The first of this two-part essay contains the argument for which Hume is most famous: uniform experience of natural law outweighs the testimony of any alleged miracle. Let us imagine a scale with two balancing pans. In the first pan we place the strongest evidence in support of the occurrence of a miracle.
In the second we place our life-long experience of consistent laws of nature. According to Hume, the second pan will always outweigh the first. He writes:. It is experience only, which gives authority to human testimony [regarding miracles]; and it is the same experience, which assures us of the laws of nature.
When, therefore, these two kinds of experience are contrary, we have nothing to do but subtract the one from the other, and embrace an opinion, either on one side or the other, with that assurance which arises from the remainder. But according to the principle here explained, this subtraction, with regard to all popular religions, amounts to an entire annihilation [ Enquiry , Regardless of how strong the testimony is in favor of a given miracle, it can never come close to counterbalancing the overwhelming experience of unvaried laws of nature.
But even if a miracle testimony is not encumbered by these four factors, we should still not believe it since it would be contrary to our consistent experience of laws of nature. He concludes his essay with the following cryptic comment about Christian belief in biblical miracles:. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience [ Enquiry , At face value, his comment suggests a fideist approach to religious belief such as what Pascal recommends.
That is, reason is incapable of establishing religious belief, and God must perform a miracle in our lives to make us open to belief through faith. It is one of the first systematic attempts to explain the causes of religious belief solely in terms of psychological and sociological factors. Whence could the religion and laws of this people [i. According to Adams, only divine intervention can account for the sophistication of the ancient Jewish religion. The work may be divided into three parts.
In the first Sections 1 and 4 , Hume argues that polytheism, and not monotheism, was the original religion of primitive humans. Monotheism, he believes, was only a later development that emerged with the progress of various societies. The standard theory in Judeo-Christian theology was that early humans first believed in a single God, but as religious corruption crept in, people lapsed into polytheism.
Hume was the first writer to systematically defend the position of original polytheism. In the second part Sections , , Hume establishes the psychological principles that give rise to popular religious belief. His thesis is that natural instincts—such as fear and the propensity to adulate—are the true causes of popular religious belief, and not divine intervention or rational argument.
The third part of this work Sections compares various aspects of polytheism with monotheism, showing that one is no more superior than the other. Both contain points of absurdity. From this he concludes that we should suspend belief on the entire subject of religious truth. As the title of the work implies, it is a critique of natural religion, in contrast with revealed religion. There are three principal characters in the Dialogues.
Finally, a character named Philo, who is a religious skeptic, argues against both the design and causal arguments. The specific version of the causal argument that Hume examines is one by Samuel Clarke and Leibniz before him. Simplistic versions of the causal argument maintain that when we trace back the causes of things in the universe, the chain of causes cannot go back in time to infinity past; there must be a first cause to the causal sequence, which is God.
Nevertheless, Clarke argued, an important fact still needs to be explained: the fact that this infinite temporal sequence of causal events exists at all. Why does something exist rather than nothing? God, then, is the necessary cause of the whole series. In response, the character Cleanthes argues that the flaw in the cosmological argument consists in assuming that there is some larger fact about the universe that needs explaining beyond the particular items in the series itself.
Once we have a sufficient explanation for each particular fact in the infinite sequence of events, it makes no sense to inquire about the origin of the collection of these facts. That is, once we adequately account for each individual fact, this constitutes a sufficient explanation of the whole collection. The specific version of the argument that Hume examines is one from analogy, as stated here by Cleanthes:.
The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human designs, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Since, therefore, the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man Dialogues , 2.
Philo presents several criticisms against the design argument, many of which are now standard in discussions of the issue. According to Philo, the design argument is based on a faulty analogy: we do not know whether the order in nature was the result of design, since, unlike our experience with the creation of machines, we did not witness the formation of the world. Further, the vastness of the universe also weakens any comparison with human artifacts.
