Themes, Arguments, and Ideas

THEMES, ARGUMENTS, AND IDEAS

The Uncertainty of Causation
Hume observes that while we may perceive two events that seem to occur in
conjunction, there is no way for us to know the nature of their connection. Based on
this observation, Hume argues against the very concept of causation, or cause and
effect. We often assume that one thing causes another, but it is just as possible that
one thing does not cause the other. Hume claims that causation is a habit of
association, a belief that is unfounded and meaningless. Still, he notes that when we
repeatedly observe one event following another, our assumption that we are witnessing
cause and effect seems logical to us. Hume holds that we have an instinctive belief in
causality, rooted in our own biological habits, and that we can neither prove nor
discount this belief. However, if we accept our limitations, we can still function without
abandoning our assumptions about cause and effect. Religion suggests that the world
operates on cause and effect and that there must therefore be a First Cause, namely
God. In Hume’s worldview, causation is assumed but ultimately unknowable. We do not
know there is a First Cause, or a place for God.

The Problem of Induction

Induction is the practice of drawing general conclusions based on particular
experiences. Although this method is essential to empiricism and the scientific method,
there is always something inherently uncertain about it, because we may acquire new
data that are different and that disprove our previous conclusions. Essentially, the
principle of induction teaches us that we can predict the future based on what has
happened in the past, which we cannot. Hume argues that in the absence of real
knowledge of the nature of the connection between events, we cannot adequately
justify inductive assumptions. Hume suggests two possible justifications and rejects
them both. The first justification is functional: It is only logical that the future must
resemble the past. Hume pointed out that we can just as easily imagine a world of
chaos, so logic cannot guarantee our inductions. The second justification is that we can
assume that something will continue to happen because it has always happened before.
To Hume, this kind of reasoning is circular and lacks a foundation in reason. Despite the
efforts of John Stuart Mill and others, some might argue that the problem of induction
has never been adequately resolved. Hume left the discussion with the opinion that we
have an instinctual belief in induction, rooted in our own biological habits, that we
cannot shake and yet cannot prove. Hume allows that we can still use induction, like
causation, to function on a daily basis as long as we recognize the limitations of our
knowledge.

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Religious Morality Versus Moral Utility
Hume proposes the idea that moral principles are rooted in their utility, or usefulness,
rather than in God’s will. His version of this theory is unique. Unlike his Utilitarian
successors, such as John Stuart Mill, Hume did not think that moral truths could be
arrived at scientifically, as if we could add together units of utility and compare the
relative utility of various actions. Instead, Hume was a moral sentimentalist who
believed that moral principles cannot be intellectually justified as scientific solutions to
social problems. Hume argues that some principles simply appeal to us and others do
not. Moral principles appeal to us because they promote our interests and those of our
fellow human beings, with whom we naturally sympathize. In other words, humans are
biologically inclined to approve and support whatever helps society, since we all live in a
community and stand to benefit. Hume used this simple but controversial insight to
explain how we evaluate a wide array of phenomena, from social institutions and
government policies to character traits and individual behavior.

The Division of Reason and Morality

Hume denies that reason plays a determining role in motivating or discouraging
behavior. Instead, he believes that the determining factor in human behavior is passion.
As proof, he asks us to evaluate human actions according to the criterion of
“instrumentalism”—that is, whether an action serves the agent’s purpose. Generally, we
see that they do not and that human beings tend to act out of some other motivation
than their best interest. Based on these arguments, Hume concludes that reason alone
cannot motivate anyone to act. Rather, reason helps us arrive at judgments, but our
own desires motivate us to act on or ignore those judgments. Therefore, reason does
not form the basis of morality—it plays the role of an advisor rather than that of a
decision-maker. Likewise, immorality is immoral not because it violates reason but
because it is displeasing to us. This argument angered English clergy and other religious
philosophers who believed that God gave humans reason to use as a tool to discover
and understand moral principles. By removing reason from its throne, Hume denied
God’s role as the source of morality.

Finding God in an Orderly Universe

Hume argues that an orderly universe does not necessarily prove the existence of God.
Those who hold the opposing view claim that God is the creator of the universe and the
source of the order and purpose we observe in it, which resemble the order and
purpose we ourselves create. Therefore, God, as creator of the universe, must possess
intelligence similar, though superior, to ours. Hume explains that for this argument to
hold up, it must be true that order and purpose appear only as a direct result of design.
He points out that we can observe order in many mindless processes, such as
generation and vegetation. Hume further argues that even if we accept that the
universe has a design, we cannot know anything about the designer. God could be
morally ambiguous, unintelligent, or even mortal. The design argument does not prove
the existence of God in the way we conceive him: all-knowing, all-powerful, and entirely
beneficent. The existence of evil, Hume holds, proves that if God exists, God cannot fit
these criteria. The presence of evil suggests God is either all-powerful but not
completely good or he is well-meaning but unable to destroy evil, and so not all-
powerful.

