Hume's Theory Research Articles

Behavioural controversy concerning homo economicus: a Humean perspective

In his monumental masterpiece, A Treatise on Human Nature, which explains the methodology of human reasoning concerning matters of fact and describes the roles that passions and morals play in it, Hume arrives at an enormously interesting maxim: An academic controversy cannot continue for long unless the disputants assign different meanings to the major terms employed in the debate. This theory has been applied in this paper to examine the behavioural criticisms about Homo Economicus (HE), the pivotal perception in the neoclassical microeconomic model.To achieve this objective, the paper discusses the origin and evolution of the concept, reviews behavioural criticisms, summarises the main tenets of Hume's philosophy of human knowledge and finally examines the behavioural opinions from Hume's perspective. The paper concludes that Hume's theory convincingly explains the reason why the HE controversy is continuing for over half century-a fact that both the mainstream and behavioural economists are ignoring.

The Real ‘Letter to Arbuthnot’? a Motive For Hume's Probability Theory in an Early Modern Design Argument

John Arbuthnot's celebrated but flawed paper in the Philosophical Transactions of 1711–12 is a philosophically and historically plausible target of Hume's probability theory. Arbuthnot argues for providential design rather than chance as a cause of the annual birth ratio, and the paper was championed as a successful extension of the new calculations of the value of wagers in games of chance to wagers about natural and social phenomena. Arbuthnot replaces the earlier anti-Epicurean notion of chance with the equiprobability assumption of Huygens's mathematics of games of chance, and misrepresents the birth ratio data to rule out chance in favour of design. The probability sections of Hume's Treatise taken together correct the equiprobability assumption and its extension to other kinds of phenomena in the estimation of wagers or expectations about particular events. Hume's probability theory demonstrates the flaw in this version of the design argument.

Honestum is as Honestum Does: Reid, Hume – and Mandeville?!

How are we to understand Thomas Reid in relation to Bernard de Mandeville? I answer this question by considering two components of the assessment of Hume's theory of morals that Reid provides in his Essays on the Active Powers of Man: first, Reid's claim that Hume's system of morals cannot accommodate the Stoic conception of moral worth (honestum); second, Reid's charge that Hume's account of morally meritorious action leads to an inflated and incoherent version of Epicurean virtue theory. I thus determine the character of Reid's relation to Mandeville by examining the Stoic and anti-Epicurean assumptions involved in Reid's criticism of Hume's ethics.

Ego Depletion and the Humean Theory of Motivation

By what capacities do human beings engage in intentional action? Humeans about motivation claim that the source of all action is desire. Volitionalists claim that action has two distinct sources, one in the will and one in desire. Recent work suggests that volitionalism has some empirical support. Roy F. Baumeister and colleagues have argued for a phenomenon called “ego depletion”. They argue that some aspect of the self exerts volition in a number of different contexts. The main evidence for this claim is that experimental subjects who engage in acts of self-regulation are less likely to engage in similar actions on later tests. The evidence calls for a reformulation of the Humean theory, not a rejection of it. And the reformulation is one that still has interest for metaethics. Many philosophers are interested in the Humean theory of motivation because they believe that it has implications for the correct theory of normative practical reasons. Here I argue that if the Humean theory of motivation was ever a threat to the objectivity of morality, it still is.

What the Wise Ought Believe: A Voluntarist Interpretation of Hume's General Rules

This paper advances an interpretation of what Hume called ‘the general rules’: natural principles of belief-formation that nevertheless can be augmented via reflection. According to Hume, reflection is, in part, what separates the wise from the vulgar. In this paper, I argue that for Hume being wise must therefore be, to some degree, voluntary. Hume faced a significant problem in attempting to reconcile his epistemic normativity, i.e. his claims about what we ought to believe, with his largely involuntarist theory of the mind. Reflection on the General Rules, and an interpretation of that reflection as voluntary, helps explain not only Hume's theory of belief, but also how he hoped to reconcile epistemic normativity with naturalism about the mental.