Although the universe is orderly here, it may be chaotic elsewhere. Similarly, if intelligent design is exhibited only in a small fraction of the universe, then we cannot say that it is the productive force of the whole universe. And even if the design of the universe is of divine origin, we are not justified in concluding that this divine cause is a single, all powerful, or all good being. He opens his discussion in the Treatise by telling us what moral approval is not : it is not a rational judgment about either conceptual relations or empirical facts.
If morality is a question of relations, then the young tree is immoral, which is absurd. Hume also argues that moral assessments are not judgments about empirical facts. You will not find any such fact, but only your own feelings of disapproval. In this context Hume makes his point that we cannot derive statements of obligation from statements of fact. This move from is to ought is illegitimate, he argues, and is why people erroneously believe that morality is grounded in rational judgments.
Thus far Hume has only told us what moral approval is not, namely a judgment of reason. So what then does moral approval consist of? It is an emotional response, not a rational one. The details of this part of his theory rest on a distinction between three psychologically distinct players: the moral agent, the receiver, and the moral spectator.
This agent-receiver-spectator distinction is the product of earlier moral sense theories championed by the Earl of Shaftesbury , Joseph Butler , and Francis Hutcheson Most generally, moral sense theories maintained that humans have a faculty of moral perception, similar to our faculties of sensory perception. Just as our external senses detect qualities in external objects, such as colors and shapes, so too does our moral faculty detect good and bad moral qualities in people and actions.
For Hume, all actions of a moral agent are motivated by character traits, specifically either virtuous or vicious character traits. For example, if you donate money to a charity, then your action is motivated by a virtuous character trait. Hume argues that some virtuous character traits are instinctive or natural, such as benevolence, and others are acquired or artificial, such as justice. As an agent, your action will have an effect on a receiver.
For example, if you as the agent give food to a starving person, then the receiver will experience an immediately agreeable feeling from your act.
Also, the receiver may see the usefulness of your food donation, insofar as eating food will improve his health. When considering the usefulness of your food donation, then, the receiver will receive another agreeable feeling from your act. Finally, I, as a spectator, observe these agreeable feelings that the receiver experiences. I, then, will sympathetically experience agreeable feelings along with the receiver. These sympathetic feelings of pleasure constitute my moral approval of the original act of charity that you, the agent, perform.
By sympathetically experiencing this pleasure, I thereby pronounce your motivating character trait to be a virtue, as opposed to a vice. Suppose, on the other hand, that you as an agent did something to hurt the receiver, such as steal his car. There are, though, some important details that should also be mentioned. For Hume, the natural virtues include benevolence, meekness, charity, and generosity. By contrast, the artificial virtues include justice, keeping promises, allegiance and chastity.
Contrary to what one might expect, Hume classifies the key virtues that are necessary for a well-ordered state as artificial, and he classifies only the more supererogatory virtues as natural. The spectator might simply hear about it, or the spectator might even simply invent an entire scenario and think about the possible effects of hypothetical actions. Third, although the agent, receiver, and spectator have psychologically distinct roles, in some situations a single person may perform more than one of these roles.
For example, if I as an agent donate to charity, as a spectator to my own action I can also sympathize with the effect of my donation on the receiver. Finally, given various combinations of spectators and receivers, Hume concludes that there are four irreducible categories of qualities that exhaustively constitute moral virtue: 1 qualities useful to others, which include benevolence, meekness, charity, justice, fidelity and veracity; 2 qualities useful to oneself, which include industry, perseverance, and patience; 3 qualities immediately agreeable to others, which include wit, eloquence and cleanliness; and 4 qualities immediately agreeable to oneself, which include good humor, self-esteem and pride.
For Hume, most morally significant qualities and actions seem to fall into more than one of these categories. It is this concept and terminology that inspired classic utilitarian philosophers, such as Jeremy Bentham — Hume wrote two influential essays on the subject of aesthetic theory. He particularly stresses the technical artistry involved when an artistic work imitates the original. Specific objects consistently trigger feelings of beauty within us, as our human nature dictates.
Just as we can refine our external senses such as our palate, we can also refine our sense of artistic beauty and thus cultivate a delicacy of taste. In political theory , Hume has both theoretical discussions on the origins of government and more informal essays on popular political controversies of his day. In his theoretical discussions, he attacks two basic notions in eighteenth-century political philosophy: the social contract and the instinctive nature of justice regarding private property.