The Bundle Theory of the Self

Hume asks us to consider what impression gives us our concept of self. We tend to
think of ourselves as selves—stable entities that exist over time. But no matter how
closely we examine our own experiences, we never observe anything beyond a series of
transient feelings, sensations, and impressions. We cannot observe ourselves, or what
we are, in a unified way. There is no impression of the “self” that ties our particular
impressions together. In other words, we can never be directly aware of ourselves, only
of what we are experiencing at any given moment. Although the relations between our
ideas, feelings, and so on, may be traced through time by memory, there is no real
evidence of any core that connects them. This argument also applies to the concept of
the soul. Hume suggests that the self is just a bundle of perceptions, like links in a
chain. To look for a unifying self beyond those perceptions is like looking for a chain
apart from the links that constitute it. Hume argues that our concept of the self is a
result of our natural habit of attributing unified existence to any collection of associated
parts. This belief is natural, but there is no logical support for it.

David Hume
The 18th-century writer David Hume is one of the world’s great
philosophical voices because he hit upon a key fact about human nature: that
we are more influenced by our feelings than by reason. This is, at one level,
possibly a great insult to our self-image, but Hume thought that if we could
learn to deal well with this surprising fact, we could be (both individually and
collectively) a great deal calmer and happier than if we denied it.
 
Hume was born in Edinburgh in 1711 to a family that was long established
but far from rich.  He was the second son, and it was clear early on that he
would need to find a job eventually. But nothing seemed to suit him. He tried
law (the vocation of his father and older brother), but soon decided that it was
“a laborious profession” requiring “the drudgery of a whole life.” He was
considered for academic posts at the University of Edinburgh and the
University of Glasgow, but he didn’t land either job.
 

 
So he set out to become a public intellectual, someone who would make his
money selling books to the general public. It was hard going. His first
book, A Treatise of Human Nature, for which he had the highest hopes, met
with a dismal reception. “Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than
my Treatise,” he wrote. “It fell dead-born from the press, without reaching
such distinction, as even to excite a murmur among the zealots.”
 
But he kept at it, realising that the blame largely lay with the way he had
expressed his ideas, and doggedly trained himself to write in a more
accessible and popular manner. Eventually he did find an audience. His later
works, history books and collections of elegant essays were bestsellers of the
day. As he would say, not without some pride:  “The money given me by the
booksellers much exceeded any thing formerly know in England; I was
become not only independent but opulent.”
 
1. Feelings and Reason
 
Hume’s philosophy is built around a single powerful observation: that the key
thing we need to get right in life is feeling rather than rationality. It sounds
like an odd conclusion. Normally we assume that what we need to do is train
our minds to be as rational as possible: to be devoted to evidence and logical
reasoning and committed to preventing our feelings from getting in the way.
 
But Hume insisted that, whatever we may aim for, ‘reason is the slave of
passion.’ We are more motivated by our feelings than by any of the
comparatively feeble results of analysis and logic. Few of our leading
convictions are driven by rational investigation of the facts; we decide
whether someone is admirable, what to do with our spare time, what
constitutes a successful career or who to love on on the basis of feeling above
anything else. Reason helps a little, but the decisive factors are bound up with
our emotional lives – with our passions as Hume calls them.
 
 
Hume lived in a time known as the Age of Reason, when many claimed that
the glory of human beings consists in their rationality. But for Hume, a
human is just another kind of animal.  
 
Hume was deeply attentive to the curious way that we very often reason
from, rather than to, our convictions. We find an idea nice or threatening and
on that basis alone declare it true or false. Reason only comes in later to
support the original attitude.  
 
 
What Hume didn’t believe – however – was that all feelings are acceptable
and equal. That is why he firmly believed in the education of the passions.
People have to learn to be more benevolent, more patient, more at ease with
themselves and less afraid of others. But to be taught these things, they need
an education system that addresses feelings rather than reason. This is why
Hume so fervently believed in the role and significance of public
intellectuals: these were people who – unlike the university professors Hume
grew to dislike immensely – had to excite a passion-based attachment to
ideas, wisdom and insight (only if they succeeded would they have the
money to eat). It was for this reason that they had to write well, use colourful
examples and have recourse to wit and charm.
 