Pure Cognitivism and Beyond

The article begins with Jonathan Dancy’s attempt to refute the Humean Theory of Motivation. It first spells out Dancy’s argument for his alternative position, the view he labels ‘Pure Cognitivism’, according to which what motivate are always beliefs, never desires. The article next argues that Dancy’s argument for his position is flawed. On the one hand, it is not true that desire always comes with motivation in the agent; on the other, even if this was the case, it would still not follow that desire is identical with the state of being motivated. When this negative work is done, the article turns to some positive, albeit admittedly tentative remarks about what sort of cognitivist theory of motivation one should endorse. The aim at this point is not to present a brand new theory, but rather to sketch an alternative that stems from what Dancy himself says and is in line with many of his endorsed commitments in other areas. In this way, by moving beyond Pure Cognitivism, the paper sketches a different, but still ‘Dancyesque’ theory of motivation.

Humean theories of explanation and their metaphysical commitment

Humean theories of explanation and their metaphysical commitment

In Defence of Proportionalism

In his book Slaves of the Passions, Mark Schroeder defends a Humean theory of reasons. Humeanism is the view that you have a reason to X only if X-ing promotes at least one of your desires. But Schroeder rejects a natural companion theory of the weight of reasons, which he calls proportionalism. According to it, the weight of a reason is proportionate to the strength of the desire that grounds it and the extent to which the act promotes the object of that desire. In this paper, I aim to do three things: (1) to show why Schroeder's arguments against proportionalism do not refute it; (2) to identify the real trouble with proportionalism; and (3) to suggest a better way of understanding it (preferentialism). According to this theory, the overall strength of reasons is determined by the agent's preferences.

Still waiting for a plausible Humean theory of reasons

In his important recent book Schroeder proposes a Humean theory of reasons that he calls hypotheticalism. His rigourous account of the weight of reasons is crucial to his theory, both as an element of the theory and constituting his defence to powerful standard objections to Humean theories of reasons. In this paper I examine that rigourous account and show it to face problems of vacuity and consonance. There are technical resources that may be brought to bear on the problem of vacuity but implementation is not simple and philosophical motivation a further difficulty. Even supposing vacuity is fixed, the problems of consonance bring to light a different obstruction lying in Schroeder’s path. There is a difference between the general weighing of reasons and the context specificity of the correct placing of weight on them in deliberation and this difference cannot be fixed by the resources in the account. For these reasons we are still waiting for a plausible Humean theory of reasons.

Hume's Theory of Pity and Malice

This article describes, and proposes a solution to, an interpretive conundrum at the heart of Hume's theory of the passions. Hume tells us explicitly that pity and malice are indirect passions. But there is strong textual evidence suggesting that Hume takes pity and malice to be direct passions. Indeed, some of this evidence points to (1) the identification of pity with a kind of grief and malice with a kind of joy, while the rest of the evidence points to (2) the identification of pity and malice with different combinations of desire and aversion. Here, I argue that option (1) is the one that Hume would have chosen upon careful reflection.

Hume's Social Theory of Memory

Traditionally, Hume's account of memory is considered an individualist-atomic representational theory. However, textual evidence suggests that Hume's account is better seen as a first attempt to create a social theory of memory that considers social context, custom and habits, language, and logical structures as constitutive elements of memory.

Berkeley's Doctrine of Mind and the “Black List Hypothesis”: A Dialogue

AbstractClues about what Berkeley was planning to say about mind in his now‐lost second volume of the Principles seem to abound in his Notebooks. However, commentators have been reluctant to use his unpublished entries to explicate his remarks about spiritual substances in the Principles and Dialogues for three reasons. First, it has proven difficult to reconcile the seemingly Humean bundle theory of the self in the Notebooks with Berkeley's published characterization of spirits as “active beings or principles.” Second, the fact that Berkeley did not publish his Notebooks insights on mind has led some to claim that he later rejected his early views. Third, many of the Notebooks entries on mind have a ‘+’ sign next to them, which has been understood for decades to comprise a Black List of views about which Berkeley had doubts or subsequently rejected. In my dialogue, I describe how Berkeley's “congeries” account of mind (1) differs from Hume's bundle theory in a way that complements Berkeley's published remarks and (2) undercuts the claim that he later rejected his early views. Most importantly, (3) I show how a careful analysis of the British Library manuscript of the Notebooks refutes the Black List hypothesis.