He concedes that in savage times there may have been an unwritten contract among tribe members for the sake of peace and order. However, he argues, this was no permanent basis of government as social contract theorists pretend. There is nothing to transmit that original contract onwards from generation to generation, and our experience of actual political events shows that governmental authority is founded on conquest, not elections or consent.
For Hume, we have no primary instinct to recognize private property, and all conceptions of justice regarding property are founded solely on how useful the convention of property is to us. We can see how property ownership is tied to usefulness when considering scenarios concerning the availability of necessities. When necessities are in overabundance, I can take what I want any time, and there is no usefulness in my claiming any property as my own.
Further, if we closely inspect human nature, we will never find a primary instinct that inclines us to acknowledge private property. It is nothing like the primary instinct of nest building in birds. While the sense of justice regarding private property is a firmly fixed habit, it is nevertheless its usefulness to society that gives it value.
Two consistent themes emerge in these essays. First, in securing peace, a monarchy with strong authority is probably better than a pure republic. Hume sides with the Tories because of their traditional support of the monarchy. Except in extreme cases, he opposes the Lockean argument offered by Whigs that justifies overthrowing political authorities when those authorities fail to protect the rights of the people.
Hume notes, though, that monarchies and republics each have their strong points. Monarchies encourage the arts, and republics encourage science and trade. Hume also appreciates the mixed form of government within Great Britain, which fosters liberty of the press.
Political moderation, he argues, is the best antidote to potentially ruinous party conflict. In economic theory, Hume wrote influential essays on money, interest, trade, credit, and taxes. Many of these target the mercantile system and its view that a country increases its wealth by increasing the quantity of gold and silver in that country.
In Great Britain, mercantile policies were instituted through the Navigation Acts, which prohibited trade between British colonies and foreign countries. These protectionist laws ultimately led to the American Revolution.
Suppose, for example, that Great Britain receives an influx of new money. This new money will drive up prices of labor and domestic products in Great Britain. Products in foreign countries, then, will be cheaper than in Great Britain; Britain, then, will import these products, thereby sending new money to foreign countries.
Hume compares this reshuffling of wealth to the level of fluids in interconnected chambers: if I add fluid to one chamber, then, under the weight of gravity, this will disperse to the others until the level is the same in all chambers.
A similar phenomenon will occur if we lose money in our home country by purchasing imports from foreign countries. As the quantity of money decreases in our home country, this will drive down the prices of labor and domestic products.
Our products, then, will be cheaper than foreign products, and we will gain money through exports. On the fluid analogy, by removing fluid from one chamber, more fluid is drawn in from surrounding chambers.
Although Hume is now remembered mainly as a philosopher, in his own day he had at least as much impact as a historian. His History of England appeared in four installments between and and covers the periods of British history from most ancient times through the seventeenth-century. To his 18th and 19th century readers, he was not just another historian, but a uniquely philosophical historian who had an ability to look into the minds of historical figures and uncover the motives behind their conduct.
A political theme underlying the whole History is, once again, a conflict between Tory and Whig ideology. Tories believed that it was traditionally absolute, with governmental authority being grounded in royal prerogative. Whigs, on the other hand, believed that it was traditionally limited, with the foundation of government resting in the individual liberty of the people, as expressed in the parliamentary voice of the commons.
As a historian, Hume felt that he was politically moderate, tending to see both the strengths and weaknesses in opposing viewpoints:. With regard to politics and the character of princes and great men, I think I am very moderate.
My views of things are more conformable to Whig principles; my representations of persons to Tory prejudices. Nothing can so much prove that men commonly regard more persons than things, as to find that I am commonly numbered among the Tories [Hume to John Clephane, ]. However, to radical Whig British readers, Hume was a conservative Tory who defended royal prerogative. Hume takes two distinct positions on the prerogative issue. From a theoretical and idealistic perspective, he favored a mixed constitution, mediating between the authority of the monarch and that of the Parliament.