Hume’s insight is that if you want to change people’s beliefs, reasoning with
them like a normal philosophy professor cannot be the most effective
strategy, he is pointing out that we have to try to adjust sentiments by
sympathy, reassurance, good example, encouragement and what he called Art
– and only later, for a few determined souls, try to make the case on the basis
of facts and logic.
 
2. Religion
 

A key place where Hume made use of the idea of the priority of feeling over
reason was in connection with religion.
 
Hume didn’t think it was ‘rational’ to believe in God, that is, he didn’t think
there were compelling logical arguments in favour of the existence of a deity.
He himself seems to have floated between mild agnosticism – there might be
a God, I’m not sure – and mild Theism – There is a God, but it doesn’t make
much difference to me that there is. But the idea of a vindictive God – ready
to punish people in an afterlife for not believing in him in this one – he
considered a cruel superstition.
 
Hume’s central point is that religious belief isn’t the product of reason. So
arguing for or against it on the basis of facts doesn’t touch the core issue. To
try to persuade someone to believe or not believe with well honed arguments
seemed particularly daft to Hume. This is why he was a foremost defender of
the concept of religious toleration. We should not treat those who disagree
with us over religion as rational people who have made an error of reasoning
(and so need to be put right), but rather as passionate, emotion-driven
creatures who should be left in peace so long as they do likewise. Trying to
have a rational argument over religion was, for Hume, the height of folly and
arrogance.
 
3. Common Sense
 

Hume was what is technically known as a sceptic, someone committed to

doubting a lot of the common-sense ideas of the day.
 

 
One of the things he doubted was the concept of what is technically called
personal identity – the idea that we have that we can understand ourselves
and have a more or less graspable enduring identity that runs through life.
Hume pointed out that there is no such thing as a core self: “When I enter
most intimately into what I call myself,” he famously explained, “I always
stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or
shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure.  I never can catch myself at any time
without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception.”
Hume concluded that we aren’t really the neat definable people reason tells
us that we are and that we seem to be when we look at ourselves in the mirror
or casually use the grand misleading word I, we are “nothing but a bundle or
collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an
inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.”
 
Yet despite being sceptical of temper, Hume was very happy for us to hold
onto most of our common sense beliefs – because they are what help us to
make our way in the world. Trying to be rational about everything is a special
kind of madness.
 
 
Hume was making a sly dig at Descartes. The French philosopher had died
60 years before Hume was born but his intellectual influence was still very
much alive. He had argued we should throw out every fruit of the mind that
wasn’t perfectly rational.  But Hume proposed that hardly anything we do is
ever truly rational. And yet he ventured that most beliefs are justified simply
because they work. They’re useful to us. They help us get on with what we
want to do. The test of a belief isn’t its provable truth, but its utility.
 
Hume is offering a corrective – which we sometimes need – to our
fascination with prestigious, but not actually very important, logical
conundrums. In opposition to academic niceties, he was a sceptical
philosopher who stood for common sense, championing the everyday and the
wisdom of the unlearned and the ordinary.
 
4. Ethics
 
Hume took a great interest in the traditional philosophical topic of ethics, the
conundrum of how humans can be good. He argued that morality isn’t about
having moral ideas, it’s about having been trained, from an early age, in the
art of decency through the emotions. Being good means getting into good
habits of feeling.
 
Hume was a great advocate of qualities like wit, good manners and sympathy
because these are the things that make people nice to be around outside of
any rational plan to be ‘good’.
 
 
He was hugely struck by the fact that a person – and here again he thought of
Descartes – can be ostensibly rational, and yet not very nice, because being
able to follow a complex argument or deduce trends from data doesn’t make
you sensitive to the suffering of others or skilled at keeping you temper. All
these qualities are – instead – the work of our feelings.
 
So if we want people to behave well, what we need to do is rethink education,
we have to influence their feelings; we have to encourage benevolence,
gentleness, pity and shame through seduction of the passionate side of our
nature, without delivering dry logical lectures.
 
* * *
 
Hume’s philosophy always emerged as an attempt to answer a personal
question: what is a good life? He wanted to know how his own character, and
that of those around him, could be influenced for the best. And oddly for a
philosopher, he didn’t feel that the traditional practice of philosophy could
really help.
 