A Humean theory of moral intuition

According to the quasi-perceptualist account of philosophical intuitions, they are intellectual appearances that are psychologically and epistemically analogous to perceptual appearances. Moral intuitions share the key characteristics of other intuitions, but can also have a distinctive phenomenology and motivational role. This paper develops the Humean claim that the shared and distinctive features of substantive moral intuitions are best explained by their being constituted by moral emotions. This is supported by an independently plausible non-Humean, quasi-perceptualist theory of emotion, according to which the phenomenal feel of emotions is crucial for their intentional content.

Because I Believe It’s the Right Thing to Do

Our beliefs about which actions we ought to perform clearly have an effect on what we do. But so-called “Humean” theories—holding that all motivation has its source in desire—insist on connecting such beliefs with an antecedent motive. Rationalists, on the other hand, allow normative beliefs a more independent role. I argue in favor of the rationalist view in two stages. First, I show that the Humean theory rules out some of the ways we ordinarily explain actions. This shifts the burden of proof onto Humeans to motivate their more restrictive, revisionary account. Second, I show that they are unlikely to discharge this burden because the key arguments in favor of the Humean theory fail. I focus on some of the most potent and most recent lines of argument, which appeal to either parsimony, the teleological nature of motivation, or the structure of practical reasoning.

ヒューム正義論における利益、効用、そして社会

ヒューム正義論における利益、効用、そして社会

Hume and the Enthusiasm Puzzle

This paper presents a discussion of an apparent inconsistency between Hume's moral theory and his moral evaluations of historical characters in his History of England. While Hume considers enthusiasm to be a religious vice, he praises the characters of some historical enthusiasts, blames others, and regards enthusiasm as having a positive social effect. But according to Hume's moral theory, only a virtue can have positive social effect, or be praiseworthy. The paper refers to the inconsistency between the History and the moral theory as the ‘enthusiasm puzzle’. The paper concludes by explaining the inconsistency as being rooted in a problem with Hume's moral theory.

Reading Hume's Inference from Constancy from the Vulgar Standpoint

Recent work on Hume's Theory of Perception has shown that Hume takes the appearance of impressions to vary according to the ideas under which they are subsumed. In this paper, I argue that the vulgar position in the section where he discusses the Inference from Constancy is characterised by an ideal primordial state of mind where impressions are directly encountered without being subsumed under any idea. In particular, impressions which are not subsumed under the idea of a perception do not appear to the mind as impressions. Read in this light, Hume's Inference from Constancy is immune to the difficulties which have commonly been raised against it.

The Cautious Jealous Virtue: Hume on Justice (review)