The Witenagemot, for example, was only a council of nobles and bishops, which the king could listen to or ignore as he saw fit. Charles I—a largely virtuous man—tried to follow in her footsteps as a strong monarch.
After a few minor lapses in judgment, and a few too many concessions to Catholics, Protestant zealots rose up against him, and he was ultimately executed. To avoid over-characterizing royal prerogative, Hume occasionally condemns arbitrary actions of monarchs and praises efforts for preserving liberty.
His philosophical writings were among the most controversial pieces of literature of the time, and would have been impossible to publish if Britain was not a friend to liberty.
Although Hume was certainly no enemy to liberty, he believed that it was best achieved through moderation rather than Whig radicalism. A strong, centralized and moderating force was the best way to avoid factious disruption from the start. The secondary literature on Hume is voluminous. James Fieser Email: jfieser utm. Life David Hume was born in to a moderately wealthy family from Berwickshire Scotland, near Edinburgh.
Ideas 1. From memory 2. From imagination a. From fancy b. From understanding 1 Involving relations of ideas 2 Involving matters of fact B. Impressions 1. Of sensation external 2. Of reflection internal Hume begins by dividing all mental perceptions between ideas thoughts and impressions sensations and feelings , and then makes two central claims about the relation between them. He dramatically makes this point at the conclusion of his Enquiry : When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make?
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. 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.
Both the Treatise of Human Nature in Book I and the Enquiry Concerning the Human Understanding -1 conclude with a moderate or mitigated skepticism after making a strong case for radical pyrrhonism. In this paper I wish to carry out two connected tasks: first I want to consider whether Hume's skepticism in the Treatise is the same as that of the Enquiry or not; second, I want to determine which arguments he puts forward for his shift from pyrrhonism to modern skepticism.
The most noticeable differences between the Treatise and the Enquiry occur immediately after the analysis of causation. In the Enquiry we find almost nothing concerning the reality of the external world and the nature of the self, but Hume emphasizes heavily the 34 anti-metaphysical and anti-theological outcomes of the science of human nature in his sections on Liberty and Necessity VIII , on Miracles X , on Providence and a possible future state XI.
He stresses the devastating agnostic consequences of his principles and his agnosticism culminates in the dreadful censorship of the final lines of the book.
On the contrary, the fourth part of the Treatise, Book I, offers an intricate and sophisticated treatment of various subjects. The intricacy shows in the very title of this part: "Of the Sceptical and Other Systems of Philosophy. These intricate undertakings are the direct upshot of Hume's analysis of causation. He thinks he has established that our causal beliefs are the products of custom alone and that nevertheless they are our only reliable beliefs.
Accordingly, reason has been immersed in the wider concept of imagination and thus naturalized: it is "nothing but a wonderful and unintelligible instinct in our souls" T Basically, some beliefs are unavoidable. Now, a crucial problem is to know how far we can go into the analysis of such natural beliefs. But, however cogent it is in general, inductive inference cannot help in this instance because we have no past experience of the connection between sensory images and external objects on which to base such an inference.
Therefore, we must admit that our own recognised procedures of inquiry will not support it. Does Hume's deployment of this argument make him a sceptic?
Hume himself is not endorsing the theory of perception which this argument invokes. In fact, he says, it contradicts 'the universal and primary opinion of all mankind' Hume Hume simply observes that this theory is among 'the obvious dictates of reason' which 'no man, who reflects, ever doubted' ibid.
The universal and primary opinion reasserts itself whenever we cease to reflect and Hume offers no view on which opinion is right: he merely maintains that each is convincing in its own sphere and that they are in tension with one another.
So what is Hume trying to achieve with these sceptical arguments? Hume is seeking to establish that reason does not govern belief. Reason is a faculty that works by means of reflection, by means of judgements about the probative force of our grounds for belief.
If reason controls belief then we can determine what we believe simply by making a judgement about what we ought to believe. In order to establish that reason does not control belief, all Hume must do is to present certain lines of thought which human beings happen to find compelling, arguments which tend to convince us given the way we are made that our belief in an external world is unjustified, and then observe that our belief in this external world is impervious to such argumentation Hookway Humean scepticism about the senses presupposes the coherence of the idea that we could have all the sensory images we do without there being any external items corresponding to them.