Though he was scholarly, he was in large part a man of the world. For some
years he was an advisor to the British Ambassador in Paris, who welcomed
his shrewd wisdom. He was much liked by those around him and was known
by the French as le bon David: a humane, kind, and witty conversationalist,
much in demand as a dinner companion. “Be a philosopher, but amidst all
your philosophy, be still a man,” he insisted. That’s the way Hume lived —
not in the intellectual seclusion of a monastery or an ivory tower but deeply
embedded in the company of other humans — dining (he especially liked
roast chicken), chatting about love and career and playing backgammon.
 
 

He died in Edinburgh, in August, 1776, at home in his house in St. Andrew’s

Square. His doctor wrote about the last hours to Adam Smith – for many
years Hume’s best friend:
 
‘He continued to the last perfectly sensible, and free from much pain or
feelings of distress. He never dropped the smallest expression of impatience;
but when he had occasion to speak to the people about him, always did it
with affection and tenderness… He died in such a happy composure of mind,
that nothing could exceed it.’
 
Hume remains that rather outstanding thing: a philosopher alive to how much
philosophy has to learn from common sense.
avid Hume (1711—1776)
“Hume is our Politics, Hume is our Trade, Hume is our Philosophy, Hume is our
Religion.” This statement by nineteenth century philosopher James Hutchison Stirling
reflects the unique position in intellectual thought held by Scottish philosopher David
Hume. Part of Hume’s fame and importance owes to his boldly skeptical approach to a
range of philosophical subjects. In epistemology, he questioned common notions of
personal identity, and argued that there is no permanent “self” that continues over
time. He dismissed standard accounts of causality and argued that our conceptions of
cause-effect relations are grounded in habits of thinking, rather than in the perception
of causal forces in the external world itself. He defended the skeptical position that
human reason is inherently contradictory, and it is only through naturally-instilled
beliefs that we can navigate our way through common life. In the philosophy of
religion, he argued that it is unreasonable to believe testimonies of alleged miraculous
events, and he hints, accordingly, that we should reject religions that are founded on
miracle testimonies. Against the common belief of the time that God’s existence could
be proven through a design or causal argument, Hume offered compelling criticisms of
standard theistic proofs. He also advanced theories on the origin of popular religious
beliefs, grounding such notions in human psychology rather than in rational argument
or divine revelation. The larger aim of his critique was to disentangle philosophy from
religion and thus allow philosophy to pursue its own ends without rational over-
extension or psychological corruption. In moral theory, against the common view that
God plays an important role in the creation and reinforcement of moral values, he
offered one of the first purely secular moral theories, which grounded morality in the
pleasing and useful consequences that result from our actions. He introduced the term
“utility” into our moral vocabulary, and his theory is the immediate forerunner to the
classic utilitarian views of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. He is famous for the
position that we cannot derive ought from is, the view that statements of moral
obligation cannot simply be deduced from statements of fact. Some see Hume as an
early proponent of the emotivist metaethical view that moral judgments principally
express our feelings. He also made important contributions to aesthetic theory with his
view that there is a uniform standard of taste within human nature, in political theory
with his critique of social contractarianism, and economic theory with his anti-
mercantilist views. As a philosophical historian, he defended the conservative view that
British governments are best run through a strong monarchy.

Much of Hume’s epistemology is driven by a consideration of philosophically important

issues, such as space and time, cause-effect, external objects, personal identity, and
free will. In his analysis of these issues in the Treatise, he repeatedly does three things.
First, he skeptically argues that we are unable to gain complete knowledge of some
important philosophical notion under consideration. Second, he shows how the
understanding gives us a very limited idea of that notion. Third, he explains how some
erroneous views of that notion are grounded in the fancy, and he accordingly
recommends that we reject those erroneous ideas. We will follow this three-part
scheme as we consider Hume’s discussions of various topics.

a. Space
On the topic of space, Hume argues that our proper notions of space are confined to
our visual and tactile experiences of the three-dimensional world, and we err if we think
of space more abstractly and independently of those visual and tactile experiences. In
essence, our proper notion of space is like what Locke calls a “secondary quality” of an
object, which is spectator dependent, meaning grounded in the physiology of our
perceptual mental processes. Thus, our proper notion of space is not like a “primary
quality” that refers to some external state of affairs independent of our perceptual
mental process. Following the above three-part scheme, (1) Hume skeptically argues
that we have no ideas of infinitely divisible space (Treatise, 1.2.2.2). (2) When
accounting for the idea we do have of space, he argues that “the idea of space is
convey’d to the mind by two senses, the sight and touch; nor does any thing ever
appear extended, that is not either visible or tangible” (Treatise, 1.2.3.15). Further, he
argues that these objects—which are either visible or tangible—are composed of finite
atoms or corpuscles, which are themselves “endow’d with colour and solidity.” These
impressions are then “comprehended” or conceived by the imagination; it is from the
structuring of these impressions that we obtain a limited idea of space. (3) In contrast
to this idea of space, Hume argues that we frequently presume to have an idea of
space that lacks visibility or solidity. He accounts for this erroneous notion in terms of a
mistaken association that people naturally make between visual and tactile space
(Treatise, 1.2.5.21).

