necessity.

Hume believed that human actions were temporary and perishable, and where they are simply caused by a deterministic chain of antecedents, could not be attributable to the person's 4

ibid. (pp. 60, §5) ibid (pp. 67, §21) 6 ibid (pp. 70, §26) 7 ibid. (pp. 70, §27) 5

character and therefore speak nothing of his honour of infamy. "The actions themselves may be blameable; they may be contrary to all the rules of morality and religion: But the person is not answerable for them...they proceeded from nothing in him, that is durable and constant, and leave nothing of that nature behind them..." 8 On such an account, punishment and vengeance become obsolete. This distinction between 'character' and 'action' allows for the invocation of a divine author, who is the ultimate cause of all that happens, and insofar as Hume had to subscribe to such a metaphysical absolute, this is certainly what is achieved, at least partially, by his explication. Upon the doctrine of necessity, criminal actions are no more proofs of a person being a criminal than being born could be such a proof.

Hume defines liberty as "...a power of acting or not acting, according to the determination of the will..."9, which he also thinks is universally allowed, except to the prisoner in chains. Liberty, in Humean sense, is also essential to morality insofar as human actions indicate the internal character of a person: "...where they proceed not from these principles, but are derived altogether from external violence.”10—the attribution of blame or praise would seem to be impossible.

Human actions either involve a certain amount of morality or locate the same guilt to the ultimate cause, the Creator God, who produces the first cause in the chain of causes that deterministically leads to all human actions, whether they are morally reprehensible or not. The conclusion therefore, that either man is not criminal for acting immorally or that the Deity and not man, is accountable to such actions, strike Hume as two impious options, which in their absurdity, falsify the doctrine from whence they came.

The first objection, that the 'infinite perfection' of the Deity somehow exonerates man from all his criminal undertakings, because all human action can be traced via a necessary chain to an ultimate author – is answered, rhetorically, by Hume himself as he invokes the conciliatory tone of the ancient Stoics, who, in agreement with this ‘ultimate authorship’, understood the whole 8

ibid. (pp. 70, §29) ibid. (pp. 68, §23) 10 ibid. (pp. 72, §31) 9

system of nature and every event within it (good and bad) as objects of joy and exultation. Such "...specious and sublime..."11 Stoicism, Hume thought to be "...in practice weak and ineffectual..."12 serving only "...for a moment, [to] please the imagination of a speculative man, who is placed in ease and security..."13 To establish that everything in regards to the whole system, is right; either disturbance or benevolence, does not diminish a man's frustrations when he is the victim of a crime.

The second objection, Hume admits as unsatisfactory, in that it is impossible "...to explain distinctly how the Deity can be the mediate cause of all the actions of men, without being the author of sin and moral turpitude."14 Indeed, a reconciliation of "...the indifference and contingency of human actions with prescience..." 15; the resolution of the falsity of determinism with the maintenance of God's prophetic omniscience, along with the defense of absolute decrees without a Deified authorship of sin "...has been found hitherto to exceed all the power of philosophy."16 Therefore, man may only live in the mystery, a mystery that Hume implies in order to allow his compatibilist approach to synthesise the possibility that the doctrine of liberty and necessity have always been agreed by men and have only ever been disputed as philosophical meditations which speak to the contrary of human existence.

Hume appeals to two definitions of cause (conjunction and inference) in order to illuminate his conception of the issue of free will (the doctrine of liberty). His compatibilism, which is said to have followed on from Hobbes, states that both the doctrine of liberty and necessity are required by morality, thus he believes in a deterministic universe, where men are free to choose their actions, even though these actions spring from causes which eventually lead back to God. Were he not under the scrutiny of the Roman Catholic Church, one can say that Hume may have gone 11

ibid. (pp.73, §34) ibid.

13 ibid.

14 ibid. (pp.74, §36) 15 ibid.

16 ibid.

12

a step further and indicated that man is not to held morally responsible for any of his actions, because determinism (the doctrine of necessity) was true, even without the necessity of divine authorship. It is arguable that his position could support this view, but since Hume was in fact liable to be executed on production of such a statement, he leaves us with a problem yet unsolved, one that implicitly casts doubt on the authenticity of the invocation of divine responsibility for all human actions.

From a reading of Liberty and Necessity (1748), one can only conclude that for Hume, the free will of man is compatible with the possibility of the truth of determinism: all actions have antecedent causes and man still has liberty to choose his actions even though all of his actions, nonetheless, belong to previous causes which at that time, could be conceived as originating from God. Man is not free when he is physically restrained, but this would refer to freedom of action qua freedom of will, which have more recently been delineated as separate issues. Under Hume's logic, such a prisoner should never have been imprisoned, because his actions came not from anything inherent in him, but were caused deterministically, by a chain of events, set in motion by a God that he (Hume) was obliged to pay homage to. In what seems like a genius twist, however, such admittance, of the doctrines of necessity and liberty, bring into question the infinite perfection and foreknowledge of such a God, highlighting the need for man to continue questioning the evidence of his liberty and the fact of his necessity.