But Hume has no special interest in the sceptical hypotheses. He is happy to employ any argument which appears to convince us that our beliefs are unjustified, whether or not it depends on a sceptical hypothesis. If reflection on past experience of our fallibility alone will do the job, fine. If we happen to find the sceptical hypotheses threatening, that's just fine too.
The crucial thing about any sceptical argument is that it should impress us, at least at the level of reflection. The problem with antecedent scepticism is that it doesn't work even at that level: no one feels obliged to justify their belief forming procedures in advance of making any use of them a point Descartes would fully endorse. This reading of Hume is confirmed by what he says in the Treatise. Hume foresees the following objection, directed not at the particular sceptical argument he has just put forward but against the whole idea of a sceptical argument:.
If the sceptical reasonings be strong, say they, 'tis a proof, that reason may have some force and authority: if weak, they can never be sufficient to invalidate all the conclusions of our understanding.
Reason first appears in possession of the throne, prescribing laws, and imposing maxims, with an absolute sway and authority. Her enemy, therefore, is obliged to take shelter under her protection, and by making use of rational arguments to prove the fallaciousness and imbecility of reason, produces, in a manner, a patent under her hand and seal.
This patent has at first an authority, proportioned to the present and immediate authority of reason, from which it derived. But as it is supposed to be contradictory to reason, it gradually diminishes the force of that governing power, and its own at the same time; till at last they both vanish away into nothing, by a regular and just diminution. Hume starts from the idea that belief is governed by reason, that every human being, at least in so far as they are rational, has the ability to motivate belief simply by forming a view about what they have reason to believe.
Hume then takes any judgement of the form 'I have reason R to believe that p' and seeks, by some line of thought or other, to induce the countervailing judgement that R is no reason to believe in p. To give us a recipe for doing this in the case of every such judgement would be to abolish reason's reflective control over belief by means of reason alone. Reason stultifies itself. And the sceptic can demonstrate that reason's reflective control is self-undermining in just this way without undermining himself.
Scepticism about Induction. Until now, I have ignored the very sceptical argument for which Hume is most famous. This is no accident. Hume's discussions of inductive inference in the Treatise Hume and the Enquiry Hume pose a problem for my reading of Hume because they both suggest that his scepticism about induction is a form of antecedent scepticism.
How can we reconcile this fact with Hume's firm rejection of antecedent scepticism later on in the Enquiry? Hume's argument against induction takes a form which is familiar to us all from undergraduate textbook discussions of scepticism.
He starts with a set of data which we are assumed to know without inference. Since Hume has not yet introduced scepticism about the senses, he permits us to rely on the deliverances of both sensation and memory. Hume then points out that the inference from the fact which we know through the senses that the sun rose this morning to the fact that it will rise tomorrow morning is non-demonstrative.
Demonstrative inferences are monotonic - a valid demonstrative argument for a given conclusion gets no stronger with the addition of further premises - but clearly, the more times we have seen the sun rise, the more confident we should be in inferring that it will rise tomorrow.
So inductive inference is non-monotonic and therefore non-demonstrative. What sort of reasoning is involved in inductive inference? To say it is experimental, is begging the question. For all inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past If there be any suspicion that the course of nature may change, and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless and can give rise to no inference or conclusion.
It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future; since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance. Hume concludes that inductive inference cannot be regarded as reasoning but must be treated as a product of non-rational custom and habit. The form of Hume's argument here clearly suggests an antecedent scepticism about induction.
Hume makes no attempt to demonstrate that inductive inference is self-undermining. Indeed, he implicitly concedes that induction may be self-confirming, that by using induction we could pretend to establish the uniformity of nature. His complaint is that such a procedure would be circular, the very complaint Descartes' critics brought against his theological argument for the reliability of his method of clear and distinct ideas.
How can this be reconciled with Hume's scornful dismissal of any sceptic who demands that we test the reliability of each of our belief-forming faculties before placing any reliance on it? In fact, Hume does not make the quite general demand implicit in antecedent scepticism: he permits us to rely ab initio not only on demonstrative reasoning but also on the deliverances of sense and memory.