b. Time
Hume’s treatment of our idea of time is like his treatment of the idea of space, in that
our proper idea of time is like a secondary quality, grounded in our mental operations,
not a primary quality grounded in some external phenomenon beyond our experience.
(1) He first maintains that we have no idea of infinitely divisible time (Treatise, 1.2.4.1).
(2) He then notes Locke’s point that our minds operate at a range of speeds that are
“fix’d by the original nature and constitution of the mind, and beyond which no
influence of external objects on the senses is ever able to hasten or retard our thought”
(Treatise, 1.2.3.7). The idea of time, then, is not a simple idea derived from a simple
impression; instead, it is a copy of impressions as they are perceived by the mind at its
fixed speed (Treatise, 1.2.3.10). (3) In contrast to this limited view of time, he argues
that we frequently entertain a faulty notion of time that does not involve change or
succession. The psychological account of this erroneous view is that we mistake time
for the cause of succession instead of seeing it as the effect (Treatise, 1.2.5.29).
c. Necessary Connection between Causes and Effects
According to Hume, the notion of cause-effect is a complex idea that is made up of
three more foundational ideas: priority in time, proximity in space, and necessary
connection. Concerning priority in time, if I say that event A causes event B, one thing I
mean is that A occurs prior to B. If B were to occur before A, then it would be absurd to
say that A was the cause of B. Concerning the idea of proximity, if I say that A causes
B, then I mean that B is in proximity to, or close to A. For example, if I throw a rock,
and at that moment someone’s window in China breaks, I would not conclude that my
rock broke a window on the other side of the world. The broken window and the rock
must be in proximity with each other. Priority and proximity alone, however, do not
make up our entire notion of causality. For example, if I sneeze and the lights go out, I
would not conclude that my sneeze was the cause, even though the conditions of
priority and proximity were fulfilled. We also believe that there is a necessary
connection between cause A and effect B. During the modern period of philosophy,
philosophers thought of necessary connection as a power or force connecting two
events. When billiard ball A strikes billiard ball B, there is a power that the one event
imparts to the other. In keeping with his empiricist copy thesis, that all ideas are copied
from impressions, Hume tries to uncover the experiences which give rise to our notions
of priority, proximity, and necessary connection. The first two are easy to explain.
Priority traces back to our various experiences of time. Proximity traces back to our
various experiences of space. But what is the experience which gives us the idea of
necessary connection? This notion of necessary connection is the specific focus of
Hume’s analysis of cause-effect.

Hume’s view is that our proper idea of necessary connection is like a secondary quality
that is formed by the mind, and not, like a primary quality, a feature of the external
world. (1) He skeptically argues that we cannot get an idea of necessary connection by
observing it through sensory experiences (Treatise, 1.3.14.12 ff.). We have no external
sensory impression of causal power when we observe cause-effect relationships; all that
we ever see is cause A constantly conjoined with effect B. Neither does it arise from an
internal impression, such as when we introspectively reflect on willed bodily motions or
willing the creation of thoughts. These internal experiences are too elusive, and nothing
in them can give content to our idea of necessary connection. (2) The idea we have of
necessary connection arises as follows: we experience a constant conjunction of events
A and B— repeated sense experiences where events resembling A are always followed
by events resembling B. This produces a habit such that upon any further appearance
of A, we expect B to follow. This, in turn, produces an internal feeling of expectation “to
pass from an object to the idea of its usual attendant,” which is the impression from
which the idea of necessary connection is copied (Treatise, 1.3.14.20). (3) A common
but mistaken notion on this topic is that necessity resides within the objects
themselves. He explains this mistaken belief by the natural tendency we have to impute
subjectively perceived qualities to external things (Treatise, 1.3.14.24).
d. External Objects