Reviewed by: The Cautious Jealous Virtue: Hume on Justice Lorraine Besser-Jones Annette C. Baier . The Cautious Jealous Virtue: Hume on Justice. Cambridge, MA-London: Harvard University Press, 2010. Pp. xv + 261. Cloth, $45.00. Working with the acumen of a lifelong Hume scholar, combined with an unrelenting passion for Hume scholarship more generally, Annette Baier in this volume explores Hume's conception of justice and the artificial virtues from almost every angle. The collection contains five new essays in addition to five reprinted essays. I will focus here primarily on the new essays, which comprise Part I of the book. The most distinctive aspect of the essays in Part I lies in Baier's use of Hume's Historyof England. Baier invokes the History in the service of two aims. The first is to demonstrate the "enlargement" of Hume's theory of justice that occurs between the Treatise and the History. On Baier's interpretation, in the Treatise, Hume held a narrow view of justice, limited primarily to concerns regarding property rights and fidelity to promises and contracts. But Baier believes that by the time Hume wrote the History, his view had broadened to the point where it includes "much of what we take it to include" (86) and specifically a more robust understanding of equity than can be found in the Treatise. The second aim is to show how reading the arguments of the Treatise through the lens of the History can illuminate them. Baier is particularly impressed by Hume's recognition in the History of the ways that the virtues combine in any one particular person and are impacted by various social conditions and the roles that person assumes within a society (4). Taking this feature to heart, Baier believes much can be learned from acknowledging the specific social conditions in which some of the arguments of the Treatise are embedded. One such argument is the infamous "circle argument," in which Hume questions what natural motive a person could have to repay a loan that could explain why we morally approve of doing so and seemingly argues that there is no such motive. Most Hume scholars take this argument to be questioning what motive makes justice itself a virtue, and so as an argument that delivers insight into the kind of virtue that justice is, as well as into the nature of the just individual. But Baier thinks this approach is mistaken; she argues that interpreters err insofar as they abstract the argument from its example (22). Once we keep in mind that the specific example Hume employs is a case of loan repayment, Baier believes we will see that the circle argument is not about determining the original, morally approved motive to justice, but is about the motive to loan repayment, a practice that can arise only after several conventions are in place (22). Moreover, by considering the social context surrounding the issue of loan repayment, as well as what Hume says about loan repayment in the History, we can see that Hume's goal in this section was to demonstrate the need to understand conventions and their "intricate intermingling" (26). [End Page 461] Baier's aspiration to bring Hume's writings in the History to the forefront of philosophical discussion is an admirable one, and makes this collection distinct from other treatments of Hume's theory of justice. However, Baier leaves unanswered many questions regarding her own methodological assumptions. At face value, the Treatise is a work of philosophy while the History is a work of history. While this is no doubt an oversimplification, the assumption that one can look to the History for a fully developed understanding of Hume's philosophical understanding of justice is one that needs development and defense. Absent this kind of analysis, ought we really to believe, as Baier contends, that in the History Hume acknowledges the mistakes of his Treatise account (86) and puts himself behind the broader view of justice he invokes in the History? Or could it just be the case that, in the History, Hume the historian was applying what he took to be existing standards of justice? Many explanations of the relationship between these...

The relation between the general maxim of causality and the principle of uniformity in hume's theory of knowledge

When Hume, in the Treatise on Human Nature, began his examination of the relation of cause and effect, in particular, of the idea of necessary connection which is its essential constituent, he identified two preliminary questions that should guide his research: (1) For what reason we pronounce it necessary that every thing whose existence has a beginning should also have a cause and (2) Why we conclude that such particular causes must necessarily have such particular effects? (1.3.2, 14-15) Hume observes that our belief in these principles can result neither from an intuitive grasp of their truth nor from a reasoning that could establish them by demonstrative means. In particular, with respect to the first, Hume examines and rejects some arguments with which Locke, Hobbes and Clarke tried to demonstrate it, and suggests, by exclusion, that the belief that we place on it can only come from experience. Somewhat surprisingly, however, Hume does not proceed to show how that derivation of experience could be made, but proposes instead to move directly to an examination of the second principle, saying that, "perhaps, be found in the end, that the same answer will serve for both questions" (1.3.3, 9). Hume's answer to the second question is well known, but the first question is never answered in the rest of the Treatise, and it is even doubtful that it could be, which would explain why Hume has simply chosen to remove any mention of it when he recompiled his theses on causation in the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Given this situation, an interesting question that naturally arises is to investigate the relations of logical or conceptual implication between these two principles. Hume seems to have thought that an answer to (2) would also be sufficient to provide an answer to (1). Henry Allison, in his turn, argued (in Custom and Reason in Hume, p. 94-97) that the two questions are logically independent. My proposal here is to try to show that there is indeed a logical dependency between them, but the implication is, rather, from (1) to (2). If accepted, this result may be particularly interesting for an interpretation of the scope of the so-called "Kant's reply to Hume" in the Second Analogy of Experience, which is structured as a proof of the a priori character of (1), but whose implications for (2) remain controversial.

Hume's Theory of Mental Representation

Hume's arguments in the Treatise require him to employ not only the copy principle, which explains the intrinsic properties of perceptions, but also a thesis that explains the representational content of a perception. I propose that Hume holds the semantic copy principle, which states that a perception represents that of which it is a copy. Hume employs this thesis in a number of his most important arguments, and his doing so enables him to answer an important objection concerning the status of the copy principle. I further argue that the semantic copy principle is necessary, a priori, and discovered through an analysis of our general idea of representational content.