Clearly, he sees some difference between these methods of belief formation which do not require prior vindication, and inductive inference which does. The difference is not hard to find. Those methods of belief formation which are acceptable ab initio all purport to give us conclusive reasons for belief. This is clearly true of demonstration but, for Hume, it is equally true of sensation and memory.
Hume remarks that an inductive inference must be based on 'an impression of the memory or senses, beyond which there is no room for doubt or inquiry' Hume Both memory and the senses appear to bring the object of belief itself before the mind and so there is no apparent room for error, no grounds for a prior doubt. Of course, once we have relied on sensation for a bit, we discover that it misleads us on occasion but we don't need experience of error to know that induction might mislead us: induction never even purports to give us conclusive reasons for belief.
We see at once that inductive reasoning is non-monotonic, that the cogency of an inductive inference is a matter of degree. That is why scepticism about induction does not need to undermine induction from within; that is why antecedent scepticism about induction is acceptable. The grounds for a real doubt are already present at the very outset.
Descartes and Hume both distinguished beliefs produced by reason from beliefs produced by the imagination i. In their view, a method of belief formation presents itself as a method of reasoning only if it appears to justify certainty about its conclusions.
Any method of belief formation which fails to promise certainty must first be vindicated by a proper method of reasoning before we can rely on it. Since induction could not be so vindicated, Hume made the required admission:. And he thought the same applied to any method of belief formation. Descartes, Freedom and Certainty. Why did Descartes think that no rational believer could convince himself of anything by reflection on inconclusive evidence for it?
Descartes' Fourth Meditation contains a discussion of intellectual freedom and his theory of error. Most commentators have found this part of Descartes' text hard to construe and it plays rather a peripheral role in their account of Cartesian scepticism e. Williams Chapter 6 and Wilson But I shall argue that it is the Fourth Meditation which motivates Descartes' demand for certainty.
At first glance, the Fourth Meditation is no more than an exercise in theodicy. Descartes is out to explain how an omnipotent and benevolent God could allow us to acquire false beliefs. He treats this as a specific form of the problem of evil and deploys several of the traditional responses to this problem. Of particular interest is the so-called 'free will defence', according to which evil is the result of an exercise of man's free will and is therefore not God's responsibility.
Descartes applies the free will defence to false belief, saying that error comes of our choosing to form a view when we have no conclusive grounds for belief i. It is Descartes' theory of judgement which allows him to employ the free will defence to explain away the evil of error.
The understanding proposes a proposition for our approval and then the will assents to it or not as the case may be:. We act when the will leads us without any external interference to make true a proposition proposed to us by the understanding; we believe when the will leads us without interference to accept as true a proposition proposed to us by the understanding. This theory of judgement is implausible. In the practical case, we are able to choose among courses of action which the understanding presents as equally desirable; more controversially, we are able to choose a course of action even if the understanding presents it as less desirable than some alternative.
But there is no analogue of either ability in the theoretical sphere. Belief or judgement are not subject to the will in the way Descartes appears to think Owens Chapter 5. To use an ancient example, I won't be able to form a view about whether number of stars is odd just because the evidence is evenly balanced and I decide to form a view on the matter. I can assent to a proposition only where the understanding's estimate of the evidence tells in its favour.
God can't pass the buck to us for all our errors just by observing that we freely chose our erroneous beliefs. But Descartes needs his theory of judgement for reasons which have nothing to do with letting God off the hook. He, like most other Enlightenment philosophers Hume excepted , is a firm adherent of two ideas: a each individual is responsible for the rationality of their beliefs and is at fault where their beliefs are unjustified and b such intellectual responsibility requires intellectual freedom, we can be held to account for our beliefs only in so far as they are under our control.
Whether or not we are responsible for all the errors we commit, we certainly are responsible for those of our erroneous beliefs which are unjustified and the very idea of belief-justification requires the existence of intellectual freedom.