Hume’s view on external objects is that the mind is programmed to form some concept
of the external world, although this concept or idea is really just a fabrication. (1)
Hume’s skeptical claim here is that we have no valid conception of the existence of
external things (Treatise, 1.2.6.9). (2) Nevertheless, he argues that we have an
unavoidable “vulgar” or common belief in the continued existence of objects, and this
idea he accounts for. His explanation is lengthy, but involves the following features.
Perceptions of objects are disjointed and have no unity in and of themselves (Treatise,
1.4.2.29). In an effort to organize our perceptions, we first naturally assume that there
is no distinction between our perceptions and the objects that are perceived (this is the
so-called “vulgar” view of perception). We then conflate all ideas (of perceptions),
which put our minds in similar dispositions (Treatise, 1.4.2.33); that is, we associate
resembling ideas and attribute identity to their causes. Consequently, we naturally
invent the continued and external existence of the objects (or perceptions) that
produced these ideas (Treatise, 1.4.2.35). Lastly, we go on to believe in the existence
of these objects because of the force of the resemblance between ideas (Treatise,
1.4.2.36). Although this belief is philosophically unjustified, Hume feels he has given an
accurate account of how we inevitably arrive at the idea of external existence. (3) In
contrast to the previous explanation of this idea, he recommends that we doubt a more
sophisticated but erroneous notion of existence—the so-called philosophical view—
which distinguishes between perceptions and the external objects that cause
perceptions. The psychological motivation for accepting this view is this: our
imagination tells us that resembling perceptions have a continued existence, yet our
reflection tells us that they are interrupted. Appealing to both forces, we ascribe
interruption to perceptions and continuance to objects (Treatise, 1.4.2.52).

e. Personal Identity
Regarding the issue of personal identity, (1) Hume’s skeptical claim is that we have no
experience of a simple, individual impression that we can call the self—where the “self”
is the totality of a person’s conscious life. He writes, “For my part, when I enter most
intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or
other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch
myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the
perception” (Treatise, 1.4.6.3). (2) Even though my perceptions are fleeting and I am a
bundle of different perceptions, I nevertheless have some idea of personal identity, and
that must be accounted for (Treatise, 1.4.6.4). Because of the associative principles,
the resemblance or causal connection within the chain of my perceptions gives rise to
an idea of myself, and memory extends this idea past my immediate perceptions
(Treatise, 1.4.6.18 ff.). (3) A common abuse of the notion of personal identity occurs
when the idea of a soul or unchanging substance is added to give us a stronger or more
unified concept of the self (Treatise, 1.4.6.6).
f. Free Will
On the issue of free will and determinism—or “liberty” and “necessity” in Hume’s
terminology—Hume defends necessity. (1) He first argues that “all actions of the will
have particular causes” (Treatise, 2.3.2.8), and so there is no such thing as an
uncaused willful action. (2) He then defends the notion of a will that consistently
responds to prior motivational causes: “our actions have a constant union with our
motives, tempers, and circumstances” (Treatise, 2.3.1.4). These motives produce
actions that have the same causal necessity observed in cause-effect relations that we
see in external objects, such as when billiard ball A strikes and moves billiard ball B. In
the same way, we regularly observe the rock-solid connection between motive A and
action B, and we rely on that predictable connection in our normal lives. Suppose that a
traveler, in recounting his observation of the odd behavior of natives in a distant
country, told us that identical motives led to entirely different actions among these
natives. We would not believe the traveler’s report. In business, politics, and military
affairs, our leaders expect predicable behavior from us insofar as the same motives
within us will always result in us performing the same action. A prisoner who is soon to
be executed will assume that the motivations and actions of the prison guards and the
executioner are so rigidly fixed that these people will mechanically carry out their duties
and perform the execution, with no chance of a change of heart (Treatise, 2.3.1.5 ff.).
(3) Lastly, Hume explains why people commonly believe in an uncaused will (Treatise,
2.3.2.1 ff.). One explanation is that people erroneously believe they have a feeling of
liberty when performing actions. The reason is that, when we perform actions, we feel
a kind of “looseness or indifference” in how they come about, and some people wrongly
see this as “an intuitive proof of human liberty” (Treatise, 2.3.2.2).

In the Treatise Hume rejects the notion of liberty completely. While he gives no
definition of “liberty” in that work, he argues that the notion is incompatible with
necessity, and, at best, “liberty” simply means chance. In the Enquiry, however, he
takes a more compatiblist approach. All human actions are caused by specific prior
motives, but liberty and necessity are reconcilable when we define liberty as “a power
of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will” (Enquiry, 8).
Nothing in this definition of liberty is in conflict with the notion of necessity.