The problem which Descartes grapples with in the Fourth Meditation is a problem for anyone who shares these two assumptions. Freedom and Certainty. In the course of expounding his theory of error, Descartes forges a link between freedom and certainty. Speaking of a truth clearly and distinctly perceived, Descartes says:.
I could not but judge that something which I understood so clearly was true; but this was not because I was compelled to judge by an external force, but because a great light in the intellect was followed by a great inclination in the will, and thus the spontaneity and freedom of my belief was all the greater in proportion to my lack of indifference Descartes In this case, I feel no indifference because I have a conclusive reason: I could not be clearly and distinctly perceiving the truth of this proposition unless it were true.
Aware that I have a conclusive reason, I adopt the belief in perfect freedom, exercising only liberty of spontaneity and not liberty of indifference. But if this is perfect freedom, how are we free to commit error? Descartes wants to insist that we are responsible for our erroneous convictions.
I commit errors in cases where I form a belief even though 'I do not perceive the truth with sufficient clarity and distinctness' Descartes And I commit such errors freely because given Descartes' theory of judgement I have the power to choose a belief even where the evidence alone should leave me indifferent.
No doubt feeling the tension between this statement and the idea that true freedom requires the absence of such indifference, Descartes adds that 'the indifference I feel when there is no reason pushing me in one direction rather than another is the lowest grade of freedom' Descartes I am accountable for error because I am misusing my free will when I affirm something on the basis of inconclusive evidence.
There is an obvious conflict in Descartes thinking here. On the one hand, he says a fully rational person could not get themselves to assent to a proposition just by reflecting on inconclusive evidence for it; rather they would remain indifferent and suspend judgement:.
For although probable conjectures may pull me in one direction, the mere knowledge that they are simply conjectures, and not certain and indubitable reasons, is itself quite enough to push my assent the other way. Reason alone would not enable us motivate belief in p by reflection on inconclusive evidence for p, even when the balance of inconclusive evidence tips firmly in the proposition's favour. So, Descartes adds, no one could assent to such a proposition in perfect freedom.
But Descartes also maintains that by exercising the will's liberty of indifference, we can come down in favour of p and should be held to account if we do. So we must be free to believe in the face of uncertainty after all. Can we rescue Descartes from this difficulty by dropping first his theory of judgement and second the idea that justified belief requires justified certainty?
Suppose Descartes were to agree that judgement does not involve an act of will, that we control our beliefs by means of reflection on inconclusive evidence rather than by means of the will, that we control our beliefs where our judgement of the balance of evidence for and against a given proposition can determine what we believe. Perhaps this would be enough to ensure that people are responsible for their unjustified errors at least though God is left to carry the can for the rest.
My analysis of Cartesian scepticism and my account of Descartes' conception of reason gives such reflective judgement a key role. So the notion of reflective control, even when stripped of its association with the will, should fit snugly into Descartes' system. But even once we have excised Descartes' theory of judgement from the rest of his thought, we have yet to dispose of his demand for certainty. As we have seen, the Fourth Meditation links freedom with certainty or lack of indifference and it is a link which survives the rejection of Descartes' will-based theory of judgement.
Reflection and Certainty. In the Fourth Meditation Descartes gives us rather good grounds for thinking that rational people cannot motivate belief by reflection on inconclusive evidence alone. It is fairly clear what is supposed to be troubling the believer confronted by inconclusive evidence which favours p but who finds himself 'indifferent' between p and not-p: he could get himself to regard this inconclusive evidence as sufficient for belief in p only by bringing to mind pragmatic considerations Owens Chapter 2.
To determine whether a given level of evidence is sufficient to justify belief, he must contemplate the importance of the issue, the cognitive resources he can afford to devote to resolving it, and so forth. When taking a practical decision, we often remind ourselves of the pragmatic constraints on the process of deliberation in an effort to force a decision - 'I must settle now which train to get and then get on with thinking about other things' - and reflection on such considerations does motivate decision in a rational person.
Trying to make up my mind about the guilt of the man before me, I can reflect that given the time constraints I must now deliver a verdict and if I am rational, this reflection will make me announce a verdict.
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